rpi_stuff

Collection of opinionated Ansible roles to automate some stuff I use in my day-to-day in a Raspberry Pi 4B.

This repo brings the following features:

• syncthing to synchronize documents
• secure and easy torrent download
• jellyfin and emby for media
• automated tests with molecule (currently broken)
• service management in tailscale

Architecture

Every role needs a Compose file as a foundation.

Let's write a syncthing service with the compose foundation

1. Write a compose file and put it in <role_dir>/templates/compose.yml.j2

services:
  syncthing:
    image: lscr.io/linuxserver/syncthing:1.23.2
    volumes:
      - /home/syncthing/config:/config
      - /home/syncthing/data:/data

1. Invoke the compose role to enable and start a new compose. This role creates a new user called syncthing, hence the /home/syncthing/ reference on the step above.

- name: Add caddy ingress
  ansible.builtin.include_role:
    name: compose
  vars:
    service_name: syncthing
    user: syncthing

1. (Optional 1): Add the service to your tailnet by adding these vars. The service will join your tailnet and it's accessible outside of your home. It's also possible to control who can reach this service with the Tailscale ACL.

    tailscale:
      enabled: true
      hostname: syncthing
      tag: "tag:syncthing"

Now it's possible to access the syncthing service with Tailscale, like syncthing:8384. If you don't wanna use Tailscale, you can use the ports option on your compose file.

1. (Optional 2): Backup the files daily. The restic to create a periodic job that syncs your data daily to the configured restic remote, like s3, B2 or another machine.

- name: Run backup role
  ansible.builtin.include_role:
    name: restic
    tasks_from: backup
  vars:
    restic_backup_name: syncthing
    restic_backup_args: "/home/syncthing/data"
    restic_forget_args: "--keep-last 7"
    restic_schedule: "*-*-* 4:00:00"

1. Profit?

Distro and Machine Support

To install docker and docker-compose, this roles expect that you have a pacman-based distro, like Manjaro or Arch Linux, or apt-based distros, like Debian. You can skip the boilerplate if you have another distro. As long as docker and compose are installed, things should be fine.

I use it on a Raspberry Pi 4B, but older versions can work also. Although I don't use an x86 machine, the molecule tests are running in it. So it (probably) works on x86 as well.

Roles

Syncthing

Syncs Syncthing. Access it with https://syncthing.<< tailscale_domain >>:8384

Torrent

Collection of tools to automate Torrent related software.

Here are some set of features:

• Optionally use mullvad exit node Tailscale functionality to not receive any fines from your Internet Service Provider
• Jackett to search torrents in hundreds of torrent indexers. Access it with https://torent:9117.
• Transmission to manage the torrents. Access it with http://torrents:9091.
• Telegram bot to search torrents from Jackett and send them to Transmission
• flexget to download new TV Shows with an RSS URL, rename movies and TV shows to a consistent format, and remove torrents when they're finished.

Jellyfin

Plex is the most popular streaming service today, so it would be the safest choice. But, at least, in my experience, the client always needs to transcode (translate the source video to a format the clients can stream) all videos in my fire stick, even though the device can play it directly.

The open-source competitor jellyfin allows the client to play the videos directly without transcoding. So, That moves the bottleneck to the network and the HD. I stream even 4k videos smoothly from the weak Raspberry Pi in my Fire Stick.

If your client is not capable enough and you ever need to transcode in a Raspberry PI, even 1080p movies, you're in trouble. Jellyfin allegedly supports hardware transcoding via OpenMAX, but even Raspberry Pi engineers advocate for the newer V4L2 API. In my case, not even OpenMAX is used for transcoding via CPU kicks in, which provides a poor experience. If I need it in the future, it's easier to send the video to my desktop machine and transcode it with FFmpeg manually and send the converted video back to the Raspberry Pi.

In short, avoid transcoding at all costs and invest in an adequate device that supports the most used video and audio codecs.

Emby

Jellyfin doesn't provide a feature-complete Android TV app as Emby. The viewing experience is much smoother, though.

Document sharing

• A SMB server to receive documents from clients. I use the photosync app on my Androd devices to sync photos daily.
• photoprism to view photos. Google Photos is slow and laggy.

Disclaimer

The ansible variables for all roles are not documented yet. For now, running and seeing where it breaks a required variable is the only alternative.

Related

• My usage of these roles: Playbook pointing to these roles and encrypting secrets with ansible-vault. Feel free to use it
• Torrent role: Manual steps required to have a functioning infrastructure
• telegram-bot-torrents: Telegram bot to search torrents in Jackett and to upload them to Transmission