Computy the dorm server
January 2025 - May 2025
Networking
3D Printing
Hardware
Python
Find on Github

This is my NAS(network attached storage), media streaming server and general server, I set up in my first-year dorm at the University of York, which does not break any university rules.

What is the justification for setting this up?

  • I had over 300GB of media files stored on my 1TB NVME SSD on my laptop before this
  • I could not access the 300GB of media files on my other devices.
  • My laptop and music library were not backed up.
  • I needed a computer that runs 24/7 to execute scripts, instead of running scripts on the cloud.
  • Having a NAS is very convenient for day-to-day life—for example, it lets you work on the same files from different devices and transfer files between them

This project can be split into two main parts

  • Hardware:

    • Server hardware
    • 3D printed parts

  • Software:

    • Networking configurations
    • Media steaming server
    • NAS
    • Backups

Server Hardware

  • Hardware (closeup in image 2 & 3):

    • Used PI5 from Ebay with a fan included for £55
    • 27W USB-C power supply for £11
    • Waveshare PCIE to M.2 Hat from Aliexpress for £1 (using the welcome coupon)
    • 256GB Patriot P300 gen 3 NVME SSD for £16
    • Used 2TB seagate barracuda HDD with 10k power on hours for £20
    • Barely used 960GB MSI S270 SSD for £30
    • USB 3.0 duo bay SATA caddy for £20
    • USB 3.0 to SATA cable I already got
    • Ethernet cable I aready got

  • Hardware usage:

    • The PI is used as the server, powered by the 27W power supply.
    • There is one singular lane of Gen 3 PCIE exposed on the PI, by using the HAT, I can add an M.2 slot onto the PI.
    • The 256GB NVME SSD will be my boot drive for the Raspbian OS
    • The 2TB HDD will be my backup drive.
    • The 960GB SSD will be where media is stored, a SSD is used despite high price is cause I sleep in the same room, HDD is too noisy.
    • The caddy is for housing the 2TB HDD, the 2 bays are for future proving, in case I need to spare a USB 3.0 slot.
    • The USB 3.0 to SATA cable is for the 960GB SSD.
    • The Ethernet cable lets me connect to the University network through the RJ45 ports in my dorm.

3D printed parts

  • The parts (Seen in image 2):

    • Case for the PI5.
    • Case for the 960GB SSD, with a no screw locking system.
    • Anti vibration TPU feets.

  • How did I create them?

    • All the parts are printed with my dorm room 3D printing setup, it is also in my projects page.

    • For the PI5 case (3D render in image 4):

      • Customized a generic Pi 5 case in Fusion 360 with letter indentations on the outer wall and a notch in the inner wall to fit the HAT.
      • Printed the case in PETG to prevent thermal warping.
      • Printed the letters in PLA and superglued them into the indentations for perfect alignment.

    • For the SSD case (3D render in image 5):

      • I took a 2.5 inch SSD case with a very clever screwless locking system, and again with Fusion360 added letter indentations.
      • I added indentations for the anti-vibration feets, positioned to match the spacing of the four main screw holes on the Pi 5.

    • For the anti vibration feets (3D render in image 6):

      • They are very much needed, as I sleep in the same room as the server.
      • To maximize dampening, the feets have a single-wall structure with a wave-like infill pattern.

Network Configurations

  • What I have done:

    • Conenct server to the University network.
    • Creating a VPN between my devices.
    • Setting up a firewall.

  • Connecting server to the University network:

  • Creating a VPN between my devices:

    • This ensures security and being able to access the server outside of the University network.
    • As the server is connected to the University network, anyone can attempt to access it if services like SSH or web servers are exposed and not properly secured.
    • This will allow us to block all inbound traffic to the server except via the VPN.
    • Tailscale is the simplest solution to create a mesh VPN.
    • I simply downloaded Tailscale on all my devices and configured them to be in the same Tailnet.

  • Setting up a firewall

    • The firewall's main purpose is to block all inbound traffic.
    • This is simple with the Linux kernal bundled UFW firewall (uncomplicated firewall).
    • I simply setted up a rule to block all inbound traffic.
    • Tailscale by defult bypasses UFW, so you can send inbound traffic to the server as long as they are within the same Tailnet.
    • After this is setted up, you can run a SSH server on the server safely and do not need to be physically connected to the server to work on it.

Media steaming server

  • What I have done:

    • Organising my music library with Beets.
    • Setting up Jellyfin media steaming server.
    • Setting up Jellyfin clients on my devices.
    • Creating scripts to manage my music library.

  • Organising my music library with Beets (see my organised music library in image 7)

    • My music library was a mess, a single folder containing 100s of FLAC files in random album folders.
    • The embedded metadata tags on the FLAC files are also horrible, this is bad news as Jellyfin cataloges music files with metadata tags.
    • Beets is a python commandline tool that I uses to ensure a consistent file structure, fetch lyrics, art and other metadata from the internet, and remove duplicated files.
    • I organised my library in the following structure:
      /library
      //artist1
      ///album1
      ////album_cover.jpg
      ////track1.flac
      ////track2.flac
      ...
      //artist2
      ...

  • Setting up Jellyfin media steaming server (see the setted up web GUI on image 8)

    • Jellyfin is a free, open-source media steaming server software.
    • I will use it to steam my music library and movies to my other devices.
    • I simply downloaded the Jellyfin server software and followed this guide to install it.
    • With that I have a media server running on port 8096 on my server, where all devices on my Tailnet can accesss with `myserver-tailnet-ip:8096` with a browser
    • For extra security, I used the `tailscale serve` feature on port 8096, so all steaming connections are encrypted by HTTPS.
    • Configurations are done on the webserver itself, after following the setup wizard and configuring some annoying EXT4 file permissions, I now have a media steaming server running in my dorm!

  • Setting up Jellyfin clients on my devices

    • I can access my media streaming server by using a web browser, but the web client lacks features.
    • So downloaded a Jellyfin client called Finamp, which is also a free, open source software that is built for Jellyfin on my mobile devices.
    • Finamp lets me download music in any format (MP3, AAC, etc.) for offline listening, supports background playback, and offers more features on my mobile devices.
    • For my laptop, I will not be using Jellyfin to access the music files.

  • Creating scripts to manage my music library

    • Click the `find on github` button above to see those scripts.
    • The scripts include a script that syncs my M3U music playlists to my Spotify account
    • Also one that splits my playlist into 100-song chunks, so I can sync them to my downloads automaticly in Finamp, without using too much storage.
    • The last one I will mention is a script that turns my M3U playlists to Windows file format, so I can use them on my windows partition on my laptop.
    • All of the scripts are running via cron jobs automaticly.

NAS

  • A network attached storage is as the name said, stroage attached to a network, in this case the network is my Tailnet.
  • I used Sambas, the free and open source software that allows file shareing between Linux/Unix systems and windows.
  • The university uses the same software to allow each student to have their 5GB of free storage.
  • Editing the Sambas config file, I shared my 960GB SSD to my tailnet.
  • I then mount the Sambas share as a network drive on all my devices.

  • Accessing music library on my laptop:

    • Jellyfin is useful for steaming media, but it doesn't allow you to copy, edit, or manipulate the media files.
    • It also doesn't allow for advanced playback features, like DSP support and have limited audio focused plugins.
    • Therefore, I uses a audio player called Foobar2000 and its Linux equivelance, the DeaDBeeF player on my laptop (I duoboot both Linux and Windows on my laptop).
    • The music player will access the files through the network share as if the files are on my local storage.
    • The setted up Foobar2k music player on my Windows partition can be seen in image 9
    • The setted up DeaDBeeF music player on my Linux partition can be seen in image 10

Backups

  • Borg is another free and open-source software I used in my server.
  • It provides fast, secure and space-efficent backups, through deduplication, compression and encryption.
  • The 960GB SSD on the server backups to the 2TB HDD everyday on 5am via a cron job.
  • For my Linux partition on my laptop, a startup script backups my laptop to the 2TB HDD via SSH if I haven't done so that day.
  • The 2TB HDD itself then backup to the cloud with SSH via another cronjob to achieve 3-2-1 backup.