If I was going to use Jellyfin and not have to manually move files I needed to get to grips with the ARR stack.
I found this guide here:
Written guide here – https://github.com/automation-avenue/youtube-39-arr-apps-1-click
The title is ridiculous clickbait as you do install the stack with one command but there’s a lot of set up after. It did lead me to a working system though, so I’m very grateful for it.
While messing around with the ARR stack I’d also started looking at PFSense/OPNsense and OpenWRT.
I got completely distracted by OpenWRT and installed it on an unopened Archer A7 I had in the magic shit-cupboard. Virgin media provides my broadband connection so that feeds the rest of the house (for now) and then my homelab and main pc sit behind the Archer A7. It’s not able to handle having the VPN running without considerable slow down, so that led me down another rabbit hole.
Thin client as a router
Wolfgang suckered me again with this video:
So I obviously have one turning up in a couple of days to act as my router. It has a 4 port PCI network card installed effectively making my internal card redundant for the time being. I may link the ARR stack VM out on it’s own network port to a dedicated port on the router so it can use the VPN while the rest of the system sits on the non-VPN side depending on much of a slow down there is.
This adds another £71 ($91) to the cost and I haven’t decided between OpenWRT and OPNsense yet. I did decide not to use PFSense after reading lots of complaints on how the company operates and communicates. I’d still like to tinker with it at some point though. OpenWRT seems to do everything I need but OPNsense looks to have more features so I’ll update once I have it.
March 16, 2025
