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Building a Home Server, One Stack at a Time

My Media Build — Self-Hosted Homelab

TrueNAS · Docker · Self-Hosted

Building a Home Server,
One Stack at a Time

A no-fluff record of building a self-hosted media server on TrueNAS — the arr stack, VPN’d downloads, cross-seeding, container management, and a live sports DVR — written as it was built, breakages included.

Getting Started Guide
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TrueNAS Install

Stack Architecture

Click a card for the full guide — hit Compose to jump straight to its docker-compose.yml.

CloudflareTraefik Cloudflare Tunnel + Traefik
Zero open ports · reverse proxy → Compose
▼
Seerr Seerr Request UI → Compose
Radarr Movies → Compose
Sonarr TV Series → Compose
Prowlarr Indexers → Compose
qBittorrent Basic Setup → Compose
Gluetun Gluetun VPN Gateway → Compose
SABnzbd Usenet → Compose
Plex Media Server → Compose
▼
Authentik Authentik
SSO · Forward Auth → Compose
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Cross-Seed Cross-Seed Boost your torrent ratios Gluetun + qBittorrent Gluetun + qBittorrent VPN + port forwarding Sportarr Sportarr Live sports IPTV & DVR Complete Arr Stack Complete Arr Stack The full stack, one guide xTeVe xTeVe + Plex Q channel numbering Checkrr Checkrr Media corruption scanner

Installing TrueNAS Community Edition

The foundation everything else in this build runs on

Jonsbo N5 NAS case, assembled, showing internal drive bays

Minimum specs

  • CPU: 64-bit x86 (or ARM on supported boards) — nothing exotic needed for a small home build
  • RAM: 8GB absolute minimum, 16GB+ recommended if you’re running apps/containers alongside storage
  • Boot device: 16GB+ USB flash drive or small dedicated SSD — don’t use it for storage/pool data
  • Storage drives: at least one extra drive (or more, for redundancy) separate from the boot device
  • Network: wired Gigabit Ethernet strongly recommended over Wi-Fi

Step-by-step installation

  1. Prepare the boot media: download the latest TrueNAS ISO, then use a flashing tool like BalenaEtcher to write the installer image to a USB flash drive.
  2. Boot the system: insert the USB into the intended server or PC, power it on, and press the designated hotkey (e.g. F2, F12, or Del) to enter your motherboard’s UEFI/BIOS. Disable Secure Boot and set the USB drive as the first boot option.
  3. Run the installer: once the system boots into the TrueNAS installer, select the Install/Upgrade option.
  4. Select destination media: choose the specific drive (e.g. a dedicated SSD) where the TrueNAS operating system will live. Warning: any data on this destination drive will be permanently erased.
  5. Set password: create a strong administrative password (the root account in Core, or the truenas_admin account in Scale/Community Edition), and choose to boot via UEFI or BIOS depending on your hardware support.
  6. Reboot and access the web GUI: let the installation finish, hit OK, and restart. Remove the USB installer drive so the system boots into the newly installed TrueNAS OS. Once it finishes booting, the console displays a network IP address (e.g. http://192.168.1.X).
  7. Complete setup: type that IP address into the web browser of any computer on your local network to reach the TrueNAS dashboard.
TrueNAS installer screen

Read how the whole stack was built →

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