OpenMediaVault VS Shlink

You might want to consider the previously mentioned MergerFS and SnapRAID, or MDADM and LVM for your setup. OpenMediaVault [https://www.openmediavault.org/ is a solid choice in this regard. Additionally, if you're planning to run something like Proxmox, you could look into deploying Starwind CVM on top of it. Pretty much like in this guide: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resource-library/starwind-virtual-san-vsan-configuration-guide-for-proxmox-vsan-deployed-as-a-controller-virtual-machine-cvm/ .

You would better to install OMV instead. It's a ready to use fileserver solution with web interface.

So I'm working on a similar setup with an ancient desktop my in-laws were getting rid of. I installed OpenMediaVault directly to the hard drive (it's so old that I assume it wouldn't work too well as a hypervisor), with a 4TB external HDD attached. OMV supports Docker by means of a plug-in and I'm running a Jellyfin container with no issues at all. I'm still manually downloading everything to the HDD but *arr containers are my next step, as well as setting up a gluetun container to route all that through a VPN.

That is possible (it's automated to a certain extent). It also depends on the NAS OS. Unraid, for example, can work with drives of different sizes while using the largest one for parity. TrueNAS uses ZFS so you won't be able to just add a drive to your RAIDZ and expand it. There's also openmediavault: https://www.openmediavault.org/ that uses Linux Software RAID and you can add a new drive there but you can't combine drives of different sizes. And there's also Starwinds NAS that supports both Linux Software RAID and ZFS: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/san-and-nas. Plus, I would avoid SMR drives in RAID: https://nascompares.com/answer/list-of-wd-cmr-and-smr-hard-drives-hdd/

I'd put it like that: if you have a spare PC, then it's definitely worth trying. I would also look into openmediavault (minimal RAM needs): https://www.openmediavault.org/ and Starwinds NAS (supports both ZFS and Linux software RAID): https://www.starwindsoftware.com/san-and-nas

Tangentially related: I'm in search of a lightweight self-hosted URL shortener. Tried shlink[0] but man it's a bit of a bear, requiring 5 (yes, five) separate Docker containers. Also tried kutt[1] but it appears to be abandoned.

[0] https://github.com/shlinkio/shlink

[1] https://github.com/thedevs-network/kutt

IF you just want to setup an internal link shortener, there is software out there for it. We do it at my company. The best one I've found is Shlink: https://shlink.io/

Shlink can do this....

i have just set up shlink.io via /r/portainer and docker-compose. Now i have tried opening the CLI to generate an API key which i need for the shlink web interface but unfortunately it closes in a fraction of a second after bin/cli, showing all available arguments.

Are you looking for stable HTTP/S URLs that you can publish for others to access? One solution to that might be to purchase your own domain and host a little redirector service that bounces the consumer to the real, currently active, cloud URL. Something like https://shlink.io/ might work (but I’ve not used it, and that’s just a suggestion not a recommendation!)

Need to post some links in a small amount of space? You're going to want Shlink (code).

I'm working on setting up Shlink, a self-hosted URL shortening service. I've got it set up in docker and it's working, but now I want to set up a reverse proxy for it. I use HAProxy on pfSense, but in order to make it work, the documentation states that I need to make sure the "consumer's IP address, and the requests domain, are forwarded from the proxy".

Shlink