I would recommend it as it is fairly easy to understand and most Foss services give you an example to use. You can also convert docker run examples to compose (search docker composeriser) although it doesn’t always work.

I found composer files easier when learning it, to digest what is going on (ports, networks, depends_on etc) and can compare with other services to see what is missing (container name, restart schedule etc). I can then easily backup the compose files, env files and data directories to be able to very quickly get a service up again (although DBs are trickier but found a docker image that I can stick on the compose files which backups the DB dumps regularly)

I tried the readarr and other options. They work sometimes but not enough to rely on it. As others mention, there’s no standard naming and also, lots of people use their library card for Libby access. I also think there’s a bit more of a direct link to authors so I’d prefer to buy the book unless theyre super well off anyway. To be honest, I can’t see the arr’s working with LibGen having looked at the open issues on integrating it, it just doesn’t allow for scraping in the same way.

For me, I self host openbooks (uses IRC) and select a download straight away, which to be fair, is about the same time as searching / finding a TV show if you are after one book. I have exposed it behind an SSO so can access it on my phone and download the book straight away when someone gives me a recommendation. Most of the time I just add to a running note on phone and go through it every few months when I need more books.

It’s fairly quick for multiple books but not sonarr levels of ease. The downloads go into a calibre monitored folder which then does the automation (naming, conversion if needed etc). I bulk email the new books to my kindle with one click. Calibre-web is on read only for a nice browsing experience and to read on other devices if I need to (althogh no page sync). It’s a bit of manual work but I find it is not too bad and in 10 minutes I can load up enough books for months.

Occasionally IRC does not have the book so try manually searching on prowlarr, and download on sab or transmission. The downloads are almost instant so I then just wait and copy them to my downloads folder (I could probably automate this step too with tags but it’s so infrequent).

I have dynamic IP and there are several ways around it. I use Cloudflared (updates DNS records regularly) and a script I found to update duck DNS as a backup. Both very simple.

Accessing the services is not the problem, the problem is keeping them safe. I’ve tried lots of different ways (although not tailscale yet) and have a few services exposed directly to the internet behind authentik \ NPM \ Cloudflare \ fail2ban \ ufw. Others, I access through my router openvpn server, with keys for my laptop and phone as clients. There are so many guides online for all VPN types. Its just finding the right approach between ease of use vs safety

Don’t provide services to others, including your own family, actually especially your own family, until you are quite comfortable with what is going on and what might be causing issues. Focus on helping yourself or keeping whatever other services you were using before just in case.

Trying to fix something at night, with a fuming partner who’s already put up with a difficult to use service, because of your want for privacy even though they don’t care care, whilst saying “it should work, I don’t know what’s wrong”, is not a great place to be 😁.

Overall though, I found it so interesting that I am doing a part time degree in computer science in my 30s, purely to learn more (whilst being forced to do it to timelines and having paid for it).

I have a very comfortable and ‘forget about it’ setup my family are now using. Every now and then I add new services for myself, and if it works out, will give access to others to use, keep it just for me or just delete it and move on.