OS Installation

  1. Flash the latest version of Ubuntu Server onto a microSD card using Raspberry Pi Imager. Add the following customization options:
    • Hostname: sunny (or another hostname)
    • Username: mish (or another username) and a password of your choice
    • Set time zone and keyboard layout
    • Enable SSH with public-key authentication only
  2. Insert the microSD card into the Pi, connect power and network cables
  3. SSH into the Pi to perform the rest of the setup

Update packages

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

More than likely, apt will prompt you to reboot:

sudo reboot

Install useful packages

sudo apt install micro btop fastfetch

Install nice-to-have packages

sudo apt install iperf3

Allow iperf3 to start as a daemon because why not.

You can also perform a bandwidth test using iperf3 -c. I got 888 Mbps to my PC, and 791 Mbps to the Pi 400.

Set up Tailscale

Install Tailscale

See https://tailscale.com/download/linux/ for instructions.

Connect to the tailnet

Connect the Pi to the mmk21hub.github tailnet (use Github OAuth to sign in to Tailscale).

sudo tailscale up

Check that the host has appeared on the Tailscale dashboard. Then,

  1. Disable key expiry for the device
  2. Set its IPv4 address to something memorable like 100.64.1.40 (I chose 40 to match the end of its private IP address on the local network)

Allow the Pi to be used as an exit node

  1. Enable IP forwarding in sysctl:

    echo 'net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1' | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.d/99-tailscale.conf
echo 'net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding = 1' | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.d/99-tailscale.conf
sudo sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.d/99-tailscale.conf

  2. Enable UDP performance optimizations using an ethtool script:

    printf '#!/bin/sh\n\nethtool -K %s rx-udp-gro-forwarding on rx-gro-list off \n' "$(ip -o route get 8.8.8.8 | cut -f 5 -d " ")" | sudo tee /etc/networkd-dispatcher/routable.d/50-tailscale
sudo chmod 755 /etc/networkd-dispatcher/routable.d/50-tailscale

    Test that the script works and activate the optimizations:

    sudo /etc/networkd-dispatcher/routable.d/50-tailscale
test $? -eq 0 || echo 'An error occurred.'

  3. Start advertising the Pi as a Tailscale exit node:

    sudo tailscale up --advertise-exit-node

Allow the home network to be accessed via the Pi

Enable subnet routing on the Pi:

sudo tailscale set --advertise-routes=192.0.1.0/24

Then, approve the subnet route in the Tailscale dashboard.

Set up Coolify

Run the self-hosted Coolify installation script.

Create the admin account as soon as possible. You can then skip the onboarding.

Restore Coolify data from a backup

Replace the contents of /data/coolify/source/.env with the .env content stored in Bitwarden.

Then you’ll presumably want to restore the Coolify database from a backup. You’re on your own there.

Set up Cloudflare Tunnels

The Coolify UI is primarily accessed through the Caddy reverse proxy on RPi (coolify-ui.slevel.xyz), but a Cloudflare Tunnel is also set up to provide access if Caddy breaks or is unreachable. Decide if you want to set up Cloudflare Tunnels, and if you do, follow the steps below.

Create a Cloudflare Zero Trust Tunnel, and follow the steps in the Cloudflare dashboard to install cloudflared on the Pi (expect apt-get install cloudflared at some point) and set the connector service to run at startup.

coolify-admin.slevel.xyz should point to http://localhost:8000 (the Coolify web UI).