From Trash to Treasure: My Self-Hosted Streaming Adventure

It all started with a laptop I found in the trash — broken screen, dust everywhere, but surprisingly powerful under the hood. Instead of tossing it aside, I saw a challenge: could I turn this forgotten machine into something valuable?

First Boot: Wrestling with Wi-Fi

With no Ethernet port, the first hurdle was just getting Ubuntu Server online. I spent a while battling wpa_supplicant, because setting up WiFi connectivity on a laptop with a half-broken screen is no easy task. Later on I was able to acquire a USB-C Ethernet adapter made streaming far more stable.

Looking back, it hadn't occurred to me to use a USB-C Ethernet adapter until I came across one. That tiny adapter made such a difference — it's often the simple solutions that work best.

Locking the Doors: SSH Hardening

Exposing a server to the internet without care is like leaving your house unlocked. I leaned heavily on SSHaudit to guide me. Password logins were gone, replaced with keys. Weak ciphers like arcfour and cbc were stripped away. Only strong modern ones remained, such as chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com and aes256-gcm@openssh.com.

It was here I realized how dangerous defaults can be. Even updated software carry legacy baggage due to compatability and unless need them you should remove them.

Discovering Jellyfin

Installing Jellyfin was a turning point. Suddenly, this trash laptop was no longer just a server — it was a private streaming platform.

The Jellyfin dashboard that made the project feel alive.

This was the “wow” moment: seeing a dead machine reborn with a purpose.

TLS and the Joy of Automation

At first, I played with self-signed certificates, but the real breakthrough was setting up Certbot with automatic renewal via systemd. Suddenly, security wasn't something I had to remember — it was just there, quietly doing its job.

Later, moving behind Cloudflare not only added resilience thanks to WAF and DDoS protection but also protected my server's IP address from being exposed.

The lesson? Automation is more than convenience — it's peace of mind.

Adding the Extras

With the basics solid, I couldn't resist: Sonarr, Radarr, and Prowlarr came next. They automated media handling via Usenet (what else did you think? 😉).

The ecosystem grew organically — each tool taught me a little more about networking, automation, and system monitoring.

What I Learned

Old hardware isn't worthless — it's an opportunity to learn and create something useful.
Defaults can be dangerous; hardening is important, don't blindly trust defaults.
Security and convenience can coexist — if you design for both.

In the end, I am really happy with my server. I use it regularly with friends to watch movies together. However it was more than just a media server project. It was a reminder of why I love cybersecurity: finding the balance between building something useful and making it secure.