I have a couple Libre Office files where I document the non-technical stuff for my own quick reference, like network layout in Draw, or IP and port assignments in Calc. I use a git repo to store and organize podman scripts, systemd unit files, configs, etc. Probably not the most elegant solution, but it’s simple and FOSS.

Reverse proxy is Nginx Proxy Manager.

I write everything in markdown, and I mean just about everything. Tech notes, recipes, work procedures, shopping lists…everything. If you check my comment history from today, you can see a quick example of the kind of tech notes I keep (firewalld in this case).

I keep all of my plain text files synced across multiple devices using Syncthing. For desktop editors, I use mostly vim and VSCodium (though Kate is nice too), and I use Markor on Android. This workflow has been highly efficient for many years now, and I no longer waste time constantly reviewing the latest note-taking app.

Traefik for reverse proxy. Tag your container with the route and let traefik take over.

My documentation is a folder with the docker compose files I am using. And some notes in Nextcloud Notes if needed.

My reverse proxy is Traefik, since it’s docker aware. :)

One day, I moved all services I really wanted from a couple of random VPS to a nice little proxmox machine at home (and then added some more services, of course). That was the day I swore to document stuff better, and I’m pretty satisfied with how well I was able to keep up with that.

In the proxmox web interface, you can leave notes per container. I note down which service the container is running including a link to the service’s web interface if applicable, plus the source, and a note about how it auto-updates (green check mark emoji) or if it requires manual updates (handiman emoji).

Further I made a concious effort to document everything into a gollum wiki running on that proxmox host (exposes a wiki like web interface, stores all entries as plaintext .md files into a local git repo - very “portable”). Most importantly, it also includes a page of easy to understand emergency measures in case I die or become unresponsive, which I regularly print out and put into a folder with other important documents. The page contains a QR code linking to itself on the wiki too in case the printed version might be outdated here or there.

The organization of the wiki itself (what goes into which folder) is a bit of a work in progress, but as it offers full text search, that’s not too much of a problem imo.

• caddyserver for reverse proxy
• docker-compose for ~75% of documentation
• logseq for notes, though I don’t keep much.

Docker and docker-compose are nice because every service you want to run follows the same basic pattern. You don’t need much documentation beyond the project docs and the compose files themselves

Edit: caddyserver can do automatic certs, even behind a firewall if you set up the api call method. Varies by registrar

Personally I use Linkwarden for keeping snapshots of websites as well as a bookmark manager and Memos for a simple note-taking app. Both can be installed on mobile as PWAs, so it makes it easier to access on-the-go.

I’m using Nginx Proxy Manager, which I highly recommend for new users due to how simple it is get set up and running! NPM renews SSL certs automatically before they expire as well (afaik). You just gotta make sure that your different Docker containers’ ports don’t collide with each other.

My documentation problem was largely fixed by using Nixos. The actual OS instances are self-documenting that way.

As far as the documentation for the network setup itself goes, a simple wiki does the rest of the trick for me.

I’m a grumpy linux greybeard type, so I went with… plain text files.

Everything is deployed via docker, so I’ve got a docker-compose.yml for each stack, and any notes or configuration things specific to that app is a comment in the compose file. Those are all backed up in a couple of places, since all I need to do is drop them on a filesystem, and bam, complete restoration.

Reverse proxy is nginx, because it’s reliable, tested, proven, works, and while it might not have all those fancy auto-config options other things have, it also doesn’t automatically configure itself into a way that I’d prefer it didn’t, either.

I don’t use any tools like portainer or dockge or nginx proxy manager at this point, because dealing with what’s just a couple of config files on the filesystem is faster (for me) and less complicated (again, for me) than adding another layer of software on top (and it keeps your attack surface small).

My one concession to gui shit for the docker is an install of dozzle because it certainly makes dealing with docker logs simple, and it simplifies managing the ~40 stacks and ~85 containers that I’ve got setup at the moment.

I run a k3s cluster for selfhosted apps and keep all the configuration and docs in a git repo. That way I have history of changes and can rollback if needed. In that repo I have a docs folder with markdown documents about common operations and runbooks.

There are other ways to do this, but I like keeping docs next to the code and config so I can update them all at the same time. Deployed several wikis in the past but always forget to update them when I change things.

i recently made the switch from doing k3s+flux to have everything in code with bundlewrap and anemos/makeimg

I’m adding documentation about what I do in Joplin and I’m using Nextcloud to keep it synced.

For reverse proxy I use Nginx Proxy Manager for its simplicity. I really don’t need anything more fancy… https://nginxproxymanager.com/

OPNSense router handles auto SSL certificate renewals, Unbound (DNS) and HA Proxy ( for reverse proxy ).

Gitea instance for all of my docker-compose configs and documentation.

Joplin server and Joplin clients for easy notes available on all my devices.

I have an Ansible playbook that I use to setup everything and all troubleshooting steps I ever had to take to fix something get written down in an Obsidian.md vault.

Right now, I’m using Obsidian. I think I’d like to transition to keeping docs in a wiki, but I worry that it’s part of the self-hosted infrastructure. In other words, if the wiki’s down, I no longer have the docs that I need to repair the wiki.