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Haha thanks for your comment! I do want to clarify any confusion though. The password is just for the admin site, which is not available outside the network. The VPN port requires a key exchange between a configured client and the configured server. I just want to be clear that my network is not "open" with a simple password authentication. Both the client and the server have to verify each other before the client can connect.

On your phone - Make sure you can access the Internet when connected - Check whatismyipaddress.com/ when connected on WiFi, Mobile Data, and Mobile Data plus VPN. When using the VPN it should show you your WAN IP and your home ISP instead of your mobile ISP. Were you able to open the Web UI from your phone like I did in the tutorial?

Thanks! Yes, I am using the WireGuard app. After you install it you can set it as your default VPN and you can also add it as a widget with the other pull down widgets like the wifi and Bluetooth etc so it's easy to turn it on/off without having to open the dedicated WireGuard app.

@@ThomasWildeTech Thanks for the info, now I'm even more likely to set this up! More comfort is better.

Great video! Is there any way to install the server on a android box?

Will do!

Yeah...I'm sorry about that! This was my first video. Please check out my other Immich and networking videos which will guide you through setting it up as well!

I'll keep that in mind, thank you for your feedback!

Double check the following: 1. Phone is connect to the same network (probably is) 2. Verify the IP address of the Windows machine assigned by the router (look at your router settings to find the device). 3. Verify you opened the firewall port to 2283 on Windows. 4. Verify your connection string in the android app: `<windows-ip>:2283

@@ThomasWildeTech Yes all 4 verified and still no luck. Appreciate your time Thanks

Nice, yeah I'd say if you're already using Portainer for other things go for it. If not, I'd just default to the Immich developers recommendation of using docker compose

Hey Adam, thanks again for you reply! 1. I have not used Caddy before, but just because you brought it up, I'm now determined to use it on the next video! Nginx has seemingly been the gold standard for a while and is what I've typically seen enterprises actually using so I've naturally stuck with that. The Cady config blocks certainly look simple. 2. I briefly discussed using a DDNS at about the 15:13 mark. For my actual home server stuff, I do indeed use a DDNS with NoIP. I mentioned that if you do set up a DDNS, you'll create a CNAME record pointing to that domain (mycoolurl.ddns.net). I wanted to focus more-so on the routing itself and didn't want to get into setting up a DDNS. If you think it'd be useful to see a video on setting up a DDNS, I'd be happy to do that! I do have some documentation over at thomaswildetech.com/home-server/ddns/ which should help if you're looking to set that up.

Thanks! Sure, you basically need the following: - A device preferably running a Linux Distribution - Docker installed - An application running in a docker container - Means of connecting to the container (VPN, or a Domain with Routing) I just put out a full tutorial on pretty much all of that you can find here: czcams.com/video/3Q6_KN4ynHo/video.html

@@ThomasWildeTech Great. (fast reply) Self hosting requires programming knowledge and tools like Apache, node js. Which do you prefer?

Self hosting in and of itself doesn't really require any programming knowledge. It does require a bit of configuration and networking. You likely do want a web server, like nginx or apache (unless you want to use something like CloudFlare which will tunnel to your self hosted apps). There's no need to install node.js unless you're developing your own js apps and running them directly on the server. In general, any open-source self hosted app is going to have everything it needs to run within a docker container which is pulled from the Docker Hub Repository. That's the beauty of it. You don't need to install any dependencies on your server itself for a containerized app! Let me know if you have any further questions. Thanks!

That's certainly a good point! I agree it's not a great long term solution, but I think it's a great idea to get familiar with the possibilities and better understand what your needs may in fact be after putting in some reps.

Heck yeah. Raspberry Pi is so perfect for it.

Really glad to hear! I'm going to be breaking this project into segments to focus in on each topic and advanced features.

Nice! That's a great idea!

Thanks for the insight! Knowing AWS is also a great skill to have in your tool belt as it's used in so many enterprises.

Heck yeah. For some folks even that can seem intimidating! I just want people to know you can go ahead and put in the reps on whatever you have! Thanks for the details!

I like laptops simply because of free battery backup. You can find nice deals on laptops with half-broken screens but reasonable parameters for the price

Thanks for the encouragement! I could probably do a bit more scripting wise...I tend to just wing it 😄

Thank you!

I haven't tried using the Snap distribution. Are there limitations? Such as the mount location for assets? The other concern I might have is the frequency of updates pushed for Immich which may contain breaking changes. Using Docker-Compose it is very easy to switch between versions as well as dumping/backing-up your database.

@@ThomasWildeTech I didn't get it up anD running in docker under Windows - I admit I don't know how docker works, so "where is what etc in term if config and storage etc.." The easiest way I could find was setting up a hyperV VM running Ubuntu lts and using the snap package - worked like a charm. I had problem adding images as external libraries weren't scanned (immich shows "ok" but nothing happened. I could find the cli app - but that was about it I did move my stuff via immich-go from Windows cli, that worked fine Immich is great, biggest drawback is the difficult installation - I am a Windows person, I did try Linux/Ubuntu several times over 20 years but I did always get stuck at some stuff and if immich want to become wildly available I don't know if docker is the right way...

Please check out my video specifically geared toward installing Immich on Windows using Docker Desktop. I think it may help. czcams.com/video/ZJH3ee-fnCc/video.html

As long as you are able to loop through and download each of the images you want from the google cloud platform, then sure you can. You can use the Immich CLI to upload each of the photos downloaded to your Immich application. You can check out my video on how to use the CLI here: czcams.com/video/ukLMVf7wbCc/video.html I hope that helps!

Thank you very much for the feedback. Indeed, I breezed over tools such as using notepad++ or Powershell. Each of these could have been substituted with a regular text editor or CMD window. If you are doing this one Windows you only really have two options for outside of network access. 1. Use a VPN such as WireGuard to remain on your network even when using 4g etc. 2. Open and forward a port on your router to 2283. You could then connect by replacing localhost with your router IP address. As I alluded to in the video using the VPN is a viable solution. Otherwise, once you're ready to take Immich outside the network, I would definitely recommend you install the app on a Linux machine with an Nginx web server. If you do not have any other device running a Linux distro, you could do this within VirtualBox as well. Windows server is, well, not free. Running an actual web server like Nginx beefs up your security rather than just opening and forwarding a port. I'll post a link in the description to my Immich on Linux tutorial. Let me know if you have any other questions!

Not at all, I may have skipped over actually looking at the docker-compose.yml file. If you take a look at that you will see that for the web application it is using port 2283 on the localhost. The "2283:3001" means that port 2283 on the localhost will be binded to port 3001 in the docker container, which the web app is listening on.

@@ThomasWildeTech thank you so much for the reply. I’m just starting trying out way to free my dependence from Google photos and services like that. I saw Louis Rossman make a video talking about Immich and this whole video has been super helpful.

@@JoshB62698 For sure. I'm glad you found it helpful! My goal is to make it more approachable for people who aren't as familiar with IT because once you know how to set up, it's quite simple to maintain and it's a very powerful application! Let me know if you think there's anything else I can cover that would be helpful.

Glad to hear I could help! Thanks for your input!

Seltzer was a bad choice 😂

Thanks for the feedback. You may be interested in my shorter video czcams.com/video/Oi5j-ZygALI/video.html

Hey Adam, I really appreciate your feedback! Thank you, man! There's absolutely nothing wrong with starting simple, and with old hardware laying around, there's really nothing to lose. I run Immich from an old HP desktop I had in the closet building up dust, and my wife and I share an account so that we can see each other's photos in one place. The nice thing about the desktop is that it's very easy to expand the storage. One way to start without doing a whole lot, assuming your laptop is running windows, is just install Docker Desktop on the Windows laptop and get Immich up and running there. (I'm posting a new video soon on doing this exact thing). You'll likely need to enable virtualization in the BIOS, but after that it should be a breeze. If you follow my tutorial, you can set your mobile app up to work with Immich on the local network. As you alluded too, I would definitely recommend installing a linux distro on the laptop, it's just going to be so much more efficient than running docker desktop on Windows. I recently installed Linux Mint on my older personal laptop and I enjoy that as an OS that's very similar to Windows. Finally, transferring your Immich app from the laptop to a "big boy" server should not really be an issue. There are two main components to Immich, the database and the library. You would just need to copy over the library to the other hard drive, and do a database dump on the database (Immich website has details for backup and restoring from a db dump). When you pull Immich on the new server using docker, you would point the library location to the new location and then import the database dump file per the Immich instructions. Let me know if you have any additional questions or comments. If you feel there's a topic that another video would help for I'd love to hear it and make it!

@@ThomasWildeTech Thank you so much! I really appreciate the thorough response. I subscribed and added your next video to Watch Later. Right now as I'm looking around, my biggest issue is I don't see any tutorial from the start from a total noob. Everything starts with "put this on your server." I still don't have a server, and I'm not sure where to start with one. Do all servers work? Does it need to be set up a certain way to begin with? I know Synology NAS is a big name, would that be a good choice? I would be super grateful if you could either make a video for beginners that starts there, or if you could point me in the direction of someone else's video on that topic. Thanks again, you're awesome. P.S. When I glance at your thumbnails, you remind me of Paddy Pimblett, lol

Hey, you may like my Immich in 5 minutes video. No music! czcams.com/video/Oi5j-ZygALI/video.html

Hey, thanks for the feedback and the subscribe! You might find my shorter Immich video useful without music: czcams.com/video/Oi5j-ZygALI/video.html

Thanks for the feedback. I'll make some adjustments for the next video.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll make some adjustments for the next video.

I was about to make the same comment. I literally cannot follow what he's saying 😜