Own server at home/office

Devices & Integrations
1

Hi guys!

Here’s a dev oriented question…

I’ve read many times that you guys use a server-in-the-middle approach for some things…

I’ve got a few machines laying around both at home and at the office which could be used for such an approach, given that I’ve finally (yeah, after a year and a bit) decided to jump on the app-writing train…

Questions that arise:

  • what OS should I install?
  • would the machine have to be in the same local network as the ST hub? (my intuition says no, but the question still remains)
  • what security measures do I have to take to preserve my smarthome from being attacked (if ever) thru this new server?

Thanks!!!

2 Likes
2

May I ask if you have some specific examples in mind?

The configuration and location of one or more personal “servers” really depends on what you want to do with them.

For example, a very low powered Linux server can be a Hue Bridge emulator, currently handy for interfacing Amazon Echo to SmartThings. But it must live on the same LAN as the Echo. It does not need to be exposed to external access and is therefore relatively safe from intrusion.

In other cases, you may wish to use a virtual server from a cloud / hosting provider in order to have more power and less maintenance and have access from outside your firewall with no port forwarding necessary. These may come with built-in security measures managed by the hosting provider.

But given a list of needs, one server can do several tasks, of course.