tower-of-joy is a containerized home server platform running on the "tower-of-joy" system, leveraging Portainer + Docker Compose for service orchestration. The infrastructure supports GPU-accelerated workloads (ML inference via Ollama, media transcoding via Jellyfin) while maintaining a clean separation between performance-critical configs (SSD) and bulk content storage (HDD).

Quick Start

Main Dashboard: https://home.schweitz.net (Organizr - unified interface for all services)

System Specifications

Host: tower-of-joy (Zorin OS 16.3 / Ubuntu 20.04)
CPU: Intel i7-6700 (4C/8T @ 3.40GHz)
RAM: 16GB
GPU: NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti (11GB VRAM)
Storage:
- SSD (489GB): Configs, databases, Docker images → /home/jpmschweitzer/docker-data/
- HDD (3.7TB): Media, user content, backups → /mnt/media/

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Infrastructure Layer                   │
│  ├── Portainer (8080) - Container mgmt │
│  ├── NPM (8000) - Reverse proxy        │
│  └── Ollama (11434) - ML models [GPU]  │
├─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Networking Layer                       │
│  └── Headscale (8085) - Secure mesh    │
├─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Monitoring Layer                       │
│  ├── Uptime Kuma (3001) - Uptime       │
│  ├── Netdata (19999) - Metrics         │
├─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Optimization Layer                     │
│  ├── Watchtower - Auto-updates         │
│  └── Maintenance - Automated backups   │
├─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Application Layer (Backlog)            │
│  ├── Jellyfin (8096) - Media [GPU]     │
│  ├── Nextcloud (8082) - Cloud storage  │
│  └── Samba (445) - File shares         │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘

Project Structure

tower-of-joy/
├── stacks/              # Docker Compose files (version-controlled)
│   ├── portainer.yml
│   ├── nginx-proxy-manager.yml
│   ├── ollama.yml
│   ├── headscale.yml
│   ├── jellyfin.yml
│   ├── nextcloud.yml
│   └── ...
├── scripts/             # Maintenance automation
│   ├── health-check.sh
│   ├── gpu-check.sh
│   ├── backup-configs.sh
│   ├── disk-usage.sh
│   └── cleanup.sh
├── containers/          # Research & implementation docs
│   ├── research.md
│   └── implementation-plan.md
├── Makefile            # Common operations
├── STATUS.md           # Current phase tracking
├── CHANGELOG.md        # Version history
├── AGENTS.md           # AI agent guidelines
└── SYSTEM.md           # Hardware documentation

Documentation

AGENTS.md - Guidelines for AI coding agents (conventions, testing, commits)
STATUS.md - Current implementation phase and progress
CHANGELOG.md - Version history and completed work
SYSTEM.md - Detailed hardware and software specs
containers/research.md - Platform research and comparison
containers/implementation-plan.md - Detailed deployment guide

Development Setup

Python Environment

Some automation scripts require Python dependencies. A virtual environment is provided:

# Activate virtual environment
source .venv/bin/activate

# Install/update dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Deactivate when done
deactivate

Note: The .venv/ directory is gitignored and must be created on each system.

Common Commands

Infrastructure Management

make status              # Show running containers and system status
make health              # Comprehensive health check
make gpu-check           # Verify GPU passthrough
make disk                # Disk usage report
make backup              # Backup Docker configs
make cleanup             # Clean unused Docker resources

Stack Management

make deploy-portainer    # Deploy Portainer
make deploy-ollama       # Deploy Ollama
make logs-ollama         # View Ollama logs
make update-jellyfin     # Update Jellyfin to latest
make stop-nextcloud      # Stop Nextcloud stack

Phase Deployment

make deploy-phase1       # Deploy foundation (Portainer, NPM, Ollama)
make deploy-phase2       # Deploy networking (Headscale)
make deploy-phase3       # Deploy monitoring (Uptime Kuma, Netdata, Heimdall)
make deploy-phase4       # Deploy optimization (Watchtower, Maintenance)
make deploy-apps         # Deploy applications (Jellyfin, Nextcloud, Samba)

Service Ports

Service	Port	Description
Nginx Proxy Manager	8000	Unified web interface entry point
Portainer	8080	Container management UI
AMP	8081	Game server management (existing)
Open WebUI	82	LLM chat interface
Ollama	11434	ML model API
Core API	8083	OpenAPI functions for Open WebUI
Code-Server	8084	Browser-based IDE (localhost only)
Headscale	8085	Tailscale control server
Jellyfin	8096	Media streaming
Nextcloud	8082	Cloud storage
Uptime Kuma	3001	Service monitoring
Netdata	19999	System monitoring
Heimdall	8888	Application dashboard
Organizr	9999	Unified dashboard

GPU Services

Two services leverage the RTX 2080 Ti for GPU acceleration:

Ollama (ML inference)
- Supports 3B-13B parameter models
- Recommended: llama3.2:3b, mistral:7b, codellama:7b
Jellyfin (Media transcoding)
- NVIDIA NVENC hardware encoding
- Can handle multiple 4K transcodes simultaneously

Storage Strategy

SSD (Performance-Critical):

Docker configs
Application databases
Cache directories
Container images

HDD (Capacity-Critical):

Media files (Jellyfin)
User data (Nextcloud)
Game server worlds (AMP)
Backups

Current Status

Phase: Planning & Documentation Complete ✅

Next Steps:

Review implementation plan
Verify prerequisites (Docker, GPU, disk space)
Begin Phase 1: Foundation Setup

See STATUS.md for detailed progress tracking.

Contributing

This is a personal infrastructure project. For AI agents working on this codebase:

Read AGENTS.md for guidelines
Follow conventional commit format
Test GPU access before deploying GPU services
Update STATUS.md when completing phases

License

Personal infrastructure project - not licensed for reuse.

Resources

Portainer: https://docs.portainer.io/
Ollama: https://github.com/ollama/ollama
Headscale: https://headscale.net/
Jellyfin: https://jellyfin.org/docs/
Nextcloud: https://docs.nextcloud.com/

Version: 0.1.0-planning Last Updated: 2025-11-11 System: tower-of-joy