Best Practices
Everyone who plans to host a Cardinal Home Server should read this page.
🟠 Important
🔵 Recommended
🟠 Disable the guest account before allowing remote access
Before exposing your Home Server to the public internet it is imperative that you disable the guest account for security reasons.
If you are using a VPN service like Tailscale for remote access, disabling the guest account is optional but still recommended.
🟠 Use good account security practices
- Use a password manager to generate a strong and unique password for your Cardinal account, and don't reuse it on other sites.
- Enable MFA in your Cardinal account settings.
🔵 Use fast storage
Installing Cardinal Home Server on an SSD will result in much faster day-to-day speeds than if it was installed on a regular hard drive.
🔵 Use the recommended folder structures
The indexing guide outlines the best way to structure your media files in your folders for each media type. Using the recommended structures will net better indexing results.
🔵 Use a custom signing secret
You can override the default signing secret with your own using the environment variable SIGNING_SECRET. Use a long (60+ characters) random string, and use Docker Compose secrets to add the secret to your docker-compose.yaml file.