I’ve always wanted one, but I knew I didn’t need one. Money/Time spent on something that you really don’t need. TailScale and how much I travel were the reasons I finally justified the purchase and took the time to set it up. 

I purchased a low-end Mac mini, an HDMI dummy plug, and an external HD for Time Machine. Hardwire the Mac mini into your router. To start the headless operation, you need to plug in a screen, keyboard, and mouse initially. If you don’t have a spare screen lying around, you can use an iPad and the Orion App with a USB-C Capture Card. This is what I did, and it worked brilliantly. Set up sharing, enable screen sharing, and configure the power-saving options you want. I recommend turning off power saving and leaving it running all the time, as that’s its purpose. Turn on auto-login for the account you will use to manage it. If the mini restarts, you want it to log in automatically and start Plex and TailScale. You’re still protected, because you’ll set the screen saver to require the password immediately.

After that is set up, you can unplug your attachments and plug in the HDMI dummy plug so the mini thinks a screen is always attached. Head to your main computer, find the mini on your network, and screen share into it. You should never need to attach anything to it now. Keep things updated, and work on it using screen sharing from now on. 

Numerous blogs, YouTube videos, and LLMs offer guidance on home server settings, so I won’t go into more detail.

I deleted the apps I didn’t want on the mini, logged into my Apple account, turned off cloud sync for desktop items, and installed Plex Server and TailScale. Plugged in a 4TB external HD for Time Machine and set that up. 

I opened Plex, pointed it to my home NAS, and ensured it started automatically at login. TailScale setup can be a bit involved, and here is where I reached out to ChatGPT for some guidance: I wanted an Exit Node and Subnet for my home LAN. There is some command-line work here that was beyond my skill level. 

Now, when I’m traveling, which is every week, whether I have my iPad, Mac, or iPhone, I activate TailScale, turn on the Exit Node for my mini. It’s just like I’m sitting at home. I’m protected as well, or better, than any commercial VPN, and I have access to any computer, NAS, router, or external HD on my home wifi network. 

I can open Plex and watch live TV or media on my NAS. I was nothing short of frustrated with Plex Server running on my NAS. I had nothing but problems, and eventually just deleted it. But so far, Plex running on my mini has been rock-stable. I still prefer using Infuse for the front end to Plex. It just works. 

The one area I have been unable to make work is printing to my home printers from the road. In theory, you can do this. I can make the printer print pages, but they’re blank. There is a communication error in the printer setup somehow. I found my printers on the home network, renamed them, and attached them in a Finder window. Tried to print, but it doesn’t work. I went into Printer settings on my home computer and added the printers by their IP addresses, trying every available communication protocol, but that didn’t work either.  I can open a Note and print it, but it prints blank. I’ve tried every different setting, consulted ChatGPT, and no dice. I don’t see a reason ever to print anything at home from the road, but I wanted to know if I could make it work. 

Another advantage of the mini server is an additional place to store user documents on your home network. If you’re uncomfortable having a document you’re working on in the cloud, save it to your mini with the security of Time Machine backing everything up.  You could also set up a web server to run a website. The internet offers many options and ideas for your home server. 

It was a fun process; I really enjoyed setting it up and tweaking things. My primary purpose and justification are the TailScale benefits; as much as I travel, having the ability to browse the internet safely and access my home LAN is peace of mind. So far on the road, I’ve had zero issues with performance or speed, doing all my internet needs through my home wifi. 

To put a finer point on this Exit Node/Subnet feature, when you log into TailScale on your iPad, iPhone, Mac, any device, and then activate your home mini server Exit Node that is also setup to be a Subnet, your device thinks it’s on your home LAN, you can do a IP address lookup and you’ll show back at home. You have full access to everything on your home wifi. (Except maybe your printers) When you surf the internet, you are using your home wifi. Any website that cares where you are physically (I know some financial institutions won’t let you log in if you are out of the country) will think you are home. This can also come into play with some streaming services.  The Exit Node gives you access to your home internet. The Subnet provides access to your home LAN. You can set up an Exit Node with or without a Subnet. 

I’m no expert, and my terminology could be wrong in places; for that, I apologize. You networking experts will cringe at reading this (actually, no networking experts are reading my blog, ha!) Set up a home server and play with it; you’ll gain some good things. 

If you have any questions, please post them below, and I’ll do my best to answer them. As always, thanks for stopping by.