Claude
0fde1a2542
Records the sizing methodology worked out for this repo's services (RAM as the binding constraint, per-service budget ranges, when a swapfile matters) against two real VPS plans, plus a recap of the full service list planned for the 4 vCPU/4GB/120GB IONOS box: the core stack, the utility adds, the NetBird-for-remote-access vs wg-easy-for-local-testing split, and what was deliberately left out and why. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01TBtExJcqxnokyZZKmphdug
135 lines
6.8 KiB
Markdown
135 lines
6.8 KiB
Markdown
# VPS sizing & recommended services
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Reference notes from sizing this repo's services against real VPS plans.
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Not project documentation for contributors — a planning record for picking
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services against a given vCPU/RAM/disk budget.
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## How to size a VPS for this repo's services
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For this class of self-hosted workload (web apps, a PBX, a few Docker
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containers — no video transcoding, no ML inference), **RAM is almost always
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the binding constraint, not CPU or disk.** CPU only matters once something is
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transcoding video, mixing many conference audio streams, or running local
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AI inference — none of which apply to most services in this repo. Disk only
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matters once local media storage is involved.
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Rough per-service RAM budget, idle:
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| Kind of service | ~RAM |
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|---|---|
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| OS + Docker daemon baseline | 300-500MB |
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| JVM apps (Traccar, UniFi) | 350-500MB |
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| App with its own Postgres/MariaDB (Mattermost, Nextcloud, Immich) | +150-250MB for the DB alone, on top of the app |
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| Lightweight single-binary apps (Go/Rust — ntfy, vaultwarden, wg-easy, homebox, actualbudget, syncthing, portainer, coturn) | 20-150MB each |
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| Headless-Chrome-backed apps (archivebox, changedetection's JS mode) | 300-500MB+ |
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Rules of thumb:
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- Keep at least 25-30% of total RAM free at idle for burst load (image
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pulls, log bursts, concurrent call/session spikes).
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- A swapfile is cheap insurance below ~2GB RAM. `services/asterisk.sh`
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already automates this for droplet installs ≤2GB — the same logic applies
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to any small box running more than one service.
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- Sharing one `coturn` instance (`services/coturn.sh`) instead of letting
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each WebRTC-capable service (Asterisk, Mattermost) embed its own saves a
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container per consumer and — more importantly — avoids relay-port
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collisions between them.
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## Tier 1 — ~1 vCPU / 1GB RAM / 25GB SSD
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Example: DigitalOcean Basic, $6/mo.
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This is tight enough that Docker's own daemon overhead is already a
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meaningful fraction of the box. **Pick one purpose, not a stack:**
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- **Option A — Asterisk only.** Asterisk + the shared coturn service fits
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comfortably per this repo's own droplet-sizing notes (`services/asterisk.sh`
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README section) — a swapfile is added automatically on droplets ≤2GB, and
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this plan is "fine for a couple of extensions and light personal use."
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- **Option B — a lightweight utility box.** Caddy + CrowdSec + NetBird
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(all near-zero RAM) plus at most one or two of the smallest apps (`ntfy`,
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`vaultwarden`, `wg-easy`) — total comfortably under 500MB.
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**Avoid on this tier:** anything with its own database (Mattermost,
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Traccar, Nextcloud), more than one substantial app, media/AI/gaming
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services. There's no headroom for a second heavy thing once the first one
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is running.
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## Tier 2 — 4 vCores / 4GB RAM / 120GB NVMe
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Example: IONOS VPS M+, $11/mo. **This is the tier actually planned out in
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detail** — see the recap below.
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## What I was planning for the IONOS 4 vCPU / 4GB / 120GB box
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Reconstructed from the sizing conversation, in the order decisions were made:
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**Core stack (the original ask):**
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- `caddy` — reverse proxy / HTTPS
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- `crowdsec` — intrusion prevention
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- `asterisk` — PBX, using the **shared** `coturn` service (not embedded)
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- `mattermost` × 2 — genuinely isolated instances (separate dir/containers/DB
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per instance), both sharing the one `coturn` service — this required
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merging PR #265 (`claude/droplet-capacity-assessment-s2voix`), which
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extracted `coturn` into `services/coturn.sh` and added real multi-instance
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support to `services/mattermost.sh`; merged into `main` at commit `6151ede`
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- `traccar` — GPS tracking
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**Validated call load:** up to 9 concurrent Asterisk calls, at most 1
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Mattermost call at a time, 0 screen share. Comfortably within budget —
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no transcoding/conferencing/heavy-video load in this profile, so CPU has
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large margin and RAM sits around 2.0-2.7GB idle with the core stack alone.
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**Utility adds, agreed:**
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- `ntfy`, `wg-easy`, `portainer`, `syncthing`, `homebox`, `actualbudget`,
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`mealie`
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**Explicitly declined:** `vaultwarden`
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**Remote / cross-VLAN access:** NetBird — hosted control plane (not
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self-hosted), client-only, with its embedded SSH server enabled
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(`--allow-server-ssh`, JWT/OIDC-based user auth, no user SSH keypair to
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manage). Already implemented in `services/base.sh` (`_base_setup_netbird()`)
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as part of every box's base install — nothing further to build for this.
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Chosen over self-hosting a WireGuard mesh once it was clear that (a) a
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hub-routed WireGuard design makes the VPS a single point of failure for
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*inter-peer* connectivity specifically, not just VPS access, and (b) a
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different person ever needing access means hand-editing `authorized_keys`
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on every box instead of revoking centrally — NetBird's actual value here is
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solving both, not just being "zero-config."
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**`wg-easy`'s role, narrowed:** kept in the utility-add list, but as a
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**local-VLAN WireGuard testing ground**, not the primary remote-access path
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— that's NetBird's job. The hub-routed peer mesh (`WG_ALLOWED_IPS=0.0.0.0/0`
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by default, so any two enrolled peers already reach each other through the
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VPS with no per-pair config) plus a `sync-ssh-aliases.sh` companion script
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(reads peers straight off the live WireGuard interface via `wg show`,
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generates `~/.ssh/config` Host aliases) is already built and pushed
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(`claude/vps-capacity-assessment-r57vw3`, commit `4a0ec63`).
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**Floated, not yet decided:** running `lyrion` (music) and/or
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`audiobookshelf` on the VPS with HTTPS via Caddy, but pointing them at a
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home-hosted library over a VPN tunnel instead of storing media locally —
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architecturally sound (both services already just bind-mount a host path;
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point it at a network-mounted share instead) and avoids the disk/CPU
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tradeoffs of a local media library, but real bandwidth depends on home
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upload speed, which wasn't checked.
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**Explicitly out of scope for this box** (wrong fit, not "can't run"):
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- Local media servers storing media on the VPS (`emby`, `jellyfin`,
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`immich`, `audiobookshelf`/`lyrion` *without* the home-library-over-VPN
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approach above) — disk-hungry, and transcoding CPU load risks contending
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with active calls.
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- AI stacks (`ai-stack`, `ai-gpu`, `iopaint`, `paintplus`) — need real
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VRAM/RAM most VPS plans don't have.
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- Gaming (`minecraft`, `wolf`, `wolf-pair`, `sunshine`, `kyber-*`) — CPU/RAM
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heavy; cloud-gaming ones need GPU passthrough.
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- Cameras/NVR (`frigate*`, `sky-cam`) — needs real camera feeds; doesn't
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make sense geographically on a VPS.
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- `nextcloud` + `onlyoffice` — the combined PHP+DB+office-suite stack alone
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would likely eat most of the remaining headroom.
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- `unifi` — only worth ~300-500MB of Java if actually managing Ubiquiti
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gear from this box.
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- SSH `ProxyJump`/bastion-hop chaining for reaching genuinely isolated
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(CGNAT, no local peer) boxes — a good idea in principle, parked for later
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since NetBird already covers the current need.
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