Because buying the solution is boring!
Why you need Tailscale becomes obvious the moment you want secure, reliable access to your home network from anywhere without opening ports or exposing services to the internet. This post explains why you need Tailscale, and why I intentionally treat my Plex server as the only entry point into my network.
This post documents how I believe you should be securing your indexers; primarily Prowlarr, Sonarr and Radarr, along with the automation services that depend on it behind an always-on VPN using custom systemd scripts.
These services do not download torrents themselves, but they make constant outbound requests to indexers and third-party APIs. I don’t want that traffic coming directly from my home IP.
The goal is simple and strict: if the VPN isn’t up, the indexers should not be running.
If you’re running a self-hosted media setup, Sonarr, Radarr, and Prowlarr are usually mentioned together — but it’s not always obvious why. They aren’t redundant, and they don’t do the same job. Each one handles a specific part of the pipeline, and when wired correctly, the whole system mostly runs itself.
If you search for “install Sonarr on Linux,” you’ll find plenty of guides telling you to add a repo, install Mono, and call it a day. On Raspbian, that advice is outdated and mostly broken.
I hit this wall myself. The traditional Sonarr install steps that work on Ubuntu or Debian-based servers either fail outright or leave you with a non-functional service on Raspberry Pi. This article documents what actually works on Raspbian today.
Sonarr is one of those tools that feels optional until you use it for a week—then you wonder how you ever managed TV shows manually. This post walks through installing Sonarr on a Linux-based system, assuming you already have basic Linux access and aren’t afraid of the terminal.
If Linux still feels unfamiliar, I strongly recommend reading A Beginner’s Guide to Linux first. It explains distributions, package managers, and basic commands used throughout this guide.