Welcome to Part 5 of the Ubuntu home lab series. This part expands on our Podman setup by deploying more advanced services inside containers. We’ll run PostgreSQL with pgAdmin in a shared Pod, Node-RED for workflows, and Homarr for a beautiful home lab dashboard.
🐘 Step 1: Set Up PostgreSQL + pgAdmin in a Pod
Podman supports pods, similar to Kubernetes. Containers in a pod share network and can easily talk to each other.
1. Create the pod
podman pod create --name postgre-sql -p 9876:80
This exposes port 80 of the pod to port 9876 on the host.
2. Set up pgAdmin
mkdir -p ~/.config/containers/pgadmin
chmod -R 755 ~/.config/containers/pgadmin
podman volume create --opt device=$HOME/.config/containers/pgadmin \
--opt type=none --opt o=bind pgadmin-volume
podman run --pod postgre-sql \
-e 'PGADMIN_DEFAULT_EMAIL=youradmin@yourdomain.com' \
-e 'PGADMIN_DEFAULT_PASSWORD=passWoRd' \
-v pgadmin-volume:/var/lib/pgadmin \
--name pgadmin \
-d docker.io/dpage/pgadmin4:latest
This will pull the pgAdmin docker image and create a podman container in the pod we created earlier. You can use the cockpit to view the status.
3. Set up PostgreSQL
mkdir -p ~/.config/containers/postgres
chmod -R 755 ~/.config/containers/postgres
podman volume create --opt device=$HOME/.config/containers/postgres \
--opt type=none --opt o=bind postgres-volume
podman run --name postgredb \
--pod postgre-sql \
-d -e POSTGRES_USER=admin \
-e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=passWoRd \
-v postgres-volume:/var/lib/postgresql/data:rw,z \
docker.io/library/postgres:latest
This will pull the pgAdmin docker image and create a podman container in the pod we created earlier. You can use the cockpit to view the status.
4. Allow access
sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 9876 -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables-save | sudo tee /etc/iptables/rules.v4
Access the pgAdmin web interface by navigating to : http://<your-server-ip>:9876
In pgAdmin, add a new server:
6. Enable auto-start
Edit your startup script:
echo "podman pod start postgre-sql" >> ~/.config/containers/start.sh
🔗 Step 2: Run Node-RED
1. Create directory and volume
mkdir -p ~/.config/containers/nodered
chmod -R 755 ~/.config/containers/nodered
podman volume create --opt device=$HOME/.config/containers/nodered \
--opt type=none --opt o=bind nodered-data
2. Run the container
podman run -d \
-p 1880:1880 \
--name nodered \
-v nodered-data:/data \
--restart always \
docker.io/nodered/node-red:latest
3. Allow access
sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 1880 -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables-save | sudo tee /etc/iptables/rules.v4
4. Enable auto-start
echo "podman start nodered" >> ~/.config/containers/start.sh
Access: http://<your-server-ip>:1880
🧭 Step 3: Set Up Homarr Dashboard
Homarr is a wonderful dashboard that will make your home lab server more accessible and easy to use. It provides a beautiful UI to access all your self-hosted apps.
1. Create directories
mkdir -p ~/.config/containers/homarr/configs
mkdir -p ~/.config/containers/homarr/icons
mkdir -p ~/.config/containers/homarr/data
chmod -R 755 ~/.config/containers/homarr
2. Create volumes
podman volume create --opt device=$HOME/.config/containers/homarr/configs --opt type=none --opt o=bind homarr-configs
podman volume create --opt device=$HOME/.config/containers/homarr/icons --opt type=none --opt o=bind homarr-icons
podman volume create --opt device=$HOME/.config/containers/homarr/data --opt type=none --opt o=bind homarr-data
3. Run the container
podman run -d \
-p 7575:7575 \
--name homarr \
-v homarr-configs:/app/data/configs \
-v homarr-icons:/app/public/icons \
-v homarr-data:/data \
--restart unless-stopped \
-e DEFAULT_COLOR_SCHEME=dark \
ghcr.io/ajnart/homarr:latest
4. Allow access
sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 7575 -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables-save | sudo tee /etc/iptables/rules.v4
5. Enable auto-start
echo "podman start homarr" >> ~/.config/containers/start.sh
Access: http://<your-server-ip>:7575
Coming up next in Part 6: we’ll simplify access to all these services using Nginx as a reverse proxy so you can use friendly URLs like http://jellyfin.myserver.home instead of remembering port numbers.
Stay tuned for Part 6: Nginx Reverse Proxy for Clean URLs!
