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Homelab

Deploy Dashy — A Clean, Self-Hosted Homelab Dashboard

Sudeep Shrestha

• 3 min read
Deploy Dashy — A Clean, Self-Hosted Homelab Dashboard

If you're running a homelab, you know the struggle: services scattered across different ports, IPs you can never quite remember, and browser bookmarks that spiral out of control. Dashy solves all of that with a beautiful, self-hosted dashboard that puts everything in one place — and it takes less than five minutes to get running.

What is Dashy?

Dashy is an open-source, highly customizable homepage for your homelab. It lets you organize all your self-hosted services into a clean, icon-rich dashboard accessible from any device on your network. You can group services into sections, add status indicators, set up authentication, and even theme it to match your style.

No account required. No cloud dependency. Just you, Docker, and a single config file.

Requirements

Before you start, make sure you have Docker and Docker Compose installed on your machine.

If you haven't set those up yet, I've written a dedicated guide covering the full installation process: 👉 Easy Docker and Docker Compose Install on Linux Machine

Option 1 — Quick Start with a Single Docker Command

If you just want to spin it up and poke around, a single docker run command is all you need:

bash

docker run -p 8080:8080 lissy93/dashy

This pulls the latest Dashy image and maps it to port 8080 on your host. Open your browser and hit http://<your-server-ip>:8080 to see it live.

For anything beyond a quick test, Docker Compose is the way to go. It gives you a persistent config file, automatic restarts, health checks, and a cleaner setup you can version-control.

Step 1 — Create the Config File

This is the most important step and easy to miss. Dashy requires a config file to exist before the container starts. If you skip this, the container will fail or throw errors on first run.

Create the directory and config file:

bash

sudo mkdir -p /dashy
sudo nano /dashy/conf.yml

Paste in this minimal starting config:

yaml

pageInfo:
  title: Dashy
sections: []

Save and close. That's all you need to get Dashy to boot — you can configure everything else from the UI later.

Step 2 — Create the Docker Compose File

Create a docker-compose.yml wherever you manage your stacks (e.g., /opt/dashy/):

yaml

services:
  dashy:
    image: lissy93/dashy:latest
    container_name: Dashy
    volumes:
      # Map your local config file to the container
      - /dashy/conf.yml:/app/user-data/conf.yml
    ports:
      - 8080:8080
    environment:
      - NODE_ENV=production
    restart: unless-stopped
    healthcheck:
      test: ['CMD', 'node', '/app/services/healthcheck']
      interval: 1m30s
      timeout: 10s
      retries: 3
      start_period: 40s

A few things worth noting about this config:

  • volumes — Maps your local /dashy/conf.yml into the container so your configuration persists across restarts and updates.
  • restart: unless-stopped — Dashy comes back up automatically after a reboot or Docker daemon restart.
  • healthcheck — Docker will periodically ping Dashy's built-in healthcheck endpoint. If it fails repeatedly, Docker will flag the container as unhealthy, making it easy to spot issues.

Step 3 — Start the Container

bash

docker compose up -d

The -d flag runs it in detached mode (in the background). Docker will pull the image if it's not already cached and start the container.

Step 4 — Open the Dashboard

Open your browser and navigate to:

http://<your-server-ip>:8080

You should see the Dashy dashboard — empty for now, but ready to be filled with all your homelab services.

Configuring Your Dashboard

Once it's running, you have two ways to configure Dashy:

  • UI Editor — Click the pencil icon in the top-right corner of the dashboard. You can add sections, services, icons, and links through a visual interface. When you save, it writes directly back to your conf.yml file.
  • Edit conf.yml directly — Preferred if you like keeping your config in Git or want to bulk-add services. After editing, restart the container for changes to take effect:

bash

docker compose restart

Tips

  • Icons — Dashy has built-in support for Simple Icons and Material Design Icons, so most popular self-hosted apps already have a matching icon available.
  • Status indicators — Dashy can ping your services and show a live status dot on each tile. Enable it per-item with statusCheck: true in your config.
  • Reverse proxy — For accessing Dashy (and your other services) without typing port numbers, pair it with a reverse proxy like NGINX Proxy Manager or Caddy.
  • Backups — Since everything lives in /dashy/conf.yml, just back up that one file and you can restore your entire dashboard anywhere.

Dashy is one of those tools that quietly becomes essential in a homelab. Once you have it set up, you'll wonder how you kept track of everything before. Give it a spin and start adding your services — the more you add, the more useful it gets.

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