> Bercail is a free, open-source, self-hosted start page for your homelab, and a Homepage, Homarr, Dashy, Homer and Heimdall alternative: your links with live online status, weather, host vitals, Umami analytics and a new tab extension.
> Source: https://orochibraru.com/bercail · Site index: https://orochibraru.com/llms.txt

# Bercail

A start page for your homelab. The weather and your server’s vitals at the top,
your links below, each with a dot that tells you whether it’s up before you
click it.

![The Bercail dashboard: weather, host gauges and analytics on top, groups of links below](https://orochibraru.com/images/e6b68534cd6337057ab1f74c3ba495ee77026b7ab112336797e8c6bb49935532.webp)
**The dashboard** Weather and the host’s vitals on top, links underneath, each
with its status dot. Straight out of the repo’s Playwright run, in whichever
theme your system uses.

## Your links

### Links in groups

Title, description, URL, same or new tab, and an icon: an image URL or any name
from [Dashboard Icons](https://dashboardicons.com/icons). Drag one by its grip
to reorder it or move it to another group.

### Online status

The server sends a `HEAD` to every link, 5 second timeout, cached for 30
seconds. Anything below a 500 counts as up. Self-signed certificates are fine.

### Search

`⌘K` / `Ctrl+K` to jump to any link or search the web.

### Backup and restore

Export your groups and links to JSON from Settings, and import them back.

## At a glance

### System stats

CPU, RAM, disk, temperature and GPU gauges for the host it runs on, refreshed
every 5 seconds. A metric it can’t read shows `N/A` and leaves the rest alone.

### Weather

Current conditions and a 5-day forecast from
[Open-Meteo](https://open-meteo.com/). No API key.

### Analytics

Live visitors, plus visitors and pageviews per website over 24 hours, 7, 30, 365
days and all time, from your own [Umami](https://umami.is/) v3 instance.

### Themes

Light, dark or system.

## Every new tab

A Chrome extension puts your Bercail on every new tab. Grab
`bercail-extension.zip` from the latest release, load it unpacked, point it at
your instance. After the first visit the page comes out of a service worker
cache, so a new tab doesn’t wait on the server.

## An alternative to what, exactly

Homelab start pages are a crowded shelf. Here is where Bercail sits on it,
including where it loses.

### Homepage alternative

Homepage is configured in YAML and talks to more services than anyone runs.
Bercail is edited in the page itself and ships a handful of widgets. If you want
a tile for every \*arr in your stack, keep Homepage.

### Homarr & Dashy alternative

Both do everything, and have the settings screens to prove it. Bercail is links,
status, weather, vitals and analytics, in one container with one SQLite file.

### Homer alternative

Homer is a static page, so anything live happens in your browser, where CORS and
self-signed certificates get in the way. Bercail checks your links from the
server, and doesn’t mind either.

### Heimdall & Flame alternative

The same idea — a tidy grid of your apps — with an up/down dot on every link, a
`⌘K` palette, and your server’s gauges above them.

### start.me & Momentum alternative

A new tab page without an account on someone else’s server. The extension opens
your own instance, and it can see the machines on your LAN, which theirs can’t.

## Run it

### Docker Compose

```yaml
services:
  bercail:
    image: orochibraru/bercail:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      ORIGIN: https://dash.example.com
    ports:
      - 3000:3000
    volumes:
      - ./data:/app/data
```

**One container, one volume.** Everything lives in a SQLite file under
`/app/data`, and migrations run on startup. Images are published for
`linux/amd64` and `linux/arm64`. Every setting is optional; set `ORIGIN` to the
URL you browse to, or forms fail behind a reverse proxy.

Without `OIDC_ISSUER` it’s open to anyone who can reach it. Set it, with a
client ID and secret, and every page asks for sign-in through your provider:
Pocket ID, Authentik, Authelia, Keycloak. `OIDC_ALLOWED_EMAILS` narrows who gets
in — set it unless your provider already does.