The server is what keeps your devices in step. It also does the heavy reading — anything uploaded from a phone gets its text read there, so a document scanned on the go is searchable without your computer being involved.
Where to run it
There is no right answer here — it comes down to where you want the archive to sit and how you want to reach it. The same server software runs in all three places.
On your NAS
The most common choice, and the disks are already there. Synology, TrueNAS, Unraid and similar all work.
On a Windows PC
An installer sets it up to run in the background, with a small tray icon for starting, stopping and checking on it.
On a rented server
Rent a VPS if you want the archive reachable from anywhere without opening up your home network. Same software, same control — just someone else's electricity bill.
The admin page
The server has a web page for the handful of things you actually need: what is going on right now, your archives, which devices are connected, codes for adding new ones, backups, and the log when something needs explaining. It is where you add a device or cut one off.
Day to day
- It runs in the background and starts with the machine
- Backups on a schedule, with a passphrase, and a restore that checks itself
- A status page you can point a monitoring tool at, so you hear about problems before your family does
- Documents uploaded from a phone become searchable on their own
More than one server
A server can follow another server and keep the same archive in both places — which is how a summer house, an off-site copy, or a family across several homes is built. See Sync between devices for what that looks like.
- On a NAS or anything with Docker
- Image: jventech/jodoc-server
- On Windows
- An installer that sets it up as a background service
- Ports
- 8714 and 8715 by default, both changeable
- Reachable from
- Your own network only, or published at an address of your own