Learn how a simple tool called DockerWakeUp can automatically start and stop your Docker containers on demand, saving homelab resources without sacrificing convenience.

I have a confession to make. I love my homelab, but I have a bad habit of leaving things running.

You know how it goes. You spin up a new service because it looks cool, play with it for a day, and then forget about it. A Nextcloud instance for file sharing, an Immich server for photo backups, maybe a game server for a weekend of fun with friends.

They’re all great, but they’re not all needed all the time.

Each one of those idle containers sits there, quietly sipping away at my server’s RAM and CPU cycles. It’s not a huge deal, but it feels… wasteful. I’ve always wanted a way to automatically shut down services when they aren’t being used, but without the hassle of manually starting them again. Logging into a terminal to type docker start every time I want to access a dashboard feels like a chore.

What if your services just woke up when you needed them?

I stumbled upon a neat little open-source project that does exactly this, and it’s one of those “why didn’t I think of that?” ideas. It’s called DockerWakeUp, and it’s a clever tool that works with Nginx to automatically start your Docker containers the moment they get a web request.

And the best part? It can also shut them down for you after a period of inactivity.

So, that Immich instance your family uses only occasionally? It stays asleep until someone opens the app on their phone. The moment they do, DockerWakeUp senses the traffic, wakes the container up, and a few seconds later, they’re browsing photos as if it were running all along. Once they’re done, the container can go back to sleep, saving you resources.

It’s a simple, lightweight solution to a common homelab problem.

How It Works (Without Getting Too Technical)

The magic is in the combination of a smart Nginx configuration and a small background service.

1. A Request Comes In: When you try to visit one of your self-hosted services, the request first hits Nginx, which acts as a reverse proxy.
2. Nginx Checks In: Instead of immediately trying to send the traffic to the container (which might be offline), Nginx asks DockerWakeUp, “Hey, is this service running?”
3. DockerWakeUp Does Its Thing: If the container is stopped, DockerWakeUp starts it. You’ll see a temporary loading page for a few seconds. Once the container is up and running, you’re automatically redirected.
4. Idle Timer: If you want, you can configure the tool to automatically stop the container after a set amount of idle time. No traffic for 30 minutes? It shuts the service down gracefully, ready for the next time it’s needed.

This makes it perfect for managing those services that you want available, but don’t need running 24/7.

A Few Ideas Where This Is Super Useful

After playing around with it, a few use cases immediately came to mind:

• Infrequently Used Apps: Perfect for self-hosted applications like Nextcloud, Immich, or wiki platforms that you or your family might only access a few times a week.
• Game Servers: This is a big one. Why keep a resource-hungry Minecraft or Valheim server running all week for a session that only happens on Friday night? Friends can just try to connect, and the server will spin up on demand.
• Utility & Dev Tools: We all have those dashboards and admin panels we only check once in a while. Things like Portainer, Uptime Kuma, or a documentation generator don’t need to be always-on.

It’s a simple, practical way to keep your homelab lean without sacrificing convenience. You get the resource savings of shutting things down with the always-on feel of leaving them running.

If you’re like me and have a collection of idle Docker containers, you might want to give it a look. It’s a small change that makes a real difference. The project is open source and available on GitHub if you want to check it out. It’s one of those little homelab upgrades that just makes sense.