I’ll answer my own question. I got one other family member added by inviting her via her phone number instead of iCloud email. The last family member is hopeless, but he is not the owner of any Home so I’m thinking I’ll reset his profile next time. I’ll have to dig up that post on how to do that.
I had an old MacBook Pro laying around so I put docker on it for fun.
it’s currently running an apache web server for me (with php) and has been rock solid. (I used to use mamp.)
I also run homebridge for my Apple Home on the mbp. homebridge uses brew (from brew.sh) for install/dependencies/etc.