Ask HN: How can a total beginner start with self-hosting?

tl;dr Please point me to a true beginner’s reference/tutorial on networking.

Gradually, patiently, persistently, over the past ten years and more, I moved from Windows and Mac to all FOSS apps and then full Linux. Doing the same with my phone. Total success. Independence and self-reliance.

In short it’s all about control, privacy, and security, in that order. And: it’s a long term process that requires a commitment.

I understand desktop Linux (Ubuntu/Pop!_OS) well enough to get myself out of trouble when I mess up or an update breaks. But I have no clue about networking, and I don’t know where to start.

Syncthing keeps a handful of my important directories of user-files synced quite reliably.

I deleted my Google account years ago. But I’m still in iCloud and iOS for all the photos. Highly recommend Fastmail incidentally.

I have a small cheap Linode VPS (doing nothing right now), a Mullvad client on all my devices, Tailscale on all my devices (doing nothing because I don’t understand what it can do), and a Synology NAS in the closet with the modem/router (none of which I understand).

I want to:

- host my own photos and get out of Apple.

- host my own bare git repos and not rely on GitHub.

- host my own BitWarden server.

- host my own Tail-/Headscale (whatever the noun is).

- follow up on ideas that pop up after I comprehend networking.

I can HERPaDERP install packages on client and server, and copypasta configs I don’t understand. Where do I go to understand?

I can recommend openmediavault. It comes as something you can setup on any logic machine or on a raspberry pi. It comes with many storage servers built-in, and can also run any container service as well.

Well, with Tailscale you have your own private network, so anything you run anywhere you can access on any device. You could DIY it a bit more using something like WireGuard directly (Tailscale uses WireGuard under the hood), but Tailscale makes it much easier, particularly with managing adding new devices, using DNS, etc.

I don't see much downside to sticking with Tailscale indefinitely, what are your reasons?

I do not know of an opinionated beginners guide, but would recommend browsing r/selfhosted and r/homelab a bit. Lots of these and similar questions are answered on a regular basis.

Some starting points

- photos: NextCloud

- git: Gitea

- BitWarden: Vaultwarden (even if you deploy this locally you want a SSL certificate as clients will refuse to connect otherwise)

I'd suggest using official docker images to get started as there’s plenty documentation available for all projects and experimenting is a bit easier when you can simply dispose a container without having to worry what’ll happen to your host OS.

As long as you run services locally on your Synology (assuming it supports docker) and don’t expose them to the Internet I’d encourage you to „just give it a try“.

Just don’t immediately start to rely on the services and run a dual strategy (NextCloud and iCloud photos for example) till you updated your container once or twice and feel comfortable troubleshooting issues with your stack. Nothing is more discouraging than having a service you need „right now“ being down and no idea how to get it back up.

It’ll be a long, fun journey. Good luck!

My suggestion, which many people will probably disagree with here, is to go take the following certifications:

- CompTIA Network+

- Linux Foundation Certified IT Associate

For extra credit, pass the Linux Foundation Kubernetes certs, get a AWS cert, pass the Offensive Security PEN-200 cert, or take any of the GIAC certs. These won't make you competent, but they'll provide a baseline that you can quickly attain which will get you started.

After those, maybe consider project-based learning.

- Install Arch Linux

- Install Linux from Scratch

- Learn to use QubesOS and make your own OS templates/ISO.

I'm certain others here will say certs are a waste. I do not agree. They are a way for people who don't have enough context to quickly build that context.

Good luck!