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Screw it, I’ll host it myself

markozivanovic.com

161–170 of 495 posts

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#161

The most chilling reason for me to self-host is the third-party doctrine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine You don't really own any of your cloud data, even if it feels like it. If you want to own your data then it needs to reside on private computers in private spaces - though that does not preclude you from sharing but you lose control of what you share.

This is a key reason for why I started Helm - thehelm.com. There's a lot of talk here about the hassle of self-hosting and while many HN folks are perfectly capable of running their own servers/services, it can be very time consuming. We take away the hassle and provide the benefits of self-hosting at home.

I don't know anything about helm, but your promotional comments in here are getting a little shrill. I feel less inclined to investigate it tbh.

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#162
post #90
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should he care about your user experience, for his own personal apps?

I'm assuming that if he doesn't care about his website being performant for others, which is its main purpose, then he doesn't care about his other apps doing their main job well either.

Some people want to write. Some people want to be read.

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#163
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am perpetually confused about why people think that self-hosting on a VPS solves their privacy and security problems. While I'm sure there are controls in place at reputable VPS providers, it wouldn't be too difficult for them to grab absolutely anything they want. Even disk encryption doesn't save you. You're in a VM, they can watch the memory if they need to. Using a VPS can also make you more identifiable. Your…

So I agree with your sentiment, your details are a little off. “it wouldn't be too difficult for them to grab absolutely anything they want. Even disk encryption doesn't save you. You're in a VM, they can watch the memory if they need to.” It would be difficult because you’d have to have host access. VM disk encryption is now tied into an HSM or TPM these days, host access wouldn’t help. As for memory, that is now us…

> Encryption tied to TPM

Common on laptops, but I wouldn’t assume that for systems/SANs in a data center, much less their virtual disks. Would love to be corrected.

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#164
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the diagram gives a skewed view of how hard this actually is. I run a very similar setup only my VPS is only a proxy for my home server and it requires very little maintenance. I run everything with docker-compose and I haven't had to work on my setup at all this year and only about 8 hours in 2020 to setup the Wireguard network to replace the ssh tunnels I was using previously for VPS -> server communication…

Yes, and many popular applications are prepackaged as one-click apps by cloud providers like Vultr [1] or Digital Ocean [2]. [1]: https://www.vultr.com/features/one-click-apps/ [2]: https://marketplace.digitalocean.com You can also enable automatic backups for your servers.

Somewhat OT, but never realized how expensive those cloud instances are. For comparison, I pay $4.95/month (billed annually) for a KVM VPS with 2 Ghz, 2 GB RAM, 40gb SSD, 400 GB HDD in the Netherlands. That seems a lot better for selfhosting where you probably want more raw storage than more SSD space.

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#165

The diagram alone is more than enough of an argument to dissuade me from giving this a shot right now - it's simply too complicated and too much to manage for the amount of time I can dedicate to it. BUT - I'm really thankful for people who keep posting and sharing these sorts of projects; they're the ones iterating the process for the rest of us who need something a bit more turn-key. I'm excited to see this eventua…

The good thing (and one of the reasons I like Linux and dotfiles) is that you can start right away and keep sophisticating your setup as you go. You don't lose that configuration which is akin to knowledge.

I bought a Qnap NAS a month ago. I thought I would get it setup right away for my Linux machines, Macbooks, and network. I was wrong. But I'm slowly learning every couple days and now I have a systemd service that loads two volumes using NFS to my Linux machine.

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#166
post #9

Funny headline, because every time I try to self-host anything important like mail, I learn how deep that field is and how little I know and that I'll probably need many many hours to do everything right and in a secure way (and my mails would still have a higher probability to be classified as spam). Then I think: "Screw it, I'll just use GMail"

I use gmail too but I also have an email from my cheap hosting as a backup. The big problem with gmail is not that Google is reading my email but that this giants can lock you out without a reason and without a right to appeal. I am super salty that Sony banned my PlayStation account(used by my son) for 2 months (I have a Plus subscription paid for 1 year too) without no way for me to see the exact reason (was it a t…

[deleted]

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#167
I like the article and many of the recommendations (and some others to look up). I do host some of these things but likely never all of them.

The post wasn't entirely clear on whether it was primarily privacy motivated or availability. If it's not about strict privacy, it's far easier to use whatever is convenient and still allows you to stream-replicate the data. For Gmail, I send a copy for accessibility outside of Gmail. The post itself includes offsite-backup so you could just start there if you consider your primary use site to be the 'onsite'.

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardware sales. People will pay for the convenience of a device that works out of the box with minimal setup. On the software side, integrate tightly with your own subscription services (offsite backups, VPS, etc) to upsell to those who want that, and win over the enthusiast crowd by making it possible to host your own alternatives to those services with a little technical know-how. Open source most components to app…

Isn't this basically Synology?

sorta, but synology seems to lack the unifying product strategy and the consumer focus.

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#169
"Is it worth the time and hassle? Only you can answer that for yourself."

No. Absolutley not. The little sys admin work I have to do at work is all that I want to. I trust Apple and Google with all my stuff -- icloud storage, passwords, Google for email, etc. It just works, and I can move on with my life and focus on things of value to me instead of worrying about an upgrade blowing things up, security patching, backups, etc.

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#170

The most chilling reason for me to self-host is the third-party doctrine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine You don't really own any of your cloud data, even if it feels like it. If you want to own your data then it needs to reside on private computers in private spaces - though that does not preclude you from sharing but you lose control of what you share.

I don't self-host everything, for me it's enough if I can take out all my data. I have all my cloud hosted things mirror via rclone to local storage. So I'll gladly use git, IMAP, CalDav, CardDAV as a service but I'll have my local hot mirror and cold backups ready any time. Tools are readily available:

* git is git and clones * IMAP gets pulled via mbsync * CalDAV, CardDAV get pulled via akonadi and exported to flat files from there * Remote SSH/SFTP accessible storage gets pulled using rsync * Other remotes get pulled using rclone

and some more.

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