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Screw it, I’ll host it myself

markozivanovic.com

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Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#391

Post by nine_k »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #376
nine_k wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much a gateway router can do here. Most of the data passing it are encrypted: https, SSH. Cutting off the phone-home requests is best done on respective devices: you can run firewalls on most desktops and laptops, and even phones. Рhones often go online via GSM or LTE, without passing through the home router. While a proxy like pihole can be helpful sometimes, cutting off tracking and ads is done best by…

"I wonder how much a gateway router can do here." "... cutting off tracking and ads is best done by browser extensions ..." What if the browser vendor, who is also a data collector, requires user to log in or otherwise identify herself before she can use extensions. A home "gateway" is a computer running a kernel with IP forwarding enabled that is being used as the point of egress from the home network to the interne…

Don't use such a browser then! Firefox is pretty good.

An on-device firewall can firewall individual processes and applications. An upstream / gateway firewall does not have such fine-grained control. That was my point.

Running stuff on my router is entirely possible, but I limit it to routing and running a wireguard endpoint. I prefer to run my private stuff in the confines of the home LAN.

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#392

Post by NorwegianDude »

lucideer wrote: post #124
FunnyLookinHat wrote: post #4

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…

After reading through it all, I think this is more a condemnation of the author's diagram (or at least their decision to put that particular one up-front), than of their process in general, nor the challenge. Breakdown of (my) issues with the diagram: - author's interaction with each device is explicitly included, adding unnecessary noise - "partial" and "full" real-time sync are shown as separate processes, whereas…

Doesn't look very simplified on mobile, that's for sure.

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#393

Post by rnotaro »

worik wrote: post #269

"for purely private use, I wouldn’t opt for AWS even if I had to choose now. I’ll leave it at that" I will elaborate: I started out with AWS several years ago. I could never work out how they calculated my bill, and had more than one >$100 shocks for hosting my personal services. I moved to DO and Vultr (stayed with DO for no real reason) and so shut everything down on AWS. But I still got a $0.50 monthly charge on m…

I am in the same boat, I'm not personnally using AWS anymore but i'm still charged x.1x$ a month. It's not worth it enough to track the charge down and I might just delete my account without forgetting to change my email adress beforehand (since you can't reuse a deleted account email).

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#394

Post by kentonv »

hoophoop wrote: post #283
ryukafalz wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, the sibling comments mention a few alternatives (FreedomBox and Yunohost) but Sandstorm is really the only one I've ever used that makes me confident in the state of the system long-term. Let me elaborate on that. FreedomBox and Yunohost use more traditional software installation mechanisms; they'll install packages, run scripts, etc. They just add (sometimes very nice) UI around it. While that's great for some…

FreedomBox is the only one that security updates from Debian. And for more than five years. Without breaking changes.

Eh? People who installed Sandstorm in 2014 are still getting regular security auto-updates today, even if they haven't touched their server between then and now. The very first app package ever built for Sandstorm -- created before Sandstorm was even announced publicly -- still works today, on the latest version of Sandstorm.

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#396

Post by taneq »

trulyme wrote: post #239
j1elo wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh and don't forget that now maybe you make everything work, but in two years time your setup won't be reproducible, because chances are the original images are not available any more, they got deleted from Docker Hub some months after you used them. Yeah, you should update them anyway for security... but the setup itself is not reproducible, and being forced to use the latest version of something, with the new idios…

Maybe, but when the original docker image is no longer available on docker hub, chances are there will be something better and even easier to setup. And with docker you don't care about installing / uninstalling apps and figuring out where that obscure setting was hidden - all you need is just a stock distro and a bunch of docker-compose.yml files, plus some mounted directories with the actual data.

Even if so you're still spending say 50% of the original time investment every year or so just maintaining it. Unfortunately your options seem to be "set up once then never touch it again" or "update everything regularly and be at the mercy of everything changing and breaking at random times".

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#398

Post by rsync »

Macha wrote: post #185
pavon wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do then need to find somewhere to store an offsite backup of your encryption keys. That said, since those change far less often than your backups, options like a safety deposit box are a more realistic place to store keys than the backups themselves.

Yes, borg also has the option of storing them in the repo itself, protected by a passphrase (think encrypted ssh key files). Anyway, my "home burned down rescue bundle" consists of a flash drive with a keepass export of my password vault and encrypted borg repo key / rsync.net ssh keys at the office. Slightly less accessible in this pandemic world, but no safety deposit boxes needed.

Important to reiterate this, since it's an interesting feature - borg does, indeed, allow you to store the encryption key for your repository inside the repo itself and you just need to remember/safeguard the passphrase.

I can't say whether this is a good choice for any particular use-case but I appreciate that it is an option ...

For those that are curious, yes, you can later export the key from your repo so that you have a copy elsewhere ...

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#399

Post by Iv »

If there is one thing to take away it is this: VPS are cheap, something like 5$/month. Really consider having one, you will quickly use it more than you think.

When I was a student I wanted to test things on a distant server so I started renting a cheap OVH instance with SSH to test some silly ideas and host some static pages. It has been 20 years now and it hosts (one of) my backups, a professional website, several docker images, a gitolite and has saved me and colleagues numerous hassles when one of us has to share a few dozen GB of data.

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#400

Post by slenk »

sergeykish wrote: post #371
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author focuses the entire blog post on remote third party services that are alternatives to popular third party services financed by data collection as a "business model". IMO, the single most important component of a home network is not any piece of the hardware/software outside the home that the third parties may control, it is the internet gateway in the home. Routers were the most important computers at the d…

I am surprised too, it trully is home computer , connected to all computers inside and outside, and yet usual routers are cheap and dumb.

Your definition makes routers sound pretty smart, not dumb?

Cheap, yes.

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