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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

#411

Post by gorgoiler »

dr-smooth wrote: post #189

The problem I have always had when building elaborate home server setups is the "set it and forget it" nature of the systems I've installed bites me in the ass. Since it's not my full-time job to manage these systems, I'm really not familiar with them the way I might be with the systems I manage at work. These systems cruise along for years, and when something finally does go belly-up, I can't remember how I set it u…

You don’t even need Docker. Another great technology to learn is LXC and driving it from the CLI / a script.

All my hosts run a default OS with a 20 line firewall and a bridge.

The top level host has a zpool backed by a blank file in /tank.device.

The actual work is done by a bunch of LXC hosts all cloned from a standard base installation. Anything persistent goes in a per container zfs filesystem mounted in each container’s root. The only thing I ever backup is the /tank.device file.

Wiping everything and building from scratch is a pleasure.

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#412

Post by tibu »

bscphil wrote: post #47
napsterbr wrote: post #21

> I’m living in Germany, so the obvious choice was to spin up my instances in Vultr‘s* data center in Frankfurt, as ping is the lowest to that center for me. The author is probably aware of this, but just in case they aren't: Hetzner is an amazing company with two or three datacenters in Germany. I don't remember if any of them are in Frankfurt, but given they offer VPSs and beefy dedicated machines, I'd be fine trad…

I don't know what qualifies as "amazing company" in your eyes (they're certainly cheap for what you get), but my experience was certainly very bad: I rented a VPS from them experimentally for a month, then left to go on vacation thinking I had cancelled it, but I had not. They left it running for another month that I hadn't paid for, and then sent the bill for the extra month to collections, so that's presumably affe…

You had a contract with them. Just by simply not paying the fee does not mean canceling the contract usually. Which I am grateful.

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#413

Post by marceldegraaf »

ruph123 wrote: post #407

Regarding sever hosting: Hetzner has a very attractive server auction on their website [0]. For about 30€ you can get several terrabytes with a fast cpu and plenty of RAM. No set-up fee either. These are unmanaged dedicated root servers. Basically cancelled sever subscriptions are first offered here again before they take apart the server. So the offerings vary and are time-limited. However, if you pull the trigger t…

Seconding this – Hetzner also has pretty decent technical support considering the price.

If you get one of their servers, make sure to check the manufacturer and type of hard drives and compare to Backblaze's Hard Drive Stats[1]. Also keep an eye on the S.M.A.R.T. status of your disks. In the past Hetzner has shipped servers with less-than-ideal hard disks (e.g. Seagate ST3000DM001). While their staff is pretty fast in replacing disks they do tend to start breaking all around the same time.

[1] https://www.backblaze.com/b2/hard-drive-test-data.html

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#414

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

nine_k wrote: post #391
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

"Don't use such a browser then!"

Never said that I did! :)

I use a text-only browser for reading HTML. Many times I do even use a browser for making HTTP requests.

Truly one can use all these strategies, application-based, router-based, gateway-based, if they are available. They are not mutually exclusive. Personally I just would not feel like I can rely on extensions or other solutions tied to some software I do not compile myself. (I do edit and compile the text-only browser.)

All due respect to Firefox, but I have found compiling it is way too time and resource-intensive. It is way beyond what I need for recreational web use. Firefox users seem to rely on Mozilla to do the right things on their behalf. That is not the sort of "control by the user" I am after.

What is behind Mozilla. Online advertising money. Cannot really count on them to do what I want.

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#415

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

slenk wrote: post #400
sergeykish wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Gateway, not router. I personally do very few and simple things on the gateway. Way less than what an average default-configured router running OpenWRT does.

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#416

Post by jonseager »

everybodyknows wrote: post #390
jonseager wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh and I should mention, email hosted with Fastmail. Been super happy with it. All the DNS setup etc is Terraform’d in the repo

I chose Fastmail for Yubikey support, and unlimited mail aliases. A little dissatisfied with mail organization tools on the webmail GUI — but it’s also the client for alias creation, so gets frequent use anyway. Are NextCloud email org tools much better?

Can’t say I have any experience, I tend to use the Fastmail web client, or the standard iOS mail client.

Agree with your point on aliases though

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#417

Post by yellowapple »

dr-smooth wrote: post #189

The problem I have always had when building elaborate home server setups is the "set it and forget it" nature of the systems I've installed bites me in the ass. Since it's not my full-time job to manage these systems, I'm really not familiar with them the way I might be with the systems I manage at work. These systems cruise along for years, and when something finally does go belly-up, I can't remember how I set it u…

> These days, I design everything for home with extreme simplicity coupled with detailed documentation on how I set things up.

Definitely a good strategy, yeah. And on the documentation front, that's exactly what I've started doing differently, too; after having to recreate my mail server one too many times, I eventually decided "you know what, I should probably write down what I'm doing", and now if things go belly-up again I at least have that starting point.

As a bonus, you can also put it online as a tutorial, which is exactly what I did: https://mail.yellowapple.us :)

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#418

Post by gtf21 »

m463 wrote: post #149
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…

I think do a little at a time and keep at it. Over time it adds up. At sometime you will hit something interesting: Personal Sovereignty. I've seen other folks hit this in weird ways. My friend started working on cars with his buddy. They finally got to an old vehicle they took all the way apart and put it together. He had gotten to the point where he could pull the engine and put it on a stand, weld things, paint, r…

I had this with my bicycle at some point -- learning to fix and tweak oneself without having to go to a mechanic was eye-opening. Reminds me of the core premises in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#419

Post by iforgotpassword »

dr-smooth wrote: post #189

The problem I have always had when building elaborate home server setups is the "set it and forget it" nature of the systems I've installed bites me in the ass. Since it's not my full-time job to manage these systems, I'm really not familiar with them the way I might be with the systems I manage at work. These systems cruise along for years, and when something finally does go belly-up, I can't remember how I set it u…

I feel the same, however I force myself to keep doing that. Without docker.

Yes, every time a new debian release is out something I fiddled with will break and I have to remember how it works, but I see it as some sort of training. As a dev I don't want to be completely clueless about how things I use every day work, so while changes that break old configs and workflows are annoying I'm forced to learn what changed in the gnu/linux/debian world and maybe even find out why.

Also I get better at documenting things. Years ago I didn't even know what exactly to document since the moment you do something everything just naturally comes together, but after a couple times you kinda get a feeling for what the important bits will be two years down the line.

So about once a year I reserve a perfectly good weekend to upgrade, restructure or otherwise maintain my little home server running debian with things like mariadb, nginx, a filtering bridge for my lan, dnsmasq with a block list, borgbackup, syncthing, cups for printing and a couple other things I don't remember right now.

Re: Screw it, I’ll host it myself

#420

Post by Hedepig »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #414
nine_k wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Don't use such a browser then!" Never said that I did! :) I use a text-only browser for reading HTML. Many times I do even use a browser for making HTTP requests. Truly one can use all these strategies, application-based, router-based, gateway-based, if they are available. They are not mutually exclusive. Personally I just would not feel like I can rely on extensions or other solutions tied to some software I do not…

> I use a text-only browser for reading HTML.

Is that getting more difficult with the prevelance of JavaScript driven websites?

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