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

- K&R

- Stroustrup's 'Tour of C++'

- Programming Practice and Principles

You don't have to do the exercises because your main goal isn't to become a programmer. But reading through these and getting an idea how data, types, memory, and files work at a low level will help add a LOT of context to using Unix-based operating systems. The first two books you can probably get through in a weekend or two, the latter is quite a bit more, but you'll go a long way with the first 8-10 chapters + the ones about I/O.

This has little to directly do with networking, but many of the resources on networking assume the knowledge that is contained in those books. Networking is a whole intimidating ocean and using high-level resources is like starting at the surface, looking down into an abyss. With these books, there's still a whole ocean to explore, but now you've got scuba gear and you're standing on the ocean floor looking up.

However, self hosting is easy!!! Follow these 3 steps:

1. Get a computer 2. Install freebsd or linux 3. Install apache or nginx

Enjoy self hosting!!

Maybe that's 4 steps?

read the ubuntu server docs about setting up a firewall and get started setting up a firewall that only allows inbound ssh and https ( be careful and don't firewall yourself out of your system! :) )

https://ubuntu.com/server/docs/security-firewall

from there, read the docs on setting up a webserver and create an index.html with just the text "hello world" https://ubuntu.com/server/docs/web-servers-apache

from there, read and learn how to setup letsencrypt as manual as possible https://letsencrypt.org/how-it-works/

buy a domain and learn how to setup A records to point your domain to your external IP. Your domain registrar will allow you to make your own dns records

https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/dns/dns-records/dns-a-re...

if you can get https://mycustomdomain.com/index.html to output hello world in your browser with no certificate warnings then you've learned enough to start tackling self-hosting some packaged service out there. You'll at least know enough to know what to search for when looking for answers.

if you're installing all this on a computer in your home network then you'll need to login to your home router and port forward 443 to your ubuntu server. This would be a good learning experience too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_forwarding

edit: if you're looking for hardware to buy i've heard mac minis work really well for home servers. you wouldn't be installing ubuntu server in that case, you'd be following mac docs for firewalling and webserver setup.