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Serverless Horrors

serverlesshorrors.com

111–120 of 174 posts

Re: Serverless Horrors

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to create a secure server. Use private keys. Use a firewall (ufw is really simple) and only expose your reverse proxy (e.g nginx or haproxy). Use docker to run your crap. Any software engineer should be well capable of setting up a secure server. It really is simple.

None of that stuff is “simple”. Git pushing and having Render.com auto deploy is, however.

Using private keys is not simple? sudo apt-get install ufw and ufw allow https is not simple?

The whole process takes maybe 30-60 minutes to setup for someone completely new and following guides.

Render's is simple, true, you just pay $300 for 1TB of bandwidth.

It's crazy how much Merchants of Complexity fooled devs into thinking that running your own server is complicated and you need to pay 1000x to save few minutes of your time.

Re: Serverless Horrors

#112
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VPSs being “easy to manage” is a strong option full of assumptions.

I remember a comment from this site. Something like: we must study how Amazon and other big cloud's marketing work so great to make this generation developers think that vps or selfhosting are hard. IMO vps was easy before and even easier now to manage.

Cloud is just merchant of complexity

Re: Serverless Horrors

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a basic bitch static website takes three commands in the terminal and a very basic nginx config file to setup on a completely fresh ubuntu VPS. you could read a guide from 2012 and it would work perfectly fine. is this harder than dealing with cloud 'platforms' and their ever-changing UIs, APIs, SDKs?

Yes, this is harder. I don’t want to mess with maintaining or configuring nginx.

`sudo apt-get install nginx` `vi /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default`

add your config, use chatgpt if you want, save `nginx -s reload` and bam! you're good to go, practically forever.

Re: Serverless Horrors

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about static content. I need the whole enchilada: DB, Web Server, Dynamic Languages, etc. Also, for a shipping, production application, with hundreds of users; where privacy and security are of paramount importance. It's easy, sure. It's easy to create an insecure server, that can be pwned. I know of which I speak. I have done just that. "A man who holds a cat by the tail, learns a lesson he can learn…

It's easy to create a secure server. Use private keys. Use a firewall (ufw is really simple) and only expose your reverse proxy (e.g nginx or haproxy). Use docker to run your crap. Any software engineer should be well capable of setting up a secure server. It really is simple.

> Any software engineer should be ... It really is simple.

I get that, a lot. It's the "No True Scotsman" of tech. This is also used as a way of validating college-style leetcode.

Let me introduce you to my GH Activity Graph[0]. See all that green? That's pretty much all coding in Swift; mostly in shipping apps and whatnot. There's a bit of PHP, for server-side stuff, but I like to spend a lot of time, coding frontend app stuff.

Every minute I spend, being a Linux admin, is a minute that I don't spend on executable code. I know that there's a number of folks, hereabout, that can code circles, around me, in Swift, and a few more, that can code circles around me, in PHP, but pretty much all of you, can run circles around me, in Linux admin. I'm not especially interested in competing, there; especially since a number of you are likely the folks that would Do Bad Things to my server, given an opening.

[0] https://github.com/ChrisMarshallNY#github-stuff

Re: Serverless Horrors

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what if you add a debit card without money? Or add a disposable card and then the next day you deactivate it? Nowadays everyone push you to add a card to open free* account. Such disposable cards is a solution to this issue.

Your debt will be sold to a collection company.

Can they find and owner of the inactive card? If I put a fake name to their system

Re: Serverless Horrors

#116

Presumably the costs for a platform are passed on to the platform's customers from that platform's cloud provider (with profit). When a spike happens due to, say, a DDOS, does the platform first have to negotiate with the cloud provider to waive the cost? Presumably the costs for a cloud provider are passed on to the cloud provider's customers from that cloud provider's operating costs (with profit). When a spike hap…

Not necessarily - there are some costs we just eat. However in the event of outside actors having a reputable CDN in place to mitigate these things is worth your time and money.

Re: Serverless Horrors

#117
I recently signed up for an OpenAI API key, and by default they enforce a quota after which they disable the key, and when you’re ready to serve more requests you increase the quota manually. I’m surprised to learn more companies don’t do this by default to save everyone from these kind of surprise bills. Although now that I think about it, I suspect there are lots of cases where the users just end up paying these.

Re: Serverless Horrors

#118
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a basic bitch static website takes three commands in the terminal and a very basic nginx config file to setup on a completely fresh ubuntu VPS. you could read a guide from 2012 and it would work perfectly fine. is this harder than dealing with cloud 'platforms' and their ever-changing UIs, APIs, SDKs?

maybe? You go on Cloudflare's console, click on "pages", click on "new app", name it, drag your folder of website files in and you are done. automatic deploys are also available by linking a github account. It's probably one less click to get a droplet turned up on Digital Ocean, and then you have to configure nginx or caddy (which is like five minutes if you've done it before, 30 if you haven't). Probably worth doin…

what would be the price-tag here?

Re: Serverless Horrors

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of that stuff is “simple”. Git pushing and having Render.com auto deploy is, however.

Using private keys is not simple? sudo apt-get install ufw and ufw allow https is not simple? The whole process takes maybe 30-60 minutes to setup for someone completely new and following guides. Render's is simple, true, you just pay $300 for 1TB of bandwidth. It's crazy how much Merchants of Complexity fooled devs into thinking that running your own server is complicated and you need to pay 1000x to save few minute…

Merchants of Complexity didn't fool me, trying to run my own severs convinced me.

Re: Serverless Horrors

#120
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak for you, but it's really not too difficult to host some static content on a VPS. At the very worst, the VPS is compromised somehow, and you refresh it from the admin panel.

I'm not talking about static content. I need the whole enchilada: DB, Web Server, Dynamic Languages, etc. Also, for a shipping, production application, with hundreds of users; where privacy and security are of paramount importance. It's easy, sure. It's easy to create an insecure server, that can be pwned. I know of which I speak. I have done just that. "A man who holds a cat by the tail, learns a lesson he can learn…

would a cloud be securer though?

I guess you gain some security, when you don't have to worry about some things. But you also lose some security, because of the added complexity.

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