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Why Self-Host?

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Re: Why Self-Host?

#151

Post by isodev »

neoromantique wrote: post #35
isodev wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there is an extra perk: Unlike cloud services, system skills and knowledge are portable. Once you learn how systemd or ufw or ssh works, you can apply it to any other system. I’d even go as far as to say that the time/cost required to say learn the quirks of Docker and containers and layering builds is higher than what is needed to learn how to administer a website on a Debian server.

>I’d even go as far as to say that the time/cost required to say learn the quirks of Docker and containers and layering builds is higher than what is needed to learn how to administer a website on a Debian server. But that is irrelevant as Docker brings more to the table that a simple Debian server cannot by design. One could argue that lxd is sufficient for these, but that is even more hassle than Docker.

I think the original vision where containers "abstract" the platform to such an extend that you can basically deploy your dev environment has been somewhat diminished. The complexity of the ecosystem has grown to such an extend, that we need tools to manage the tools that help us manage our services.

And that's not even considering the "tied to a single corporation" problem. If us-east-1 wakes up tomorrow and decides to become gyliat-prime-1, we're all screwed because no more npm, no more docker, no more CloudFlare (because someone convinced everyone to deploy captchas etc).

Re: Why Self-Host?

#153

Post by tracker1 »

neoromantique wrote: post #145
tracker1 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For my home or personal server stuff... I'm pretty much using ProxMox as a VM host, with Ubuntu Server as the main server and mostly Docker configured with Caddy installed on the host. Most apps are stacked in /apps/appname/docker-compose.yaml with data directories mounted underneath. This just tends to simplify most of my backup/restore/migrate etc. I just don't have the need to do a lot of work on the barebones ser…

That's essentially what I do (with a little extra step of having a dedicated server in Hetzner peered with my homelab with wireguard to use as internet facing proxy + offsite backup server). Ah, also docker is managed with komo.do, but otherwise it is simple GUI over docker-compose

That's cool... I really should take a next step to bridge my home setup with my OVH server. It's a mixed bag, mostly in that the upgrade to "business" class from home is more than what I pay a month to rent the full server and IP block on OVH... But I've got a relatively big NAS at home I wouldn't mind leveraging more/better.

Aside: I really want to like NextCloud, but as much as I like aspects of it, I don't like plenty as well.

Re: Why Self-Host?

#154

Post by sutoor »

rwendt1337 wrote: post #23

> Radicale (Python, basic web ui, only single user, does not work with apple devices from my experience) it does work with apple devices from my experience

I use Radicale with iOS and iPadOS devices and multiple users.

Re: Why Self-Host?

#155

Post by wltr »

turtlebits wrote: post #24

Self hosting is great and I'm thankful for all the many ways to run apps on your own infra. The problem is backup and upgrades. I self host a lot of resources, but none I would depend on for critical data or for others to rely on. If I don't have an easy path to restore/upgrade the app, I'm not going to depend on it. For most of the apps out there, backup/restore steps are minimal or non existent (compared to the one…

What is Pangolin? I tried my search, but it returned the animal.

Re: Why Self-Host?

#156

Post by LTL_FTC »

npodbielski wrote: post #62
thayne wrote: post #20

I wish articles like this would include recommendations on how to choose hardware to run your self-hosted services on.

I would not use nuc like this guy. Had one and it was slow and it have limited capacity. Then I had my old PC and it was very good but I wanted more nvme disks and motherboard supported only 7. Now I am migrating to threadripper which is a bit overkill but I will have ability to run 1 or two GPUs along with 23 nvme disks for example.

I also have a threadripper pro with tons of pcie lanes. Just wish there was an easier way to use newer datacenter flash and that it wasn't so expensive. Hoping those servers that hold 20 something u.2/3 drives start getting decommissioned soon as I hope my current batch of HDD's will be my last. Curious to know how you're using all those nvme drives?

Re: Why Self-Host?

#157

Post by virtue3 »

mikepurvis wrote: post #103
codegeek wrote: post #21

"start self-hosting more of your personal services." I would make the case that you should also self host more as a small Software/SAAS business and it is not quite the boogeyman that a lot of cloud vendors want you to think. Here is why. Most software projects/businesses don't require the scale and complexity for which you truly need the cloud vendors and their expertise. For example, you don't need Vercel to deploy…

The main thing that gives me anxiety about this is the security surface area associated with "managing" a whole OS— kernel, userland, all of it. Like did I get the firewall configured correctly, am I staying on top of the latest CVEs, etc. For that reason alone I'd be tempted to do GHA workflow -> build container image and push to private registry -> trivial k8s config that deploys that container with the proper port…

I used digital ocean for hosting a wordpress blog.

It got attacked pretty regularly.

I would never host an open server from my own home network for sure.

This is the main value add I see in cloud deployments -> os patching, security, trivial stuff I don't want to have to deal with on the regular but it's super important.

Re: Why Self-Host?

#158

Post by turtlebits »

hamdingers wrote: post #127
turtlebits wrote: post #24

Self hosting is great and I'm thankful for all the many ways to run apps on your own infra. The problem is backup and upgrades. I self host a lot of resources, but none I would depend on for critical data or for others to rely on. If I don't have an easy path to restore/upgrade the app, I'm not going to depend on it. For most of the apps out there, backup/restore steps are minimal or non existent (compared to the one…

What kind of backup solution are you expecting? Every selfhosted app runs in docker, where the backup solution is back up the folders you mounted and the docker-compose.yml. To restore, put the folders back and run docker compose up again. I don't need every app to implement its own thing, that would be a waste of developer time.

That doesn't work for databases unless you stop the container. You'll likely end up with a corrupt backup.

Re: Why Self-Host?

#159

Post by turtlebits »

wltr wrote: post #155
turtlebits wrote: post #24

Self hosting is great and I'm thankful for all the many ways to run apps on your own infra. The problem is backup and upgrades. I self host a lot of resources, but none I would depend on for critical data or for others to rely on. If I don't have an easy path to restore/upgrade the app, I'm not going to depend on it. For most of the apps out there, backup/restore steps are minimal or non existent (compared to the one…

What is Pangolin? I tried my search, but it returned the animal.

https://github.com/fosrl/pangolin

Re: Why Self-Host?

#160

Post by mrsilencedogood »

auspiv wrote: post #135
R_Spaghetti wrote: post #58

You write: I'm fortunate enough to work at a company (enum.co) where digital sovereignty is not just a phrase. info.addr.tools shows [1]: MX 1 smtp.google.com. TXT "mailcoach-verification=a873d3f3-0f4f-4a04-a085-d53f70708e84" TXT "v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all" TXT "google-site-verification=TTrl7IWxuGQBEqbNAz17GKZzS-utrW7SCZbgdo5tkk0" This is not just a phrase, it is a DNS entry. Using the most evil in phrases…

Email is the one notable exception for self hosting. I self host everything, but let email be handled by 3rd parties.

Yeah I really will give people a pass here. The state of email is one of the worst collective mistakes I think we've made.

You can literally be an expert in everything relevant - and your mail will still not get delivered just because you're not google/mailgun/etc.

I was trying to do a very simple email-to-self use-case. I was sending mail from my VPS (residential IP not even allowed at all) which was an IPv4 i'd had for literally 2+ years to exactly only myself - my personal gmail. I had it all set up - SPF, DKIM, TLS, etc etc. And I was STILL randomly getting emails sent directly to spam / showing up with the annoying ! icon (grates on my sensibilities). I ended up determining - after tremendous, tremendous pain in researching / debugging - that my DKIM sigs and SPF were all indeed perfect (I had been doubting myself until I realized I could just check what gmail thought about SPF/DKIM/etc. It all passed). And my only sin was just not being in the in-crowd.

Incredibly frustrating. The only winning move is not to play. I ended up just switching from emails-to-self to using a discord webhook to @ myself in my private discord server, so I get a push notification.

And this was just me, sending to myself! Low volume (0-2 emails per WEEK). Literally not even trying to actually send emails to other people.

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