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CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun

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Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun

#31

Post by heavyset_go »

Humorist2290 wrote: post #7

Fun. I don't agree that Claude Code is the real unlock, but mostly because I'm comfortable with doing this myself. That said, the spirit of the article is spot on. The accessibility to run _good_ web services has never been better. If you have a modest budget and an interest, that's enough -- the skill gap is closing. That's good news I think. But Tailscale is the real unlock in my opinion. Having a slot machine cosp…

I believe Vaultwarden keeps data encrypted at rest with your master key, so some of the problems inherent to hosting such data can be mitigated.

Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun

#32

Post by CSSer »

drnick1 wrote: post #26
simonw wrote: post #3

This posts lists inexpensive home servers, Tailscale and Claude Code as the big unlocks. I actually think Tailscale may be an even bigger deal here than sysadmin help from Claude Code at al. The biggest reason I had not to run a home server was security: I'm worried that I might fall behind on updates and end up compromised. Tailscale dramatically reduces this risk, because I can so easily configure it so my own devi…

I'd rather expose a Wireguard port and control my keys than introduce a third party like Tailscale. I am not sure why people are so afraid of exposing ports. I have dozens of ports open on my server including SMTP, IMAP(S), HTTP(S), various game servers and don't see a problem with that. I can't rule out a vulnerability somewhere but services are containerized and/or run as separate UNIX users. It's the way the Inter…

The answer is people who don't truly understand the way it works being in charge of others who also don't in different ways. In the best case, there's an under resourced and over leveraged security team issuing overzealous edicts with the desperate hope of avoiding some disaster. When the sample size is one, it's easy to look at it and come to your conclusion.

In every case where a third party is involved, someone is either providing a service, plugging a knowledge gap, or both.

Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun

#34

Post by drnick1 »

ryandrake wrote: post #13
philips wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree! Before Tailscale I was completely skeptical of self hosting. Now I have tailscale on an old Kindle downloading epubs from a server running Copyparty. Its great!

Maybe I'm dumb, but I still don't quite understand the value-add of Tailscale over what Wireguard or some other VPN already provides. HN has tried to explain it to me but it just seems like sugar on top of a plain old VPN. Kind of like how "pi-hole" is just sugar on top of dnsmasq, and Plex is just sugar on top of file sharing.

> Kind of like how "pi-hole" is just sugar on top of dnsmasq, and Plex is just sugar on top of file sharing.

Speaking of that, I have always preferred a plain Unbound instance and a Samba server over fancier alternatives. I guess I like my setups extremely barebone.

Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun

#35

Post by easterncalculus »

Nice. This is a great start. The next steps are backups and regular security updates. The former is probably pretty easy with Claude and a provider like Backblaze, for updates I wonder if "check for security issues with my software and update anything in need" will work well (and most importantly, how consistently). Alternatively, getting the AI to threat model and perform any docker hardening measures.

Then someday we self-host the AI itself, and it all comes together.

Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun

#37

Post by sauercrowd »

drnick1 wrote: post #26
simonw wrote: post #3

This posts lists inexpensive home servers, Tailscale and Claude Code as the big unlocks. I actually think Tailscale may be an even bigger deal here than sysadmin help from Claude Code at al. The biggest reason I had not to run a home server was security: I'm worried that I might fall behind on updates and end up compromised. Tailscale dramatically reduces this risk, because I can so easily configure it so my own devi…

I'd rather expose a Wireguard port and control my keys than introduce a third party like Tailscale. I am not sure why people are so afraid of exposing ports. I have dozens of ports open on my server including SMTP, IMAP(S), HTTP(S), various game servers and don't see a problem with that. I can't rule out a vulnerability somewhere but services are containerized and/or run as separate UNIX users. It's the way the Inter…

People are not full time maintainers of their infra though, that's very different to companies.

In many cases they want something that works, not something that requires a complex setup that needs to be well researched and understood.

Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun

#38

Post by comrade1234 »

Prices are going to have an effect here. I have a 76TB backup drive of 8 drives. A few months ago one of my 10TB drives failed and I replaced it with a 12 TB WD gold for 269CHF. I was thinking of building a new backup drive (for fun) and so I priced the same drive and now it's 409CHF.

It's not tariffs (I'm in Switzerland). It's 100% the buildout of data centers for AI.

Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun

#39

Post by benzguo »

Great post! Totally agree – agents like Claude Code make self-hosting a lot more realistic and low maintenance for the average dev.

We've gone a step further, and made this even easier with https://zo.computer

You get a server, and a lot of useful built-in functionality (like the ability to text with your server)

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