> When something breaks, I SSH in, ask the agent what is wrong, and fix it.
> I am spending time using software, learning
What are you actually learning?
PSA: OP is a CEO of an AI company
CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun
221–230 of 570 posts
Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun
#222> When something breaks, I SSH in, ask the agent what is wrong, and fix it. > I am spending time using software, learning What are you actually learning? PSA: OP is a CEO of an AI company
you are learning what it takes to keep a machine up and running. You still witness the breakage. You can still watch the fix. You can review what happened. What you are implying from your question is that compared to doing things without AI, you are learning less (or perhaps you believe nothing). You definitely are learning less about mucking around in linux. But, if the alternative was not ever running a linux machine at all because you didn't want to deal with running it, you are learning infinitely more.
Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah we did a similar thing. Same situation, spouse and I both work from home, and we got hit by a multiple day power outage due to a rare severe ice storm. So now I have an EV and a transfer switch so I can go for a week without power, and I have a Starlink upstream connection in standby mode that can be activated in minutes. Of course that means we’ll not have another ice storm in my lifetime. My neighbors should t…
We had a 5 day outage last year, got a generator at the tail end of the windy season and made exact same jokes. A year later another atmospheric river hit and we had a 4 hour outage. No more jokes. Make sure to run that generator once every few months with some load to keep it happy.
Well, it's an EV with a big inverter, not a generator, but I get your point. And I do periodically fire it up and run the house on it for a little while, just to exercise the connection and maintain my familiarity with it in case I need to use it late at night in the dark with an ice storm breaking all the trees around us.
Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun
#224There's something ironic about using Claud Code – a closed source service, that you can't self-host the hardware for, and that you can't get access to the data for – to self-host so that you can reduce your dependencies on things.
Ahh yes, the irony is not lost on using a paid closed-source service to create and help manage a self-hosted service running FOSS. I thought it was because I didn't want to pay SAAS subscription costs, but now I just need Claude Pro...
I'm asking Claude technical questions about setup, e.g., read this manual, that I have skimmed but don't necessarily fully understand yet. How do I monitor this service? Oh connect Tailscale and manage with ACLs. But what do I do when it doesn't work or goes down? Ask Claude.
To get more accurate setup and diagnostics, I need to share config files, firewall rules, IPv6 GUAs, Tailscale ACLs... and Claude just eats it up, and now Anthropic knows it forever too. Sure, CGNET, Wireguard, and ssh logins stand between us, but... Claude is running a terminal window on a LAN device next to another terminal window that does have access to my server. Do I trust VS Code? Anthropic? The FOSS? Is this really self-hosting? Ahh, but I am learning stuff, right?
Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'd rather expose a Wireguard port and control my keys than introduce a third party like Tailscale. I’m working on a (free) service that lets you have it both ways. It’s a thin layer on top of vanilla WireGuard that handles NAT traversal and endpoint updates so you don’t need to expose any ports, while leaving you in full control of your own keys and network topology. https://wireplug.org
This is very cool! But I also think it's worth a mention that for basic "I want to access my home LAN" use cases you don't need P2P, you just need a single public IP to your lan and perhaps dynamic dns.
A public IP and DDNS can be impossible behind CGNAT. A VPN link to a VPS eliminates that problem.
Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun
#226I went down the self host route some years ago but once critical problems hit I realized that beyond a simple NAS it can be a very demanding hobby. I was in another country when there was a power outage at home. My internet went down, the server restart but couldn't reconnect anymore because the optical network router also had some problems after the power outage. I could ask my folks to restart, and turn on off thin…
Tailscale has passkey-only account support but requires you to sign up in a roundabout way (first use an SSO, then invite another user, throw away the original). The tailnet lock feature also protects you to some extent, arguably more so than solutions involving self-hosting a coordination server on a public cloud.
Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun
#227I went down the self host route some years ago but once critical problems hit I realized that beyond a simple NAS it can be a very demanding hobby. I was in another country when there was a power outage at home. My internet went down, the server restart but couldn't reconnect anymore because the optical network router also had some problems after the power outage. I could ask my folks to restart, and turn on off thin…
Tailscale recently added passkey log in. Would that alleviate the SSO login?
Tailscale also has a self-hosted version I believe.
Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun
#228This 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…
Just be sure to run it with --accept-dns=false otherwise you won't have any outbound Internet on your server if you ever get logged out. That was annoying to find out (but easy to debug with Claude!)
Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
definitely, but to be fair, beyond that it's just linux. Most people would need claude code to get what ever they want to use linux for running reliably (systemd service, etc.)
i'm still waiting for ECC minipcs, then i'll go all in on local DBs too
Supermicro has some low power options such as https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/system/Mini-ITX/SYS-E...
Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun
#230This 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…
A mesh-type wireguard network is rather annoying to set up if you have more than a few devices, and a hub-type network (on a low powered router) tends to be so slow that it necessitates falling back to alternate interfaces when you're at home. Tailscale does away with all this and always uses direct connections. In principle it is more secure than hosting it on some router without disk encryption (as the keys can be extracted via a physical attack, and a pwned router can also eavesdrop on traffic).