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Start Self Hosting

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Re: Start Self Hosting

#231

Post by boplicity »

anamexis wrote: post #49
kerblang wrote: post #39

You know what would be kind of neat? Like, a web site you'd go to called makemeoneofthose.com, and you'd click some buttons, and then sometime later you'd have a hosting setup that you own with some software, web server(s) and database(s) on it, and then you can go hack on it yourself, add some features, whatever. Like they send you some AWS keys and say "It's all yours. Good luck and don't forget to pay your hosting…

And we can call it cPanel ;)

cPanel isn't "cool" so it doesn't get a lot of credit here, but it is actually an amazing product that solves real problems. It makes running a server -- even hosting email -- almost effortless. Combined with a decent host, you don't need to have much technical knowledge at all. It really does make running your own server accessible to many, many people who would otherwise be unable to do it.

Re: Start Self Hosting

#232

Post by Havoc »

bob1029 wrote: post #195

I've been thinking about buying rack space from a colo in my metro area. Hosting at home is something I used to do religiously for over a decade, but I really don't like all the hackarounds and shitty ISP/DNS/port problems anymore. It's definitely not cheap to do this, but there are a lot of fun upsides. Just having an excuse to get out of the house to badge in at a DC is a nice mix-up for me. Everything I do at work…

>I really don't like all the hackarounds and shitty ISP/DNS/port problems anymore.

This is a not insignificant part of the reason why I'm in no hurry to move from my flawed apartment. Symmetric gigabit fibre with static ipv4 is a luxury not everyone appreciates but I sure do

Moving would be such a pain since rental agents don't get this at all. "Yes it has fast broadband"...what they mean is it has 4G reception if you lean out the right window.

Re: Start Self Hosting

#233

Post by 0xdeadb00f »

Hendrikto wrote: post #137
kodah wrote: post #98

Self-hosting is something that we should be constantly iterating on making easier; it's really the path forward for privacy centric folks. The main challenges are managing workload scheduling (SystemD is complicated for a layperson). Networking is another challenge; for instance, if you wanted all or part of these services to remain offline or on a Mesh VPN there's a lot of knowledge required. There's some projects t…

> SystemD is complicated for a layperson Is it? It has clean and logical abstractions, and consistency. Services depending in each other isn‘t complex or difficult to understand. I suspect that a nice GUI would make systemd quite usable for non-expert users. BTW: It‘s called ”systemd“: > Yes, it is written systemd, not system D or System D, or even SystemD. And it isn't system d either. [0] [0]: https://www.freedeskt…

I'm certainly not a layperson, but systemd frequently confuses me.

I want to edit a service to harden it for example. Oh, wait I shouldn't edit it directly with vi? Because it gets overwritten by package updates. Okay, makes sense, I need to use systemctl edit instead. But that opens a file that has everything commented out. Do I uncomment the [Unit] heading? What do I need to keep and where do I add my additions? I recall there being a comment at the start of this file, but unless I'm misremembering it doesn't answer that.

All I ask of it to do one thing - start something.service after other.service. yet it just refuses to order them this way. Why? I have no idea. I also have no idea where to start debugging a problem like this. There's a billion ways to try and do this after all: do I add Before=something to other.service? Do I add After=other to something.service? Both? Wants=something?

Re: Start Self Hosting

#234

Post by gcommer »

Lots of good points about the challenges of self-hosting throughout this thread, especially maintenance, security, and time-investment.

Here's my solution to all of them:

Invest in your common infra. Docker provides stable images configured primarily with env vars. I have a docker-compose host with logging/monitoring/alerting. All service-specific files are mounted from a NAS that has backups. All network access is closed by default, but exposed via a central login proxy (tailscale would be an easier alternative, but my Beyondcorp-esque system lets non-technical family members use my services easily from anywhere by tapping a yubikey).

That's 3 pieces of infra to maintain (docker host, NAS, login proxy) but I can check all the boxes for self-hosting 15+ services. O(n) services with O(1) infra.

I regularly spin up new services in under 10 minutes, while only having to touch 3 files that I am already familiar with (docker-compose.yml, dnsconfig.js, nginx.conf). I've run stable services for years on this stack. The only painful issues have been upgrades to the docker host, docker ipv6, and hardware issues.

This is all on a recycled computer in the basement, with a cheap VPS as a stable public entrypoint.

Re: Start Self Hosting

#235

Post by deforciant »

I self host a ton of things! :) it's really much less hassle than people think. I started with Docker compose and eventually started using my side project https://synpse.net/ for it as it just helps to move things around and update things remotely. I just wish more tools embraced 12 factor app style deployment :)

Re: Start Self Hosting

#236

Post by mxuribe »

u2077 wrote: post #153

I don’t need a reason why to self host, I need nice, clear, up-to-date tutorials on how to self host various services. Self hosting should be easy enough for everyday people. Perhaps preconfigured servers that treat services just like apps. Once I have a server setup, I should be able to install (and uninstall) services in a single click. The OS can handle permissions and containers.

I'm guessing the "why" eventually can trigger experts to craft mechanism and associated tutorials/docs to show the "how". That is, i think people should understand the compelling reasons why self-hosting could be important...and maybe there will be much more incentive to get experts to create more things - and easier - for lay people to adopt them...For example, if tons more people start demanding that easier self hosting options exist (both mechanism AND how to docs), then we would have many more entities - both commercial and private - incentivized to generate better/easier on-ramsp for self hosting. But of course, you're right that ultimately, eventually, the "how" to get to such a nirvana is essential too. That is my guess anyway.

Re: Start Self Hosting

#237

Post by khalilravanna »

UncleSam wrote: post #209
blenderdt wrote: post #35

Self hosting is hard. You need to take care of security, backups, software updates, software installation and so on. Even on something like a QNAP (which can be compared to managed hosting) this can be hard. Flip the wrong switch and you expose something to the world. Missed a security update: your device is now vulnerable. While I host a lot of things myself I can understand self hosting is not for everyone.

> Even on something like a QNAP (which can be compared to managed hosting) this can be hard. Flip the wrong switch and you expose something to the world. Missed a security update: your device is now vulnerable. It doesn't even require actively flipping switches, but can be from not knowing a vulnerable feature was enabled by default. My QNAP got hit with ransomware because of a vulnerability in the cloud access softw…

Wanted to reply saying the same thing. I didn't really muck with the settings on my QNAP NAS and then checked into my files one day and everything was encrypted with some txt files telling me to send BTC to some address. I just formatted the disks, lamented not backing some stuff up, and moved on.

I'd say the point being: I'm a software engineer who knows better about these sorts of things and still got caught with my pants down. You have to be very judicious with respect to security. You can't just plug and play and say "I'm too busy to worry about that."

Another thing I'll add is the amount of software tools they have on these NAS machines strikes me as 1) very impressive for a company their size and 2) a huge surface area rife for being hacked. When it happened I wasn't surprised at all.

I've since stopped using it because at the end of the day I'd rather pay Dropbox to have peace of mind.

Re: Start Self Hosting

#238

Post by jart »

asim wrote: post #228
jart wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what Western Digital does with their "My Cloud" product line and honestly it makes me cringe.

That's because its a product by western digital. No one wants that. Let's put it like this. Cloud 1.0 was infrastructure, Cloud 2.0 was services, Cloud 3.0 is personal/private.

I respect Western Digital and think they're trying their best to do a good thing. It's that word in general though. Buzzword paradigms always make me feel unwell. As someone who's usually a ahead of the herd in terms of adopting tech, once the broader public catches on and starts making up jargon, I always get a sense that it twists the meaning I personally associated with these concepts and causes me to feel negative emotion about parts of my work life once tacitly normal.

Re: Start Self Hosting

#240

Post by fknorangesite »

kodah wrote: post #98

Self-hosting is something that we should be constantly iterating on making easier; it's really the path forward for privacy centric folks. The main challenges are managing workload scheduling (SystemD is complicated for a layperson). Networking is another challenge; for instance, if you wanted all or part of these services to remain offline or on a Mesh VPN there's a lot of knowledge required. There's some projects t…

> Self-hosting is something that we should be constantly iterating on making easier

I'm pretty sure that's exactly what we did and ended up where we are today. Any sufficiently-advanced self-hosting is indistinguishable from AWS?

I'm not sure how joking I am.

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