Earlier quoted context omitted.
who cares if I'm the CEO of an AI company? I didn't mention anything related to my company once in the post. Wrote about learning and fun here: https://fulghum.io/fun2
It's (at least) common courtesy to declare potential conflicts of interest.
CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun
461–470 of 570 posts
Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun
#462This 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…
Why not cloudflare tunnels ?
Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun
#463Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun
#464Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun
#465Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah… I really could not disagree more with that statement. I know we don’t want to trust BigCorp and whatnot, but a single exposed port and an incomplete understanding of what you’re doing is really all it takes to be compromised.
Even if you understand what you are doing, you are still exposed to every single security bug in all of the services you host. Most of these self hosted tools have not been through 1% of the security testing big tech services have.
You can trust BugCorp all you want but there are more sshd processes out there than tailnets and the scrutiny is on OpenSSH. We are not comparing sshd to say WordPress here. Maybe when you don’t over engineer a solution you don’t need to spend 100x the resources auditing it…
Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun
#466Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same applies to Tailscale. A Tailscale client, coordination plane vulnerability, or incomplete understanding of their trust model is also all it takes. You are adding attack surface, not removing it. If your threat model includes "OpenSSH might have an RCE" then "Tailscale might have an RCE" belongs there too. If you are exposing a handful of hardened services on infrastructure you control, Tailscale adds complexity…
There was a time when people were allowed to drive cars unlicensed. These days, that seems insane. As the traffic grew, as speeds increased, licensing became necessary. I think, these days, we're almost into that category. I don't say this happily. But having unrestricted access seems like an era coming to an end. I realise this seems unworkable. But so was the idea of a driver's license. Sometimes society and safety…
Are you saying "unlicensed" where you mean "untrained?"
Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun
#467This 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…
People are way too worried about security imo. Statistically, no one is targeting you to be hacked. By the time you are important and valuable enough for your home equipment to be a target you would have hired someone else to manage this for you
Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun
#468I would really like some kind of agnostic backup protocol, so I can simply configure my backup endpoint using an environment variable (e.g. `-e BACKUP_ENDPOINT= https://backup.example.com/backup -e BACKUP_IDENTIFIER=xxxxx`), then the application can push a backup on a regular schedule. If I need to restore a backup, I log onto the backup app, select a backup file and generate a one time code which I can enter into th…
Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun
#469I share a lot of the same hesitations as others in the thread - using a giant US-based tech giant's tool for research as well as another US giant's tool to manage access, but it's really a game change and I'd be unable to find the time to do everything I want if I didn't have access to these otherwise.
I'm not even a software guy by engineering, my network is already complicated enough that learning and correctly securing things otherwise would simply just not be feasible with the time and energy I'd like to dedicate to it.
Re: CLI agents make self-hosting on a home server easier and fun
#470This 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…
It's always perplexing to me how HN commenters replying to a comment with a statement like this, e.g., something like "I prefer [choice with some degree of DIY]", will try to "argue" against it
The "arguments" are rarely, "I think that is a poor choice because [list of valid reasons]"
Instead the responses are something like, "Most people...". In other words, a nonsensical reference to other computer users
It might make sense for a commercial third party to care about what other computer users do, but why should any individual computer user care what others do (besides genuine curiosity or commercial motive)
For example, telling family, friends, colleagues how you think they should use their computers usually isn't very effective. They usually do not care about your choices or preferences. They make their own
Would telling strangers how to use their computers be any more effective
Forum commenters often try to tell strangers what to do, or what not to do
But every computer user is free to make their own choices and pursue their own preferences
NB. I am not commenting on the open ports statement