51 votes

What do you self host?

I'm interested to see what people on here self host, or if they self host at all. Reply with what you self host, why you host it and any other thoughts you have!

52 comments

  1. [7]
    whbboyd
    Link
    Running on a VPS: My website. Hosting a static site is very low-load; as long as you have a server running anyway (and it's useful for a wide variety of things), adding web hosting is a minimal...

    Running on a VPS:

    • My website. Hosting a static site is very low-load; as long as you have a server running anyway (and it's useful for a wide variety of things), adding web hosting is a minimal addition. My site is just static files (generated with Pelican), served by nginx.
    • A git host. Private git hosting is super easy and extremely useful. I'm using gitolite, but for a single user, all you really need is ssh. Once you have a private git host, aside from actual software repos, you can comfortably use it to share all sorts of useful things across your systems, e.g. by setting up a dotfiles repo or zx2c4 pass remote.
    • A calendar server. I'm using radicale behind nginx, with nginx providing authentication. If you're not self-hosting your email (and there are a wide variety of reasons not to self-host your email), you should really probably just use your email provider's calendar. I use my calendar heavily, but don't really benefit from it being self-hosted.
    • A private Minecraft server for a handful of friends. Minecraft is quite unfriendly to being hosted, so there's a worrying amount of shell script around managing the server process and backups; for most people, just using Mojang's server service (whatever they're calling it these days) will probably be easier and more robust. Our world is approaching a decade old at this point, so it's not going anywhere.

    While it's not really a "service" per se, my server uses certbot to automatically request and renew SSL certs from LetsEncrypt for all the domains it serves. Nginx provides SSL termination for all the services that use it.

    Running at home, on my LAN:

    • A fileserver: NFS from ZFS on FreeBSD. SMB is probably a better network filesystem protocol, but I have an instinctive revulsion towards anything associated with Microsoft. ZFS is obviously the correct filesystem for a fileserver. OS is largely irrelevant. I use this for backups, media streaming, and occasionally temp space for projects that need a lot of storage. I'm contemplating upgrades; if anyone knows of any hardware that is (a) reasonably priced, (b) low power consumption, (c) not Intel, (d) 64-bit, and (e) has at least 5 SATA ports or an interface (i.e. PCIe) to add more, I want to know about it! My current mini-ITX AMD system fails pretty miserably at (b).
    • This is not running anymore, but once upon a time, I had an SSH-based VPN set up on my router. I never used it, and eventually dropped it with a router upgrade. Getting the permissions reasonable and making everything work on Linux at the time was a huge bear, though it may be better now. If I set it up again, I most likely would want to set up a tunnel from my VPS to deal with the instability of residential IP addresses.

    One notable thing that's not self-hosted:

    • I pay Fastmail for email.

    While some people claim to self-host email with no problems, I've heard a lot of horror stories (mostly of the "Google and Microsoft will silently blackhole your mail" variety), and Fastmail is cheap and easy. I highly recommend paying somebody for the service, rather than throwing your data into the privacy meat grinder of Gmail; but privacy concerns specifically about hosted email are almost all overblown, since email is just fundamentally not a very private medium.

    20 votes
    1. [3]
      edenist
      Link Parent
      You're right about the horror stories. I've been self hosting my own mail for quite a few years and it takes a bit of work to keep up with the requirements of the big players [which, lets be...

      You're right about the horror stories. I've been self hosting my own mail for quite a few years and it takes a bit of work to keep up with the requirements of the big players [which, lets be honest, is almost all MS and google]. And they are so powerful that they really can just blackhole any little individual provider they want without any care at all.
      Thing is, that's actually a reason for more people to self host. A federated protocol is only powerful as such if it has a diverse ecosystem. Just like many cryptocurrencies, as soon as one player gets a commanding control, the system starts to break down. The more individual email hosts we have, the less able MS + google are to act without noticable consequence.
      We're already seeing signs of things going pear shaped already with many original federated protocols, with the changes they are pushing to their services [google with AMP for email, MS with their basic auth changes], and even what Apple does with SMS+imessage. At my workplace, it doesn't even feel like email any more, I just call it "microsoft mail" [and die a little inside].

      Anyway..... that's a ranty way of encouraging anyone who is interested in self-hosting email to give it a go. And know there are plenty of people who are eagre to help :-) Don't necessarily host your primary email right away, but definitely play around and help get some diversity in the ecosystem!

      6 votes
      1. [2]
        freddy
        Link Parent
        Companies such as Migadu do a good job at helping this cause. Instead of paying for email you pay for email hosting. For those who can't self host email, this is something that I can thoroughly...

        Companies such as Migadu do a good job at helping this cause. Instead of paying for email you pay for email hosting. For those who can't self host email, this is something that I can thoroughly recommend!

        4 votes
        1. edenist
          Link Parent
          Thanks for the suggestion, I've currently pay for runbox and have it sitting as a standby as an emergency failover. But this company also looks pretty great too. I certainly like how humble their...

          Thanks for the suggestion, I've currently pay for runbox and have it sitting as a standby as an emergency failover. But this company also looks pretty great too. I certainly like how humble their disclaimers are, haha.

          2 votes
    2. [3]
      alcappuccino
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      I always like the idea of self-hosting lots of my services, but maybe, I never saw the huge benefit of it. So, my question is, why self-host? Simply to avoid vendor lock-in? Just to have full...

      I always like the idea of self-hosting lots of my services, but maybe, I never saw the huge benefit of it. So, my question is, why self-host? Simply to avoid vendor lock-in? Just to have full control of your content?

      I'm actually thinking in hosting my first website (also static) but I have to say, that there are multiple options and I'm not sure what are the pros and cons of each. I could host it on AWS using S3, I could use a VPS, I could use a NAS, I could use a Raspberry Pi, I could simply use a CDN like Cloudflare. Probably there are even other options, so, my question to you is: why host your website on a VPS and not on other hosting solutions out there? Wouldn't a VPS be slower if I also want to server images? Sorry if the question is really not in scope with self-hosting, but I'm very curious. :)

      1 vote
      1. whbboyd
        Link Parent
        For most people, there's probably not a huge benefit to self-hosting. For me in particular, I do it for the following reasons: Practice. I do less operations in my job now than I've done in the...

        For most people, there's probably not a huge benefit to self-hosting. For me in particular, I do it for the following reasons:

        • Practice. I do less operations in my job now than I've done in the past, but I still do some, and it's good to keep myself in the game even when work doesn't demand it of me.
        • As a tech professional, I'm very… opinionated… (some might even say "picky") about how my services operate. Hosting them myself means I can set them up how I like, or at least have only myself to blame when they're not set up how I like (which is much easier to rationalize ;).
        • I mostly don't have to worry about legal fine print. For the most part, VPS provider TOS are simple and clear: here's a virtual server, don't break the law, don't break our operations or any of our other customers, have fun.
        • It's fun! I snarked about scripting around Minecraft's deficiencies as server software, but I enjoy that sort of thing. I wrote a custom checksum-based backup tool to take incremental backups and checksums of the world. I'm super lucky to greatly enjoy working in tech and also find it a lucrative career, and I'm pushing that enjoyment as far as I can.

        My thoughts on your thoughts on hosting options:

        • S3: This is extremely reasonable if you want to fire-and-forget. I deeply dislike Amazon, so I don't patronize them for that reason; and I worry a little bit about accidentally accruing unbounded costs, but the risk of that using S3 to host static web content is extremely low.
        • VPS: As above. If you don't enjoy or have a specific interest in learning and practicing systems administration, this is probably not a great option. Otherwise, running your own server is great practice and an excellent learning opportunity.
        • Raspberry Pi: This is very similar to the VPS approach. Note that (a) you almost certainly don't want your Pi on the same (probably virtual) network as the rest of your home LAN, in case of compromise; and (b) your ISP TOS may prohibit running public services over your home connection (this will only matter if you get nontrivial amounts of traffic, but could in the worst case get your Internet connection cut off).
        • NAS: In turn very similar to a Raspberry Pi, though you presumably don't want to isolate it from your LAN, and if it's a blackbox appliance, you won't get the general sysadmin experience you would from having a Linux distro (or other OS!) on a Pi or VPS. I probably wouldn't recommend this approach in general.
        • CDN: This will be almost exactly like hosting in S3. Possibly cheaper.

        why host your website on a VPS and not on other hosting solutions out there? Wouldn't a VPS be slower if I also want to server images?

        Yes, strictly speaking a good CDN will be faster than a single VPS in most cases. However, unless you're serving tons of requests, or very large files, it's unlikely to make a significant different to your users. For serving large amounts of (or a large variety of) data, space on the VPS may be a limiting factor, as most are not provisioned with very large drives. For most personal users, I think the decision should rest mostly upon how interested you are in administering a server.

        3 votes
      2. cmccabe
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        I really like the idea of hosting services on a raspberry pi, but with one big concern that I can't get over: if someone cracks a VPS, they're in your VPS; but if they crack a Pi on your home...

        I really like the idea of hosting services on a raspberry pi, but with one big concern that I can't get over: if someone cracks a VPS, they're in your VPS; but if they crack a Pi on your home network, they're in your home network. (Edit: typo)

        1 vote
  2. [8]
    smores
    Link
    Oooooo this is gonna be fun! Ok, so I have three servers, an Intel NUC (running debian), an R710 rack server (running unRaid), and my ASUS router (running Merlin). On the R710 (this is my main...

    Oooooo this is gonna be fun! Ok, so I have three servers, an Intel NUC (running debian), an R710 rack server (running unRaid), and my ASUS router (running Merlin).

    On the R710 (this is my main server), I have a number of Docker containers, and then a debian VM running a few things that weren't worth it to Dockerize. Docker first:

    • Plex Media Server - Shared with a bunch of friends. I love this software. Similar to @echo, keeping an eye on Jellyfin (looks like they have a Roku app as of recently), because the closed-sourced-ness makes me a little uneasy, but it really does just work very nicely. And the Skip Intro feature just started working for me on almost all of my media, which is awesome.
    • Tautulli - A backend monitoring/data analysis tool for Plex. Fun to see who's watching what.
    • Nextcloud - Just upgraded to Nextcloud Hub 18. The file sharing features are excellent, super easy for sharing out photos with my family, or collaborating on audio projects (I have a podcast with some friends, and have been making some goofy music covers with my cousins). Been using the Nextcloud Talk app recently too, which has been way more stable than it was in the past; this whole suite is becoming a great alternative to Google Apps.
    • Radarr/Sonarr/Jackett/Deluge - Suite of apps for automating P2P downloads of TV shows and movies (deluge is a bittorrent client)
    • Mattermost - sigh oh Mattermost, you were almost so great. Mattermost is an open source Slack clone. It's a great piece of software, but unfortunately my uploads speeds are pretty atrocious (damn you Spectrum!) and it turned out to be basically unusable for everyone but me.
    • Jitsi - Open source, web-based video chat software. Neat idea, but the hosted instance seems to just work much better than my self-hosted instance, for reasons that aren't totally clear to me.
    • Duplicati - open source backup software. A lot of the data on this server is torrented, and not really worth backing up, but I also use this as a NAS to store personal projects and home videos (including digital copies almost all of my mom's VHS tapes from when I was a kid), which definitely are! Currently backing up to my backblaze account.

    On the debian VM on my R710:

    • youtube-dl - runs twice a day, downloads YouTube videos from a few channels I like (and a lot of channels that my partner likes), and adds them to Plex
    • ProtonMail-Bridge - Allows me to send emails from Nextcloud and some other services
    • ytdl - a tiny little web site that lets me download individual YouTube videos on demand and throw them on Plex

    On the NUC:

    • Caddy - Caddy is a reverse proxy/web server, like nginx or Apache. I mostly use it as a reverse proxy to expose some of my services to the Internet. Still running v1 :P I have so many rules, I haven't had the chance to update them yet
    • Pihole - DNS-level ad and tracker blocking! Love this thing.
    • Monica - I almost never actually use this except as an advance warning birthday reminder system, but in theory Monica is a self-hosted personal relationship manager. Keep notes on family members and friends, important events, important conversations, etc etc.
    • smoores.dev and tfhe.shanemoore.me - Two very, very small personal blogs that have almost no content because I only get inspired to write something like.. three times a year
    • A resume site to share out in place of a LinkedIn, which I have not had to use in a while and hope not to use for a long time!
    • A small RSS server for two podcasts that I host (one of which is still actively worked on, Scientifically Speaking!)
    • Scout - Realtime system monitoring for the NUC. I don't end up looking at this all that much, since Plex and Nextcloud run on the R710 now
    • Tiny Tiny RSS - Excellent open source self-hosted RSS server
    • Lilliputian - homebrewed PWA mobile client for TTRSS, because while it is an excellent RSS server, it is a mediocre RSS client at best
    • Some Reveal.js talks that I've given in the past, https://promises.talks.smoores.dev and https://ink.talks.smoores.dev
    • TiddlyWiki - The only notes software I've ever actually used long term. TiddlyWiki advertises itself as a "non-linear notebook", and it apparently happens to map almost exactly to the way I think about note-taking!
    • DOH Proxy - A tiny proxy that forwards DOH requests from Firefox to the pihole as DNS requests. Lets me use DOH and ESNI with Firefox on all my devices in my network, unwrap them to filter out ads and trackers with pihole, and then rewrap them as DOH again at the router before they get sent off to CloudFlare.

    Router:
    My router is mostly just a router, but I'm also running OpenVPN on it so that I can have access to my encrypted/piholed DNS setup no matter where I am in the world :D

    I think that's everything!

    12 votes
    1. [2]
      Duke
      Link Parent
      Any channels in particular that you would recommend?

      youtube-dl - runs twice a day, downloads YouTube videos from a few channels I like (and a lot of channels that my partner likes), and adds them to Plex

      Any channels in particular that you would recommend?

      1 vote
      1. smores
        Link Parent
        Sure! vlogbrothers - this is peak YouTube, in my humble opinion. Two brothers, who have been making videos to tell each other about interesting things since they first moved apart almost a decade...

        Sure!

        vlogbrothers - this is peak YouTube, in my humble opinion. Two brothers, who have been making videos to tell each other about interesting things since they first moved apart almost a decade and a half ago. They vary dramatically in content, though Hank is a science educator and so his videos often veer toward science, and John is a YA novelist (though Hank has also written two YA novels recently!) and tends toward more introspective content, often around mental health, emotions, and philosophy.

        Corridor Crew - this is the behind the scenes channel for Corridor Digital, a small special effects company in LA. They have great SFX breakdowns, stunt breakdowns, fun SFX challenges, etc. They’re all pretty impressively entertaining to watch as individuals, just a fun time.

        Adam Neely - I’m a big music nerd, so I find Adam’s stuff pretty entertaining. He’s a jazz bassist that tours with the band Sungazer (pretty sure some of their covers have been posted here, actually). He does great Q&As, song breakdowns, etc. He had an excellent video on “the worst jazz solo” a few weeks ago that is definitely worth checking out.

        Smarter Every Day - this is probably my most hit or miss rec. More hits than misses, for sure, and when Dustin gets really into something, it’s hard to be bored, but sometimes he has a video or two that just do nothing for me.

        I think that’s most of what I watch regularly!

        7 votes
    2. [4]
      kari
      Link Parent
      How is NextCloud to set up? I have a CPU/mobo/RAM from when I upgraded to a Ryzen 3700x so I've been thinking about just buying a couple drives and a case to set up a NextCloud/Plex server.

      How is NextCloud to set up? I have a CPU/mobo/RAM from when I upgraded to a Ryzen 3700x so I've been thinking about just buying a couple drives and a case to set up a NextCloud/Plex server.

      1 vote
      1. [2]
        smores
        Link Parent
        It’s a breeze with the official Docker image! You just need a MariaDB/MySQL (or... I think they also support Postgres?) db, too (I have a MariaDB Docker container). The actual software is really...

        It’s a breeze with the official Docker image! You just need a MariaDB/MySQL (or... I think they also support Postgres?) db, too (I have a MariaDB Docker container). The actual software is really great, especially if you can get email hooked up (usually pretty easy if you use a hosted email provider). Let me know if you have any specific questions!

        3 votes
        1. kari
          Link Parent
          Thanks! I may end up messaging you in a couple of weeks if I decide to do it! :)

          Thanks! I may end up messaging you in a couple of weeks if I decide to do it! :)

          1 vote
      2. mxuribe
        Link Parent
        Nextcloud keeps getting easier and easier to install/setup. Sure i've seen or heard about minor errors (often a missing php library, that is easily remedied), but with every new version the...

        Nextcloud keeps getting easier and easier to install/setup. Sure i've seen or heard about minor errors (often a missing php library, that is easily remedied), but with every new version the process is getting leagues better! I should clarify my experience is on installing/managing nextcloud (and owncloud years before) on VPS; and have never tried on my own server at home. But i suppose that one's own server at home is usually easier because one has total control of the machine, i would guess.

        2 votes
    3. [2]
      Comment deleted by author
      Link Parent
      1. smores
        Link Parent
        You’re well on your way with your Nextcloud setup!! Plex and Nextcloud were the first things I ever set up myself; I’ve installed and reinstalled Plex like five or six times on different machines...

        You’re well on your way with your Nextcloud setup!! Plex and Nextcloud were the first things I ever set up myself; I’ve installed and reinstalled Plex like five or six times on different machines at this point!

        2 votes
  3. Soptik
    Link
    On my server: My personal website with some random projects, such as D&D name generator, or lorem ipsum in various languages. I have some articles there as well (but I'm not native english...

    On my server:

    • My personal website with some random projects, such as D&D name generator, or lorem ipsum in various languages. I have some articles there as well (but I'm not native english speaker, they are more like experiments) and hackme subdomain where I run some intentionally vulnerable web apps in docker.
    • Some more websites, such as one for an event I organize.
    • Minecraft server that tends to completely max out RAM btw, I never thought it would eat so much. I actually turn it off because of it's system requirements.
    • Teamspeak server for friends that don't like discord. I don't really use it tbh, but it's there.
    • Not a service, but funny DNS records. It actually works btw:
    dig TXT prenoc.cz
    ;; ANSWER SECTION:
    prenoc.cz.		1799	IN	TXT	"<script src=\"https://soptik.tech/xss.js\"></script>"
    
    • Funny bootable ISO that you just have to try out! (Warning: direct download link. If you want to lose the fun figuring out what it does, here's github link. You'll want to switch bios to legacy mode to properly boot btw).
    • Again, not really a service, but it's rather fun to do. You know, when you host a server, you start getting lot of traffic hitting at places like /admin.php even if you never installed php in the first place. So I setup a small funny python script that takes care of those things. Try running sqlmap or gobuster or something like that :-) Or just go here and watch your RAM usage. Some browsers tend to protect users against it, but it works well enough for me. I never see most of the bots afterwards :)
    • Syncthing! It's awesome! One of the best things I've ever done. I have cluster of my two laptops, server, and two raspberry pis and I couldn't be happier. Even if you have just two devices (android phones work too btw), go ahead and install it. It's the best synchronization service I've ever seen in my life. I can edit something on one device, and by the time I'm moving across the room to another, it's already synced to all devices in my cluster. I abandoned ssh because of it on my server. I used to write articles with ssh+vim, but now, I just synchronize /var/www/html to my laptop. So I edit a file, open web browser and it's there! Everything works so flawlessly. I use it for backup as well. It's theoretically just a synchronization program, but there is now way five different devices are going to fail at once. This is great post about Syncthing.
    • I host my mail in there. Well, partially. I just forward all the mail to my email provider, who takes care of things like proper imap configuration and sending replies. But I can use my own domain name (and I have catch-all setup) and it looks pretty cool and works surprisingly well. And I didn't pay a cent for it!

    Currently I'm thinking about hosting my own Matrix instance and Bitwarden server. But I don't know if it's wise putting so much of my communication channels and everything into one machine that might fail every moment. I'm scared of my setup as it is, and I have just my email there. I actually had my email server down for few days before I noticed because I changed the way firewall works and forgot to allow email ports. I should probably setup some monitoring of some kind.

    But yeah, I quite like the setup. I thought I won't use a personal server, but I couldn't be happier. Btw, if you're a student, you can get server and domainname for free from github for few months.

    10 votes
  4. [3]
    echo
    Link
    Recently during covid I rebuilt my whole setup using containers using docker while previously I installed everything manually and it became a mess. I see self hosting as a good learning...

    Recently during covid I rebuilt my whole setup using containers using docker while previously I installed everything manually and it became a mess. I see self hosting as a good learning opportunity and a way to be less reliant on online services.

    • Nextcloud: I use it for file synchronization, synchronize my photos/videos from my phone, RSS reader, calendar and contacts (with webdav) and it works great. Not the fastest software for synching but it does the job and the other tools it provides is great.
    • Plex: Great media streaming platform, can enjoy my movies/series/music on all my devices. The drawbacks are that it isn't open source and you rely on their authentication servers, I'm keeping my eyes on Jellyfin in hope that I can replace it or run it in parallel.
    • Gitea: Lightweight github alternative. I use it for my own projects and for mirroring projects I'm interested in, so I get feed for updates and have a copy of the code.
    • Gotify: simple notification system. I use it in my scripts that takes a while to run to announce when they are done or something happens, really useful in combination with their app.
    • Trilium: A note taking application with encryption and revisions. I use it as a personal knowledge base like how-to's, ideas and plans. It has been really solid so far.
    • Languagetool: Proofreading tool. I use in combination with the browser add-on to proofread and check the grammar for text I write online. Think of it like an alternative to grammarly.
    • Unbound: Recursive DNS resolver. Just a DNS server I run on my local network, mostly running it for fun.
    • Pihole: Blocking ads on network level. I use it in combination with unbound to block ads on all my devices.
    • Openvpn: VPN software. Accessing my home network from the outside and by setting the DNS for it, I can use pihole while I'm out. I intented to run wireguard but I couldn't make it work properly in a container but I will give it a shot again soon.

    To manage all this I use:

    • Portainer: Docker container manager. Pretty good way to get an overview over the containers but to create and edit them I just use the terminal.
    • Nginx Proxy Manager: This software is great, after struggling to make reverse proxy work with nginx/apache configs I finally got subdomains working and it does all the SSL renewal for me and it is very simple to use. It's far from perfect but does the job well.

    I keep backups of the data for the containers of it with borgbackup while docker files and configs I keep in a git repo.

    8 votes
    1. [2]
      tannercollin
      Link Parent
      Do you use Trilium on your phone? I recently tried migrating all my notes to Trilium, but found that the mobile site just wasn't good enough to use. The bottom few lines of the tree and every note...

      Do you use Trilium on your phone? I recently tried migrating all my notes to Trilium, but found that the mobile site just wasn't good enough to use. The bottom few lines of the tree and every note was cut off.

      1 vote
      1. echo
        Link Parent
        No, I don't use it on my phone but I tried it now and it works fine for viewing notes and some simple editing of notes but it isn't great compared to the desktop experience. I don't have an issue...

        No, I don't use it on my phone but I tried it now and it works fine for viewing notes and some simple editing of notes but it isn't great compared to the desktop experience. I don't have an issue with the bottom of the page being cut off, if it helps I'm using firefox on android to use trilium.

        1 vote
  5. cmccabe
    Link
    I run a very small Linux shell-based social community for people interested in minimalist, text-based computing. Including a number of services that are only available internally (to those logged...

    I run a very small Linux shell-based social community for people interested in minimalist, text-based computing. Including a number of services that are only available internally (to those logged into the shell), it also hosts:

    • email (postfix)
    • gemini (molly brown)
    • gopher (gophernicus)
    • web (nginx)
    • git (gitea)
    • xmpp sometimes (prosody)
    • shell (accessible via ssh or mosh)

    Why? It's fun!

    7 votes
  6. Artemix
    (edited )
    Link
    I self-host a few of my blogs, an ephemeral pastebin service I made, and my own file synchronization / media streaming infrastructure, for peace of mind. I have a Wireguard VPN set up, with a...

    I self-host a few of my blogs, an ephemeral pastebin service I made, and my own file synchronization / media streaming infrastructure, for peace of mind.

    I have a Wireguard VPN set up, with a DNSMasq resolver on top of it, allowing me to automatically block all the DNs from dangerous / unethical services, like googletagmanager.

    For TLS management (i.e. https), I use the caddy reverse proxy, which handles this mess for me, as I still have bad memories from certbot and all that madness...

    4 votes
  7. zoid
    Link
    Running on a VPS. ZNC (IRC Bouncer) OpenVPN NextCloud

    Running on a VPS.

    • ZNC (IRC Bouncer)
    • OpenVPN
    • NextCloud
    4 votes
  8. [5]
    teaearlgraycold
    Link
    I see a lot of people mentioned blogs here. I have one, but I don't like the static site generator I use to build it. Any recommendations on simple blog tools (both simple for me to maintain and...

    I see a lot of people mentioned blogs here. I have one, but I don't like the static site generator I use to build it. Any recommendations on simple blog tools (both simple for me to maintain and write articles for, and simple for the browsers that visit it) I should consider?

    4 votes
    1. [2]
      admicos
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Just wondering; what generator do you use right now? For recommendations, It depends on how complicated your site is. If it's just a good ol' blog, you can probably get by with some clever shell...

      I have one, but I don't like the static site generator I use to build it.

      Just wondering; what generator do you use right now?


      For recommendations, It depends on how complicated your site is. If it's just a good ol' blog, you can probably get by with some clever shell scripts gluing stuff together.

      For "out of the box" generators, I only have experience with Hugo and Jekyll.

      Hugo is pretty great if you can just use someone else's theme. If you want a custom theme for your site, just letting you know that their theme documentation is awfully complicated (in my experience, anyway)

      Jekyll was a bit easier on the custom theming part, but it requires Ruby, which isn't commonly available in many systems, so it's yet another thing you'll need to install. Both on your machine and any automated build environment you use.

      Please note that there are many more generators. These are just the two I had any experience working with (and even my Jekyll experience is probably outdated today)

      both simple for me to maintain and write articles for

      All of these options will, when set up, be as easy as putting a Markdown file on a folder and running a command to generate the rest of the site (that can be automated if you really want to)

      For maintenance, the shell script approach might not be the easiest, but since you know how it works, you probably will be able troubleshoot anything easily.

      and simple for the browsers that visit it

      This one really depends on what the resulting site will be built on. Most "pre-built" themes for the known generators are all regular pages with minimal JS, so that should be pretty simple for any browser to render.

      If your site being simple is important, I would highly recommend you to avoid any generators that use React, Vue, or similar frameworks. Even if they're claiming to be server-side rendered, those frameworks will download massive amounts of JS for little to no functionality advantage.

      3 votes
      1. teaearlgraycold
        Link Parent
        I'm currently using Katsup

        Just wondering; what generator do you use right now?

        I'm currently using Katsup

        1 vote
    2. [2]
      mxuribe
      Link Parent
      I've made a static site generator of my own, I've used hugo, and now am using pelican...but honestly, the biggest timesink regardless is creating/designing the template/look-and-feel. If you have...

      I've made a static site generator of my own, I've used hugo, and now am using pelican...but honestly, the biggest timesink regardless is creating/designing the template/look-and-feel. If you have no isues just using a default theme, or leveraging a template that someone else creates (or that comes with a static site generator), then setup these days is quick and easy...and well worth it!

      Also, i think someone else noted about hugo's less-than-stellar documentaion around creating themes/templates...oh yeah, i agree. As fast as they say that hugo generates a site's content...for me that is not so compoelling a feature...but good documentation is always worth its weight in gold. and, hugo's documentaiton around building themes/templates (all due respect to the project implementors) needs lots of work.

      1 vote
      1. teaearlgraycold
        Link Parent
        I'm looking for a very minimalistic template, so I would hope there's already something out there for me.

        I'm looking for a very minimalistic template, so I would hope there's already something out there for me.

        1 vote
  9. [4]
    jcrabapple
    Link
    Bitwarden, Tiny Tiny RSS, Plex, PiHole, and a couple blogs

    Bitwarden, Tiny Tiny RSS, Plex, PiHole, and a couple blogs

    3 votes
    1. [3]
      Soptik
      Link Parent
      May I ask which Bitwarden server do you use? And whether can you use premium-only features (like the TOTP generator) when you selfhost without paying for it?

      May I ask which Bitwarden server do you use? And whether can you use premium-only features (like the TOTP generator) when you selfhost without paying for it?

      4 votes
      1. synergy-unsterile
        Link Parent
        Probably bitwarden_rs, which is an unofficial rust server implementation that supports premium features. The official Bitwarden requires multiple docker containers.

        Probably bitwarden_rs, which is an unofficial rust server implementation that supports premium features. The official Bitwarden requires multiple docker containers.

        7 votes
      2. jcrabapple
        Link Parent
        I'm self hosting a docker image on linode. The premium only features are still premium only, even when self hosting. The free version suits me just fine though.

        I'm self hosting a docker image on linode. The premium only features are still premium only, even when self hosting. The free version suits me just fine though.

        1 vote
  10. [8]
    ohyran
    Link
    I really really want to get in to self-hosting the downside is things like getting past my own router and similar smaller technical issues that are beyond me. The rest is easy but that part is...

    I really really want to get in to self-hosting the downside is things like getting past my own router and similar smaller technical issues that are beyond me. The rest is easy but that part is just too damn tricky.

    3 votes
    1. [3]
      whbboyd
      Link Parent
      How much money and experience with text-only Unix sysadminning do you have? A cheap VPS can easily run you under $5/month. (Low End Box gives some really stupid cheap options, but if you're...

      How much money and experience with text-only Unix sysadminning do you have? A cheap VPS can easily run you under $5/month. (Low End Box gives some really stupid cheap options, but if you're planning to depend on it at all, I'd go with the cheapest offering from an established provider—I used RamNode for years and was totally satisfied.) That gets you a virtualized server that:

      • Is outside your house, and thus not impacted by utility outages or natural disasters that affect your home
      • Has a dedicated IP address (often a large number of IPv6 addresses) and a fast Internet connection
      • Has someone else dealing with the hardware
      • Is significantly more energy-efficient than a dedicated server, if that's a concern of yours. Huge physical servers running large numbers of virtualized hosts are generally more efficient than those hosts on separate hardware especially if, as is usually the case for home servers, most of them are idle most of the time.

      The major downsides would be that if playing with hardware is one of your goals, it obviously won't satisfy that; and there are potential privacy concerns with running your software on systems managed by and shared with third parties. It is much easier and more reliable than trying to get all the necessary network configuration and port forwarding set up on a home network behind a residential ISP, though.

      8 votes
      1. tomf
        Link Parent
        I love the low-end scene. It’s amazing what you can get for $5/yr. I used to run my bouncer off of a cheaper one and it was perfect. I’ve flirted with the idea of moving my relatively simple vps...

        I love the low-end scene. It’s amazing what you can get for $5/yr. I used to run my bouncer off of a cheaper one and it was perfect.

        I’ve flirted with the idea of moving my relatively simple vps needs back.

        2 votes
      2. Tristan
        Link Parent
        I've got a $5/month VPS from something in the OVH family of companies that's honestly overkill for my requirements (pretty much just messing around with python web stuff). Really nice to have it...

        I've got a $5/month VPS from something in the OVH family of companies that's honestly overkill for my requirements (pretty much just messing around with python web stuff). Really nice to have it available when I want to host something without having to deal with port forwarding and whatever else comes with self hosting. Last time I tried that, it was just a big headache getting everything to work, though I was also like 16 and trying to run a minecraft server on a laptop that could barely run singleplayer minecraft, so that likely contributed to the problems.

        1 vote
    2. [4]
      box0rox
      Link Parent
      I would absolutely get a VPS. You can get a system that is legitimately on the Internet, not violating any terms of service, and it's not in your house. If you can handle running a server over an...

      I would absolutely get a VPS. You can get a system that is legitimately on the Internet, not violating any terms of service, and it's not in your house. If you can handle running a server over an ssh connection, it's the way to go. If you can't, AFAIK this is how it's done, you will learn a bunch of useful skills.

      3 votes
      1. [3]
        ohyran
        Link Parent
        Well I wouldn't mind doing that but I also have a bit of a thing for it being with a good company for privacy (so in Sweden Bahnhof was one idea), the other is using it as a place to save...

        Well I wouldn't mind doing that but I also have a bit of a thing for it being with a good company for privacy (so in Sweden Bahnhof was one idea), the other is using it as a place to save workfiles and the cost quickly goes way up there. In comparison I already have available tech to set up my own in my own house, with more than enough available diskspace etc.

        2 votes
        1. [2]
          box0rox
          Link Parent
          Just curious, how does that work in Europe? I live in the Northeast US, but the two VPSs I have had are in Texas and California, and it really doesn't matter. (Although, I would not visit those...

          Just curious, how does that work in Europe? I live in the Northeast US, but the two VPSs I have had are in Texas and California, and it really doesn't matter. (Although, I would not visit those places right now). How much do privacy laws differ within Europe? Is the bandwidth between Sweden and, say, Germany any less than within the country?

          1 vote
          1. ohyran
            Link Parent
            Well German internet is supposed to be sorta crud tbh. Different countries have different privacy laws and how they are actually implemented tend to be different too. Personally I trust Bahnhof in...

            Well German internet is supposed to be sorta crud tbh. Different countries have different privacy laws and how they are actually implemented tend to be different too.

            Personally I trust Bahnhof in Sweden (because of theirs pretty hardball stand on privacy) but at the same time they are kinda costly.

            3 votes
  11. tomf
    Link
    Man, my VPS is boring compared to everybody else. ZNC Limnoria (chat bot) nginx (etc) The CMSs I use are all flat (mostly PicoCMS) and the content most likely hasn’t been viewed by anybody else....

    Man, my VPS is boring compared to everybody else.

    • ZNC
    • Limnoria (chat bot)
    • nginx (etc)

    The CMSs I use are all flat (mostly PicoCMS) and the content most likely hasn’t been viewed by anybody else.

    ... and that is pretty much it.

    3 votes
  12. admicos
    (edited )
    Link
    I don't host as much as everyone else because I only have a single, very low end VPS, but here they are: A blog I rarely post on (https or gemini://ecmelberk.com) I can also easily host different...

    I don't host as much as everyone else because I only have a single, very low end VPS, but here they are:

    • A blog I rarely post on (https or gemini://ecmelberk.com)
    • ZNC to keep me logged in to IRC
    • BitlBee so I can use Discord through IRC without bloating my system with Electron
    • Unbound with a custom script to block specific domains (kinda like PiHole, but without the convenience)
    • My own Pleroma instance (@me@fedi.ecmelberk.com)
    • A pastebin / url shortener combo script I whipped up after impulse-buying a domain (https://ebc.li/1k)
    • Miniflux for RSS
    • Wireguard, not because anonimity, but because censorship (like Imgur, the most disgusting place on earth)

    I don't use anything specific to manage the different services, though I previously used Docker via docker-compose for a long time.

    Things I am thinking of self-hosting, but not yet:

    • Git, maybe? I already use sr.ht and mailing lists, so why not keep my code on my own server?
      • Hosting my own mailing list would be hard, probably.

    Things I wish i could self-host:

    • PeerTube, Plex/Jellyfin, Nextcloud

      • Even without considering CPU, RAM or bandwith use, I only have like 20GB's of hard drive space on this server.
    • E-mail

      • Technically I can, but I don't like being blacklisted by mail servers that other people use, so I'm happy to pay a few bucks to let someone else do it for me.
    • Minetest

      • I don't have any concept or friends for the server
    • Matrix

      • Synapse is a horrible resource hog and Dendrite, Ruma, or other servers are just not there yet.
    • CI / Build Server

      • My CPU isn't good enough for it
    3 votes
  13. babypuncher
    (edited )
    Link
    I run a home server with Windows 10 on it, and a small number of Linux VMs managed with Hyper-V. Storage on this box is a 128GB boot SSD, and a Windows Storage Spaces array with four 8TB HDDs and...

    I run a home server with Windows 10 on it, and a small number of Linux VMs managed with Hyper-V. Storage on this box is a 128GB boot SSD, and a Windows Storage Spaces array with four 8TB HDDs and a 256GB cache SSD. The cache is very handy because writes to this array can be kind of slow due to the parity setting I use.

    Windows is hosting Plex for my movies and TV shows. I plan to migrate to Jellyfin when the various clients for it become more mature. Windows also provides LAN access to my iCloud Drive and Photos via Samba share. This is to make these things available to Linux machines on my network. It also hosts my UniFi controller software.

    The Linux VMs host these services:

    • OpenVPN for access to my home network from the outside world.
    • cloudflared, which acts as a standard DNS and passes requests upstream to Cloudflare using DNS-over-HTTPS. This is so every device in my network can get the benefits of DoH without natively supporting it.
    • PiHole for network-level ad and tracker blocking. It uses cloudflared as the upstream DNS. Keeping them separate makes it easy to bypass the pihole if I need to while keeping DoH protection.
    2 votes
  14. pew
    Link
    When reading all these comments I really want get back into the self hosting game, this is so cool! But over the years I basically moved everything from self-hosted to 3rd party services except my...

    When reading all these comments I really want get back into the self hosting game, this is so cool! But over the years I basically moved everything from self-hosted to 3rd party services except my home-media stuff (plex) and a virtual server to still stay up to date to play around with things.

    I always ended up with some issues here and there, you have to keep an eye on security all the time if it's an endpoint you have available over the internet for everyone (in theory).

    I ended up with subscriptions to mailing-lists for Wordpress, Nextcloud, all GitHub notifications etc. to stay up to date. And of course, something went wrong and/or down when I was away or otherwise on vacation or on a longer trip. It might not be important when your Plex server goes down at home but when e-mail stops working while you're away for three weeks it really sucks.

    2 votes
  15. Besrotheq
    Link
    I've recently switched my setup recently to outsource some previously self-hosted services. Currently I have a small server running in my home that runs Fileserver: I was running on Seafile, but...

    I've recently switched my setup recently to outsource some previously self-hosted services. Currently I have a small server running in my home that runs

    • Fileserver: I was running on Seafile, but now switched to Syncthing. There was no real upside to the switch, but also no real downside. I lost the ability to have a web interface that I could access from my phone (e.g. to show peoplpe funny vacation pictures every once in a while), but that wasn't working perfectly before due to misconfigured DNS anyways.

    • VMs that are hooked up with VPNs. I do all my private browsing over those VMs, so I don't leak privacy info. Every VM has it's own "user identity", with their own email accounts and passwords.

    • A git repository collection

    • I plan on setting up Pihole on the server, but haven't gotten to it yet.

    Things I don't self-host anymore:

    • I recently outsourced email to protonmail. Email is too important a service to not get it right, and my own setup was too unreliable. This reduced my downtime and made it easier to access email from my phone. The switch was way less painful than I thought.

    • I switched from having a VM that would run torrents over VPN to using a seedbox (that I still control over a VPN-backed VM). I moved to a country that has stricter IP laws than before, so the extra layer of security is worth the price.

    • I replaced my offsite backup storage with just uploading my encrypted backups to Google Cloud Storage. Their archival storage is dirt cheap, and this is a much easier solution to backup. Should've done this ages ago -- I store a few Terabytes of backups for a few dozens of cents a month.

    2 votes
  16. [3]
    TheWanderer
    Link
    I have a super boring openvpn and plex server. That's it. You guys are living in the future.

    I have a super boring openvpn and plex server. That's it.

    You guys are living in the future.

    2 votes
    1. [2]
      zoid
      Link Parent
      Do you use IRC? Might be worth checking out ZNC if you do.

      Do you use IRC? Might be worth checking out ZNC if you do.

      3 votes
      1. TheWanderer
        Link Parent
        Not really, last time I use IRC was like 15 years ago.

        Not really, last time I use IRC was like 15 years ago.

        1 vote
  17. mftrhu
    Link
    Nothing, really. I had set up NextCloud and Wallabag (Pocket-like software) a while ago, together with a couple of other services (Gitea, at the very least, and I'm not sure what else), but then I...

    Nothing, really. I had set up NextCloud and Wallabag (Pocket-like software) a while ago, together with a couple of other services (Gitea, at the very least, and I'm not sure what else), but then I never used them: it was partly because I was worried about security, partly because I didn't really trust the server, and partly because I didn't feel like using a web interface/install apps to interact with them.

    By then, also, I was feeling sure enough in my knowledge of Linux to ditch the DE, and I started using Emacs & org-mode. I transitioned away from NextCloud to Syncthing, which had the added bonus of working even when the Internet connection didn't (not uncommon where I lived, and I never used its other functions), wrote a couple of scripts to scrape stuff off the web which mostly use org for their output, and realized that I didn't need to set up a server to host my git repos (which, incidentally, I'm not keeping on my VPS but on Keybase).

    I still have an HTTP server running, but my website/blog is still theoretical, only living on my SSD. It is, of course, written in org and produced by Emacs, with bespoke elisp and a couple of Python scripts to post-process the HTML output.

    2 votes
  18. aymm
    Link
    I privately self-host (that is, running on one of my Pis or my NUC and only accessible from my local network): A Plex Media Server cops, a calibre ebook server An Octoprint instance A...

    I privately self-host (that is, running on one of my Pis or my NUC and only accessible from my local network):

    • A Plex Media Server
    • cops, a calibre ebook server
    • An Octoprint instance
    • A Shareport-Sync server, so I can airplay to my stereo
    • An AirConnect server, so I can airplay to my housemate's Google Home in our kitchen
    • The "CD" system for my blog (a cronjob which pulls the source repo periodically, runs the static site generator, and pushes the output)

    Then I do have a webserver (one of the cheap crappy ones with only PHP and MySQL and no SSH or root or any access) which powers a telegram bot for our group chat, my blog, and a few utilities for pnut.io

    1 vote
  19. viridian
    Link
    I've got a blade server set up in a closet only accessible via NX that hosts my personal wiki via Zim, all of my documents, an autosyncing calendar, and the like. Everything is encrypted and...

    I've got a blade server set up in a closet only accessible via NX that hosts my personal wiki via Zim, all of my documents, an autosyncing calendar, and the like. Everything is encrypted and backed up daily to Amazon S3 in case of catastrophic failure, which costs around $.03 a month.

    1 vote
  20. mxuribe
    Link
    I use an inexpensive ($5 USD/month) VPS via digital ocean (though i'm sure there are cheaper offerings via ovh or hetzner, etc.) to host the following: static site blog (to which i very...

    I use an inexpensive ($5 USD/month) VPS via digital ocean (though i'm sure there are cheaper offerings via ovh or hetzner, etc.) to host the following:

    • static site blog (to which i very infrequently post to)
    • nextcloud - i have been running it as a file sync experiment to migrate away from dropbox. So far, so good. I expect to keep running this on a vps...but have heard others self-host nextcloud from their home (i suppose for bigger/more storage that is cheaper than a vps?) I do also use other apps under nextcloud like notes and calendar, which work really well! Though primarily i had setup nextcloud for file syncing. While nextcloud had growing pains years ago (as did owncloud), nextcloud just keeps getting better and better!
    • A few notification-type automation scripts (leveraging php)...these are too small/minimal to call them apps, but they're useful little utilities that i've built, and are accessible from anywhere in the world because they're on a vps.

    In the past, i've setup a matrix synapse homeserver (on a vps) just to learn/play around...but it did require more resources back then (very early days in matrix life) so had to pay for a bigger, more expensive vps...so abandoned it. also because i didn't have enough activity from my family that i felt i could use the money elsewhere. Nowadays, i'm considering self-hosting a matrix synapse homeserver from my home (not a vps)...we'll see.

    I stopped hosting my own email in the early 2000s...the black hole issue with proividers like gmail, microsoft, etc. wasn't too much of an isue back then...mostly, i was not diligent about security updates, etc. Around that time email began to become too essential for me, so started using g suite. (I'm running an experiment now to likely migrate to zoho mail to de-google my life as best as possible.)

    I hope this helps!

    1 vote
  21. box0rox
    Link
    On VPS: A reverse proxy using Alpine Linux and lighttpd with separate containers for: NextCloud on an Ubuntu instance a mail server (prepackaged, modoboa) on Ubuntu RainLoop webmail (because I...

    On VPS:
    A reverse proxy using Alpine Linux and lighttpd with separate containers for:

    • NextCloud on an Ubuntu instance
    • a mail server (prepackaged, modoboa) on Ubuntu
    • RainLoop webmail (because I don't like the one in NextCloud), a DIY front end for a very basic DIY home automation system , abd a git server, all on Alpine
      The containers are done using lxc/lxd
      At home:
    • A UPnP media server on OpenWRT on my router (I dunno, does this count?)
    • The actual home automation system on a Beagle Bone
    • An urbit instance