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  • Showing only topics in ~tech with the tag "hosting". Back to normal view / Search all groups
    1. How do country-based "Access Denied" pages work?

      I'm currently abroad in Asia and cannot access certain websites from European or US companies. While I often cannot access websites because the country I am visiting blocks them, some of the...

      I'm currently abroad in Asia and cannot access certain websites from European or US companies.

      While I often cannot access websites because the country I am visiting blocks them, some of the websites are blocked by the country of origin.

      For example, if I try to access homedepot.com, I am greeted with a white screen and the following error message:

      Access Denied

      You don't have permission to access "http://www.homedepot.com/" on this server.

      Reference #18.b2d3e17.1711331240.4d2ee5d0

      https://errors.edgesuite.net/18.b2d3e17.1711331240.4d2ee5d0

      Another example would be toyota.de, which produces:

      Access Denied
      You don't have permission to access "http://de.toyota.ch/contact" on this server.

      Reference #18.16a33017.1711331317.93e27b61

      How do these websites "ensure" that I cannot access them? It seem that some sort of configuration was purposely made to reject access from certain countries. Accessing them with a VPN solves the problem. But I'm wondering why and how the geo blocking exists to begin with.

      I'm also asking this question because it made me wonder if certain hosting providers actively block certain countries from accessing the hosted content. There was a thread about hosting quality of various providers yesterday and that got me thinking. When we used Wix for our website in the past, although content was accessible abroad, the speed seemed very slow. Worse would be if it were entirely blocked.

      Edit: by the way, changing the address request from http to https does not make any difference.

      21 votes
    2. Hosting a company website on our own?

      Edit: I appreciate everyone's suggestions and recommendations! After speaking with my co-worker, I think we'll got with a Managed WordPress solution. Still have a lot more to discuss and figure...

      Edit: I appreciate everyone's suggestions and recommendations! After speaking with my co-worker, I think we'll got with a Managed WordPress solution. Still have a lot more to discuss and figure out, but I suspect that'll at least put us on the right footing. Thanks!


      Hello Tilderinos. I need your knowledge and advice.

      The organization I work for wants to build a new website. Traditionally, we've used an AMS, which is an Association Management System. These are typically used by non-profits, which is what we are, a voluntary regulatory non-profit. It combines a CMS with a CRM in a proprietary package. It's also entirely hosted and managed by the AMS developer, which is typical for these platforms. Basically a turnkey solution.

      We have a web designer/developer-yet-doesn't-want-wear-the-developer-mantle and me, who's really more of a desktop support/low level sysadmin for our small organization. I'm jack of all many trades, master of none.

      Our web designer is really interested in either self-hosting WordPress or even looking into a headless CMS. He wants more creative and functional control over our website than what we currently with our AMS. We are very limited to what we can do right now, since we're playing in the AMS' sandbox with only some HTML/CSS and light JS use. Anyway, from there, we'd use API calls to query the new CRM that's currently being built out (it's a proprietary one, akin to Salesforce) to generate dynamic content.

      I could go out and get webhosting at like a GoDaddy (I wouldn't use GoDaddy) or somewhere like that. I've done that before for some smaller auxiliary sites. Sites that, if they go down for a day or two, it's kinda NBD, while I try to figure out what's going on and reach out to the webhost for assistance. I literally just did that earlier this week on one of those sites.

      But this would be our main website. And we have a global customer and stakeholder base. People are always on our website 24/7. I'm hesitant to commit to doing it this way because I feel like there's so much that would drop into our laps that we don't know how to handle. What happens when the site goes down for some reason? Is there a failover? How do I even set that up? How do we do backups and rollbacks? How about security issues? How do I harden the site and system? What happens if we do get hacked? We've discussed the issues with WordPress, which are many. How do we deal with all those issues on our own? I don't know the answer to any of these.

      Like I said above, we don't have to deal with any of those questions right now. Our AMS provider deals with all that. I'm sure they have a team in a NOC or similar that watches the infrastructure 24/7. Part of what we pay them is so they can handle all that. No way in hell my co-worker and I are willing or able to do all that. And it's not that I'm not willing to learn how to do all this stuff, but to me, this seems like the wrong venue and time to be learning on the fly.

      Idk. Are my concerns overblown? Is it really just as easy as getting some webhosting space somewhere and installing WP or some headless CMS and letting my web dev go to town? I know my co-worker could build the site out. I'm just not sure if I could support it all during and afterwards.

      Any advice or suggestion would be appreciated. Because right now, him and I are going around in circles trying to figure this out, ha. Thanks.

      17 votes
    3. Wordpress hosting

      My girlfriend has started a small business and is looking into a blogging platform. What she has tried so far hasn't been great. She has decided to go the WordPress route and this is where I am...

      My girlfriend has started a small business and is looking into a blogging platform. What she has tried so far hasn't been great. She has decided to go the WordPress route and this is where I am involved.

      Any suggestions for hosting providers? What features should I be considering or anything else I should be aware of when it comes to picking a provider?
      Right now I am looking at Bluehost vs Hostinger. Bluehost just seem to be the most advertised. Hostinger seemed to offer more for the same cost.

      12 votes
    4. I've been looking into self-hosting, what's the best cost-efficient option?

      I host a couple of very small websites for personal stuff and a Foundry server for my weekly RPG. Not exactly resource-intensive. And I've been paying for webhosting for a while for it, and it...

      I host a couple of very small websites for personal stuff and a Foundry server for my weekly RPG. Not exactly resource-intensive. And I've been paying for webhosting for a while for it, and it just feels unnecessary.

      I always figured when I finally decided to do it, I'd just grab a Raspberry Pi and go to town. But they're... weirdly expensive. The Zero 2 W is sold out everywhere, they have insane resale prices, and you still need to essentially buy the 'kit' first time to have most of the stuff to set one up. So is it worth it?

      I've been toying between that or just grabbing an old server off craigslist or Facebook Marketplace for $25-$30 and just going to town from there. What do you guys recommend?

      31 votes
    5. Where is everyone hosting their email these days?

      This is more focused towards those that use custom domains for their email. My current plan is up at Zoho for my team in a month, and even though I've used them for the past few years its been...

      This is more focused towards those that use custom domains for their email. My current plan is up at Zoho for my team in a month, and even though I've used them for the past few years its been hit-or-miss (especially when using third-party apps or programs).

      Who do you use? Who do you not trust? Who would you never go back to?

      Sidenote: I hope this might eventually kick off a ~privacy group, one day.

      72 votes
    6. Book writing self-hosted solutions?

      I'm big into self-hosting and recently getting back into writing as an additional hobby, cuz one can never have too many, right? Anyway, I am looking for a writing organization tool like...

      I'm big into self-hosting and recently getting back into writing as an additional hobby, cuz one can never have too many, right? Anyway, I am looking for a writing organization tool like Manuskript, Dabble, or Scrivener that is both open source and self-hosted.

      Essentially, I would just like something that I can organize my thoughts and occasionally write in, but be able to access it from all my devices - desktops, laptops, phones, tablets, etc. It seems like most of the solutions I've looked at are limited to a single device or cloud functionality is locked behind a paywall. Of course, I could just use a self-hosted wiki site for cloud editing/organization, but I'd like something more oriented toward writing if anybody has any ideas. Thanks!

      26 votes
    7. What webhost and software do you use for your personal website?

      In the 2000s, I had Blogger or a subdomain on some random free host. I even tried Ning at some point. Since 2012, I’ve had a personal site at a custom domain, on Squarespace, then WordPress who...

      In the 2000s, I had Blogger or a subdomain on some random free host. I even tried Ning at some point.

      Since 2012, I’ve had a personal site at a custom domain, on Squarespace, then WordPress who knows where, then Tumblr, then WordPress on Linode, now a combo Bear Blog and GitHub Pages.

      I dislike WordPress for how clunky it is, Squarespace for how expensive it is, Tumblr for how obviously Tumblr it is (I could say the same about Squarespace and many WordPress sites), GitHub Pages for making me use git to post. Basically, I’m not happy with anything.

      So I thought I’d ask los Tildeños—do you have a personal site? What web host and tech stack are you using for it? What do you like/dislike about it? What else have you tried?

      47 votes
    8. NordVPN changes to username and password encryption cause Auth_FAIL in OpenVPN/Gluetun

      Recently NordVPN rolled out an update which forced users to use an encrypted username and password combination when connecting through OpenVPN. I haven't seen any posts on this here, and it took...

      Recently NordVPN rolled out an update which forced users to use an encrypted username and password combination when connecting through OpenVPN. I haven't seen any posts on this here, and it took me way longer than I want to admit troubleshooting this issue because I knew my original credentials were correct.

      If you use a gluetun container for routing any of other containers traffic, you might have recently noticed a 500 Internal Service Error in your Health Status and when you check your logs you will find a AUTH_FAILED message.

      Solution below:

      1. Go to NordVPN website and log in (using your normal credentials)
      2. Under accounts, services, click NordVPN
      3. Click "Set up NordVPN Manually" at the bottom of the page
      4. You will receive an email verification code, using whatever email you have set up for your NordVPN services. Type this code into the popup window.
      5. Copy your new encrypted credentials for your Open VPN client settings.

      This is my first post, please add tags as required.

      24 votes
    9. What do you use to journal with?

      The recent PKM thread had me thinking about what folks are using as journaling app/portal. I do use Obsidian for my second brain right now and genuinely love it. But I find the mobile app on...

      The recent PKM thread had me thinking about what folks are using as journaling app/portal. I do use Obsidian for my second brain right now and genuinely love it. But I find the mobile app on Android to be a bit clunky, if I'm honest. Seems slow to open even with very few plugins. For jounaling I've used DayOne for years. I started back when it was iOS/MacOS only, but then switched phone to Android and haven't been back. But now they have an app and web app for that. What I don't like is the somewhat goofy format it saves in and it's on their servers. They used to allow you to at least leverage your own Dropbox, but no longer.

      For the past several months I've tried several FOSS options. Main criteria is that I could host it myself, supports offline entries stored in an open file format (preferably MarkDown), and had either multi platform app or a decent web app. That lead me to try these:

      Memos
      Pros:

      • Great persistent web app
      • Slick UI that is light and snappy
      • markdown support
        Cons:
      • Stuffs the .md inside a database file so can be a bit cumbersome to export data
      • No offline support. There is a 3rd party app that hopes to implement it

      Flatnotes
      Pros:

      • Incredibly simple
      • Another easily deployed app
      • Flat Markdown files
        Cons:
      • Web app on mobile is almost unusable as in it doesn't scale well to smaller screens
      • Very early development, but very likely to stay as minimalistic as it is now.
      • No offline and very unlikely to ever have it

      Joplin
      Pros:

      • Multi platform apps that perform well
      • End-to-end encryption supported
      • Could replace both DayOne and my To-do solution (Google Keep)
      • Offline support
        Cons:
      • More database stuff instead of flat markdown files

      One solution I've been testing lately is using IAWriter to write to a 'Journal' folder within my Obsidian vault on Google drive Obsidian Vault > Journal > 2023.... for example. This works surprisingly well. Of course IAWriter is a bit spendy at $29 for Android and then more $ for other platforms as they're sold separately.

      So I'm curious what other people are using for just simple daily journaling, random thoughts, etc. If there's an approach I've missed I'd love to hear it. Joplin is so dang close but not having the structure of plaintext files is a no go for me as I don't want to be trapped by any one product should something happen to the development down the road. Doesn't have to be free, but I want control of the entries either on my own server or cloud storage.

      46 votes
    10. Looking for recommendations for ad-free video hosting

      I’m creating a special video for my parents’ anniversary and want to share it privately. I don’t want anyone to see ads before, during or right after it. I’m not monetizing it and don’t care about...

      I’m creating a special video for my parents’ anniversary and want to share it privately. I don’t want anyone to see ads before, during or right after it. I’m not monetizing it and don’t care about viewer metrics.

      Right now I’m trying to decide between subscribing to Vimeo or just placing the file in my Google Drive and sharing out the link.

      The file won’t exceed 5GB.

      Would paying for a service like Vimeo really be worth it when I could just share out the file for free?

      Would appreciate any suggestions or recommendations from content creators.

      9 votes
    11. What operating system do you run your home servers on?

      I'm going to set up my first home server with an Intel NUC, but I can't decide what OS to use. Ubuntu seems popular but I like Pop!_OS and am not sure if that would be a good option. Then there's...

      I'm going to set up my first home server with an Intel NUC, but I can't decide what OS to use. Ubuntu seems popular but I like Pop!_OS and am not sure if that would be a good option. Then there's TrueNas and Unraid, but as a newbie, what's the best choice?

      I'm also just curious what everyone else is using :)

      Edit: Thank you for your great responses!

      49 votes
    12. What are you self-hosting currently?

      I recently discovered Paperless-ngx and have immediately fell in love. I must now decide whether to host it on my VPS (risky with personal documents), on a Pi at home or finally invest in a proper...

      I recently discovered Paperless-ngx and have immediately fell in love. I must now decide whether to host it on my VPS (risky with personal documents), on a Pi at home or finally invest in a proper home server (something cheap but with a bit more power than a Pi4). It can totally be run a Pi, but performance may not be as good.

      Does Tildes have a big self-hosted community? What are you self-hosting currently, and what do you enjoy about it?

      52 votes
    13. Is having a business line worth it?

      Does anyone have a business subscriber Internet connection? Is it worth it? I just spoke with my ISP, and for an extra $40/mo I can get a static IP address with 100mbps that I can host my own...

      Does anyone have a business subscriber Internet connection? Is it worth it?

      I just spoke with my ISP, and for an extra $40/mo I can get a static IP address with 100mbps that I can host my own website on. I have a virtualization server, and I've been thinking about hosting my own hobby-scale website for a while. I haven't had any luck finding rack hosting space that I'd feel comfortable using so I'm thinking about just going rogue, and operating solo. If I had a static IP address with a pipe that would allow me to host then all I'd need to do is stand up a server, register a domain, and point it at my IP address.

      Other than the typical security risks, what do I need to worry about? Would the experience be worth it?

      11 votes
    14. Teknik.io registration is open for a few more hours!

      EDIT: signups are now closed. relevant blog post teknik.io is a website that provides services like email, [encrypted] file uploads, Git repos, blogs, URL shortening, and more. I've used them for...

      EDIT: signups are now closed.

      relevant blog post

      teknik.io is a website that provides services like email, [encrypted] file uploads, Git repos, blogs, URL shortening, and more. I've used them for a few years and they're wonderful. It's all open-source and privacy conscious, maybe some Tildes users would like it?

      Registration is usually invite-only, but it's open for a few hours.

      Thanks @duckoverflow for mentioning this.

      Edit: also their privacy policy is short, simple, and easy-to-read if anyone is interested in that. I'd consider it a great example of what a privacy policy should be.

      24 votes