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les murmurations d'autoroute
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Hey everyone,
We're excited to finally share the results summary of the survey we posted in this community a few months ago! A massive thank you to the n=2158 active self-hosters from communities like r/selfhosted on Reddit and c/selfhosted on Lemmy.World who participated. Your input has led to a comprehensive academic paper that investigates the core reasons why we stick with self-hosting over the long haul.
Our study examined which factors most influence the Continuance Intention (the desire to keep using) and Actual Usage of self-hosted solutions. We confirmed that self-hosting is a principle-driven and hobby-driven practice, challenging traditional models of technology adoption.
The Top 3 most important Positive Drivers for Continued Self-Hosting
The most significant positive predictors of your intention to continue self-hosting were all rooted in intrinsic satisfaction and personal gain, rather than just basic utility:
The Critical Role of Technical Skill
We found that your self-assessed technical ability, or Perceived Competence, acts as a crucial link between wanting to self-host and actually doing it. Having a high intention to keep self-hosting is only half the battle. Your confidence in your technical skill is what gives you the self-assurance to handle the necessary, demanding tasks like maintenance, security, and updates. Importantly, a certain critical threshold of knowledge is required before competence starts driving that actual, continuous usage.
Other Key Insights
Implications for the Self-Hosting Ecosystem
For developers and the community, these findings suggest that sustained usage depends not only on functionality but also on fostering empowerment and a great user experience. By making self-hosting more enjoyable and reinforcing the user's sense of digital sovereignty, we strengthen the intrinsic motivation that fuels this movement.
Thank you again for helping us publish this research on the future of decentralized digital solutions! This work would not have been possible without your participation.
The full open-access article "A Model of Factors Influencing Continuance Intention and Actual Usage of Self-Hosted Software Solutions": mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/22/10009
My self hosting journey is limited mostly by time. When I have it, I try out new setups or tweak my current one. Otherwise it’s just lower end maintenance and updates.
The last time I had ample time I managed to get a double WireGuard (both in and out) working, so that’s something I suppose.
I can’t see anything disagreeable in this summary from my own experience so far though. Great stuff!
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Big if. That's a trial and error journey unless some of the tools are part of your job description.
Edit: downvoted by Linus Torvalds I guess. Can't even follow a video and hope it's right unless you just duplicate a setup
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I like this! Similar to run groups, but parallel task zoom meet ups or the like.
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I'm in the US...
Happy to help plan something though, or add a Zoom / virtual equivalent.
I'd say my interest in selfhosting is multi-pronged. Selfhosting allows me to control my data which fits into my privacy, anonymity, and security posture. It's also a great educational tool for me. I'm always down to learn something, and even tho I've been immersed in computer tech since the mid 70s, I still have sooooo much to learn. I'd almost say that the educational benefits are somewhat more enjoyable than the actual finished product. It also ties in with my desire to be able to help others be as anonymous, private, and secure as one can possibly be, not only in their daily lives, but in their digital lives. The more I know, the more I can help others.
I'm sitting here pouring over a box of about 18 Wyse 3040 & 5010 thin clients that a bud of mine dropped off the other day, wondering what can I get into today. Muhahahahaha! It's gonna be a good day 'tater.
I think people who self host are the only ones who knows they services wont just disappear, their accounts wont get locked and their data wont be shared with big tech.
Others can wake up one day and not have access to their stuff anymore, and have nothing they can do about it.
How mad is it to just rent access to your movies, or documents, and it can go away at any moment?
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Now this is how you detect whether an election was stolen. Humans choose rounder numbers.
by @TheEconomist
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that is not the only indicator tho.
There is also Bedford's law, and that method is also not a magical tool.
Overall, a comprehensive statistical analysis, spotting non-human behavior, or too human behavior, is necessary.
And that remains statistics, it can never be a proof. No matter how likely, or unlikely, stats can't deliver proof.
That's the sad truth about election fraud: you can be mathematically 99.99999% sure this was a fraud, and nothing will happen...
they suggest that someone rounded up or down at the least.
But this is focusing the issue on the easiest to detect version of vote manipulation.
This is not how you "detect if an election was stolen" because it is not suggestive of any particular outcome. The way you find this out is over whistleblowers and using many sources.
Election manipulation happens all the time, especially in the west. Propaganda and oppression of opposition has been done since more than 100 yrs.
There is also a talk from @why2025camp this year:
media.ccc.de/v/why2025-218-how…
Enter the fascinating world of corruption, chicanery, low-tech fraud, and forensic tools that uncover it. The story is told through the e...media.ccc.de
LIFTOFF! Europe's newest guardian of Earth is now in orbit. 🫡
Europe has successfully launched Sentinel-1D, the latest satellite in the Copernicus fleet, aboard an Ariane 6 rocket from French Guiana.
It'll scan land and sea every 12 days with radar sharp enough to detect floods, ice melting, ship movements, oil spills and even the quiet shifting of the ground.
Free data will propel climate science, disaster response and maritime safety.
Europe’s answer to our planet's key challenges.
📷© ESA
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What if you could buy off the shelf a box based on #opensource software and hardware that you could plug into your internet connection. You could connect to via Wifi and it would allow an average person to fairly easily configure, via a guided setup, a self hosted Cloud Drive, Social Media server, home automation service, VPN end point, email server and other commonly useful software?
What if that box allowed that person's friends to authenticate and to that box and link a box they own, either close by or remotely. It could extend connectivity and estabilish a chain of trus, provide a level of encrypted backup of content from that box and make assertions about the users on that box such as - This user account is owned by this person, this user account is over 18?
This is a dream. I know I'm rambling. #openwrt, #yunohost, #seflhost, #chainoftrust, #fediverse !Selfhosted
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The closest to your dream is probably hexos.com/
It is closed source, but build on top of open source...
They (for now) have a one time purchase license, no subscription.
It has buddy backups. Can run on any normal x86 pc / server (you have to bring your own and install hexos to it). And has a nice and simple GUI for deploying services easily.
I never personally used it. I just have it on my radar. For me, the not so easy but fully free (cost) and open source way works reasonably well. I run my homelab with dokploy.
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For a free foss alternative, look at OMV (OpenMediaVault).
Most of what a user might need is fairly simple to set up in the webUI, and if you know what you are doing, you can still go into the underlying debian system and do whatever you like.
openmediavault is the next generation network attached storage (NAS) solution based on Debian Linux. It contains services like SSH, (S)FTP, SMB/CIFS, AFS, UPnP media server, DAAP media server, RSync, BitTorrent client and many more.openmediavault
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free foss alternative, look at OMV
lol no. I used this one for a month and no.
It works but it has the most convoluted GUI possible. No backup system at all iirc. And running arbitrary containers was a nightmare that is not even integrated with the GUI.
I settled on dokploy.com/
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Dokploy has a web ui with a list of services where you click install and it installs them for you. You can set it up to do the exact same job as OMV but also way less or way more, depending on what you want and need. (by just clicking install on the existing templates, or by entering a custom docker compose if you want to run a nieche service)
So I'd argue dokploy is a perfect substitution (or more like superset) for OMV, but OMV could never substitude dokploy.
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I don't use docker via a GUI. And I don't run docker at all on the NAS running OMV.
My backup solution is Kopia. Two servers, each running an instance that backs up local storage to the other.
OP isn't talking about a full homelab. If all you need is a home VPN and some network storage via SMB, OMV is fine.
For my homelab, OMV would be clunky af. For the NAS at my dad's end, it's ideal.
OP is talking about solutions that include certain features out of the box in an easy to use package.
Rolling out a conglomorate of those features that you've manually set up and ducktaped together by hand is irrelevant. That approach was already possible for many decades.
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I didn't tho.
You're confusing my homelab with my dads OMV NAS that is running kopia as its only non-standard service because I wanted to use it as my off-site target.
I wasn't presenting OMV as the solution to all of OPs examples, I literally just commented to point out "hey this is kinda like hexos but foss".
To which you responded "lol no, there is no comparison". Which is both untrue, and a rude way to go about saying anything.
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Yes. @Co-op Cloud (who I think are more focused on the more technical end of managing multiple servers) have a comparision that includes some other alternatives on the templated #homeserver- docs.coopcloud.tech/intro/comp…
I've also seen that people are building solutions that are a mix of #Proxmox, #Openwrt and some of the solutions above to bring things together on a single server - But that's definately a level of complexity that is beyond almost everyone at the moment (but is perhaps moving the concept in the right direction.
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My problem with chains of trust is the Kevin Bacon problem. Sure, I trust my friends, but some of their friends can be a little sketchy. Plus, they don't have any direct social contact with me, nor any personal consequences for betrayal. And nevermind the sketchy friends of the sketchy friends.
Federation has its uses, but trust is not one of them.
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This is my dream as well, but for security I feel like you need multiple independent systems. I’m doing mine with power-hungry recycled 2012-vintage server hardware (Xeon E5-1620s and 2620s and Opteron 6276s, bought for $100 each several years ago, plus a few hundred more to their maximum amounts of DDR3 ECC) but this hypothetical box could easily have raspberry pis or something similar. Public services can become compromised and you’ll only want certain hardware to be trusted to do certain things.
My plan is a terrible one and I’m taking way too long to do it. I really want someone else to build this better and faster, but if my crappy plan ends up being the first usable version of this, that will suck but at least it’s available.
I had a dumb personal domain from June of 2000, tried to make it a public internet site, offered services to people on IRC for internet social points, but after a few years it got ahead of me and I let it die. (I’ve been paying for the same business internet ever since, though, and I still have the same static IPs as from back then.) Time passed, got married, got a computer science degree and a development job with a billion dollar SAAS company.
I can see how they do big public internet hosting. I want everyone to be able to do this, too. Been trying to build the same kinds of architecture with open source tools at home. Struggling, I keep over designing it and getting stuck and frustrated. It takes me a month to do what a competent ops person from work does in a couple days.
OnceI have this working for me, I can share it, because it’s my own work product. It’ll be a guide, a recipe to follow, for creating the kind of secure and isolated web application and general VM hosting environment I see us use at work. This stuff is the difference between “I’m hosting one thing and if it gets hacked, everything is owned” and “I’m hosting a hundred things, all different, and if one gets hacked that will suck - but the other 99 things will stay safe.”
Biggest problem I think with creating this with open-source is just picking a direction for everything and getting the internet to not pitch a fit. “Why did you use postfix?” “I hate Greenbone / GSA and refuse to use it.” “Hardware is expensive, you say I need a jump box for this AND for this, and dedicated hardware for a firewall here AND here? Each of those could clearly be a VM. Your project wastes hardware and I’m not doing it this way.”
Sure, once this is done these decisions are pretty much baked in and I won’t have the energy to redo them yet again. But getting the architecture perfectly designed for your exact scenario … that takes a ton of work. Big companies pay a ton of money in just payroll hours to build this kind of thing bespoke for their needs. I’ll be giving away my version, and I’m afraid the internet won’t care.
But I think we need to keep this ability alive, that private citizens can set up their own DIY hosting that can stand up to hostile internet actors decently well. They can pay (I’ll grant) exploitative rates for business internet connections so they can have static IPs at home as well. If we all stop, we all just decide all hosting should be done by big cloud service companies or big enterprises, we lose a crucial bit of internet freedom. Someone needs to say “yeah this is kinda dumb but I’m doing it anyway.”
And if they could do it with a box you just plug in, instead of my (likely) month-long two hundred step recipe, and still have it stand up to attacks and “Internet background radiation” and stuff, that would be epic. I kind of don’t want my thing to be the way that self-hosting-public-web-services is done.
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On your point regarding a single device - I don't think that separate hardware necessarily provides security - Though I take your point - perhaps it could be about a compatible - modular architecture - a home server, a router, a home automation hub - that are linked together easily and well.
Agree on the issue with Open source be of the "let a thousand flowers bloom" ( i just saw someone post they have a new "templated based home server" lemmy.world/post/38362941 ) - but I think thats a strength - people try stuff out - things are more loosely coupled and rely on open standards - perhaps that's a whole philispophical discussion but I think open source and open standards would attract hardware vendors - (I'm seeing plently more Openwrt based routers on chinese marketplaces than I used to - they just don't want the overhead of having to provide their own fully featured software.
I also get the - at the moment doing it yourself requires knitting together alot of stuff - that's my point - the components are all there - its more about bringing them together and smoothing the surfaces - something that I think #Homeassistant seem to be quite good at - Perhaps what is required is that kind of organisation - where there is the prospect of picking up some funding and selling some hardware that comes with all the branding.
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Separate devices provide reliability and supportability.
If your all-in-one device has issues, you can't remote in to maintain it.
Take a look at what enterprises do: redundant external interfaces, redundant services internally. You don't necessarily need all this, but it's worth considering "how do I ensure uptime and enable supportability and reliability? ".
Also, we always ask "what happens if the lone SME (Subject Matter Expert) is hit by a bus?" (You are that Lone SME).
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Exactly, keeping components separated, especially the router.
Hardware routers "cost money because they save money" (Sorry, couldn't resist that movie quote). A purpose-built router will just run and run. I have 20 year old consumer routers that still "just work". Granted, they don't have much in the way of capability, but they do provide a stable gateway.
I then use two separate mesh network tools, on multiple systems. The likelihood of both of those failing simultaneously is low. But I still have a single failure point in the router, which I accept - I've only had a couple outright fail over 25 years, so I figure it's a low risk.
To add to Onomatopoeia’s excellent post, separate devices also limit the blast radius of any compromise. Attackers pivot when they compromise a system. They use one system to talk to others and attack them from inside your network. So you don’t want everything on the same OS kernel.
Unfortunately I don’t feel like I’m qualified to say what works well yet, not until I have the pieces of my site put together and working, and vetted by whatever security professionals I can get to look at it and tell me what I did wrong.
But right now I think that looks like every service VM on its own VLAN on a /30 net, and ideally the service VM and firewall/router VM serving it on different physical hardware joined by a managed switch. That managed switch shouldn’t let either VM host touch its management VLAN, and (I think, I don’t do this yet) should send monitor traffic to yet another physical host for analysis.
(“I can see why you’re not done yet” - yeah I know.)
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I feel this in my bones. I was an English major in college. Now I’m in my late 40s and want to create my ow server so that I can OWN the things I used to own: baby pictures and family photos, movies that I bought, music that I bought. I want to send letters to friends without Amazon, JC Penny and Google knowing what I put in my letter.
I’m starting on my home networking journey. I have a beeline on the way to build my own router…pfSense, OpenSense, OpenWRT…still chewing on that but I’m going to do it.
Fuck it. My dad used to work on his car, I think this is my generation’s equivalent.
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Fuck it. My dad used to work on his car, I think this is my generation’s equivalent.
I've got a '75 Ford pickup with 3 on the tree. I can work on that. Hell, I can pop the bonnet and sit on the fender and dangle my legs in the engine compartment. Once the automobile industry moved away from that type of design and started incorporating computer blocks, chips, et al, that you needed a metric and imperial tool set replete with a plethora of specialized tools just to work on them, that was outside my field of expertise. My Ford F450? Nope. I can't even wedge my hamfists in a few inches. The whole engine compartment is slap full.
I’m starting on my home networking journey. I have a beeline on the way to build my own router…pfSense, OpenSense, OpenWRT…still chewing on that but I’m going to do it.I have a beeline on the way to build my own router…
DO IT!
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I share this pipe dream. Increased awareness of and access to self-hosted services encourages decentralization, reduces our reliance on massive data centers, and empowers the public to own their data. For the hobbyist, I think this is already in reach.
However, in order for such a system to succeed in the wider market, it needs to also be cheap and convenient. Even a Raspberry Pi goes for around $80 these days, and storage is becoming more expensive by the day thanks to AI companies. iCloud storage is only 99 cents a month. If, for example, ISPs were to bundle this software and storage with their modem hardware, it could happen. Hell, they could even charge a small fee to provide you with a publicly accesible domain.
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I suspect you could get the price on something like this down to maybe $100-$150. Basically a small low-power Intel box with an SSD and at least 8G of RAM could handle all of these services.
The hard part would be pre-configuring each of them and building/adapting software to make this kind of stuff easy for end users.
If I were a younger man, I've always wanted to produce a 'server in a box'. Something small, powerful, capable, came with a plethora of click to deploy apps, in an environment that would be conducive with the average homeowner's computer savvy or lack there of. I've seen a lot of mini-racks made with Lenovo ThinkCenters that really look good, could fit on a shelf in a closet and serve the household with privacy respecting software.
But I'm far from being a younger man, so one of you guys take the lead and make a million $$.
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FreedomBox is a personal server running a free software operating system, with free applications designed to create and preserve personal privacy.FreedomBox
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A photo of a starling murmuration as if smoke from a chimney has been called a "fluke" by its Yorkshire based, UK photographer, Anna Tosney #WomensArt #Photography
bbc.com/news/uk-england-york-n…
Skipton in North Yorkshire has seen regular murmurations since the start of the year.BBC News
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“How much for the antidepressants?”
“They're cream eclairs, sir!”
“...How much?”
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An output so staggering, it simply cannot be checked by humans.
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Once you start earning money producing these travel diaries, you’ve moved into a new realm, with new responsibilities.
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How to Save the Internet by Nick Clegg review – spinning Silicon Valley
Instead of recognising that social media harms mental health and democracy, the former deputy PM and Meta executive repeats company talking pointsNick Clegg chooses difficult jobs. He was the UK’s deputy prime minister from 2010 to 2015, a position from…
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Midcounties Co-op celebrates its 20th anniversary this month, announcing a series of exclusive member offersMiles Hadfield (Co-operative News)
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My life got so much easier these days when I stopped asking myself "what can this new thing do for me?" and instead immediately check "who owns it?" right when I'm first exploring a new product, service, or tech.
This spares me of the #enshittification cycle of getting attached to it, finding out the owner(s) are enshittifiers or have trashfire beliefs, then struggling to leave for a better alternative (or getting stuck when there isn't one). Instead their offer is just an automatic no go to me, they never get to infest my life in the first place.
For the best #deshittification I tend to look for three symptoms when I'm deciding whether to try a new thing:
1. Is the ownership for profit?
2. What are the beliefs of the ownership? (easily found usually)
3. Who are their sponsors? (investors, advertisors)
If any of those three things are out of alignment with my goals or ethics, then idgaf what their offer does, it's dead to me before I even bother to give it a try nor recommend it to friends.
I no longer have to do any hand wringing about "oh no the thing I like is controlled by bad people". I just had to stop giving bad people my patronage in the first place. And it has generally cleared space for me to discover much cooler things made by much better people.
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irmadlad
in reply to abeorch • • •Xirup
in reply to abeorch • • •artyom
in reply to Xirup • • •I learned a lot. Definitely a whole lot less than if I had done it "from scratch". But also, I never would have done that. I tried and failed several times.
Da Oeuf
in reply to abeorch • • •irmadlad
in reply to Da Oeuf • • •UndergroundGoblin
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •I would personally recommend starting with a Pi-hole. It's easy to set up and provides an immediate improvement to your whole internet experience.
Try to follow the official guide or use a Docker container.
lauha
in reply to UndergroundGoblin • • •UndergroundGoblin
in reply to lauha • • •irmadlad
in reply to UndergroundGoblin • • •HelloRoot
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •thelittleblackbird
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •If you are interested in the photo storage then start..... With the storage.
So pick up a nas or something similar, pay a bit more for the super intuitive fancy gui product and the start from there.
Learn what is nas and how to connect to a pc
Thne learn how to do the same with your smartphone
Then learn a bit about networking
Then... Continuous for the hardest itch and try to Scratch it
And if you need support, come back here, check videos and web pages or even chatgpt, for the basic stuff is quite acceptable
SharkStudios
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •abeorch
in reply to SharkStudios • •Selfhosted reshared this.
irmadlad
in reply to SharkStudios • • •I tried CasaOS. Pretty slick piece of software.
giyila7033
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •Stop freaking out, you can do this. Don't try to build a full server farm on day one. Start small, get something that actually works, then iterate.
Practical path: plug an external HDD into your Linux Mint box and install Syncthing on both the Pixel 8 and the PC. Syncthing is dead simple for backups, it syncs your phone photos to the PC with no cloud, no port forwarding, and it Just Works. Install with apt on Mint, install the Android app on the Pixel, share the camera/DCIM folder, accept the device link. You'll have automatic backups within an hour and you'll actually learn how files move around.
When you're comfortable, add a second copy or offsite backup (cheap VPS, friend's house, or a rotating drive). If you want a web gallery, user accounts, or calendar/email too, then move to Nextcloud or a small NAS OS like OpenMediaVault or TrueNAS SCALE on a dedicated box or a Raspberry Pi. Use Docker if you want portability, and always put HTTPS and a firewall in front if you expose anything to the internet.
Bottom line, stop reading dozens of guides. Do Syncthing + external drive today, then upgrade. You'll learn a lot faster by doing than by overplanning.
turdas
in reply to giyila7033 • • •irmadlad
in reply to turdas • • •AmazingAwesomator
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •i started in january of this year because i upgraded my wife's computer. that gave me an old computer to tinker with.
i recommend getting an old computer, installing an OS (look up thinks like truenas, proxmox, unraid... there are more and they are different; try them all out if you want to see what you like)
then go onto youtube and search for things like " beginner" and you will get a bunch of tips/tricks/tutorials/etc. for starting out with your favorite.
BootLoop
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •Immich is a fantastic photo backup service that is a replacement for Google Photos both in form and function.
There's a demo at demo.immich.app to see what it looks like and what you can do with it. As far as self hosting stuff goes it's relatively easy to setup. Work through the setup guide and see if you can understand that to get it running.
What it will do is make it available on any devices on your local (WiFi or wired) network. You will need to open a port on the Linux box's firewall, but that step is easy and I can show you how to do that on Mint. Then you'll be able to connect to it from your phone or any other devices (or right from a browser right on the server).
If you have any questions feel free to ask. I have a few things running on a Mint server I have.
irmadlad
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •One option you could explore since you didn't list any other equipment, is a cheap VPS. You can pick one up at LowEndBox for cheap. I have a couple VPS test servers that run about $25 a year. That would help you get your feet wet a bit. You could learn how to deploy Linux server along with the standard defense systems in place like Fail2Ban, UFW, etc.
Or even a small NUC or RPi.
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LowEndBoxfrongt
in reply to irmadlad • • •Agreed. For actual backup, I'd put it in the cloud.
Really, I'd run immich locally, and then back that up to the cloud, but that depends on how valuable the data really is to you.
irmadlad
in reply to frongt • • •There ya go. Encrypted of course. That way OP can still learn to stand up a proper server and defenses before it almost instantaneously attracts the attention of literally any or all of the 1.5 billion known, active, automated bot accounts at this moment +/- show up at your port 22 doorstep and helping themselves to your resources.
The very first linux server I stood up on a vps, was taken over quite quickly. So, that spurred me on to read tutorials, scour chans and forums, just looking for guidance and knowledge. Now, I understand a lot more that I did way back when so it's gotten easier. Not that I house a vast trove of wisdom or knowledge....pffffttt....that does not exist. I learn something new all the time. That's one of the aspects I really love about self hosting.
frongt
in reply to irmadlad • • •MalReynolds
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •Zeroth, consider GrapheneOS on that Pixel.
First, Syncthing on the PC and Syncthing-Fork. Now you can sync (and anything else) your photo files from phone to PC and vice versa. Congrats, you have photo storage backup.
Second, either a vpn to your home network so you can backup on the road, or Immich (as elsewhere suggested) for your own google photos experience.
Third, whichever of second you didn't choose.
Fourth, get ye an offsite backup (search 3-2-1 backup). rclone is your friend, but encrypt first locally with Cryptomator, then you don't have to trust your storage provider.
rnercle
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •for "photo storage backup", you can simply use syncthing.
unless you want to really learn to "self host"
loiakdsf
in reply to rnercle • • •rnercle
in reply to loiakdsf • • •☞ "Mainly for photo storage backup."
also, this is from syncthing-fork tips
loiakdsf
in reply to rnercle • • •you pointing out "mainly" just shifts his question to the next time he decides to host a service, which is what i meant to point out.
they might state that, but upstream syncthing says that the feature is intentionally hidden in the advanced settings and they plan to deprecate it.
rnercle
in reply to loiakdsf • • •higgsboson
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •pepperprepper
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •irmadlad
in reply to pepperprepper • • •@Toasted_Breakfast@lemmy.today OP this is advice you can take and apply throughout your selfhosting journey. This advice is worth it's weight in gold right here. I lean heavily on my notes and they are prolific. My memory is shit for a lot of reasons including medical, and my notes have saved my ass many times.
Awesome advice!
mic_check_one_two
in reply to pepperprepper • • •Obsidian - Sharpen your thinking
Obsidianfafferlicious
in reply to pepperprepper • • •pepperprepper
in reply to fafferlicious • • •I keep a small sized notebook with the first page or so an index of sort, and then a page for each service or server. Doesn't have to be a lot, but be sure to give your future self all the info that will be needed. For instance not just a password, but also the username. Any problems you have had and how you resolved it. Depending on the sophistication of your network, vlans, firewall info, is it wired to your router or switch, what port. What slot of your multi button power bar it is plugged into, so if you need to cut power or restart you dont have e to randomly push switch accidently turning something else off. Basic server specs, what type/size of raid or HDs, do you have room for more HDs later, RAM slots and what's in them currently.
I might get some flack from writing down passwords, but a password manager can remedy that. I still keep some of mine on paper tbh, I have had pw managers break or go offline and I am not terribly worried about normal theifs knowing how to ssh into my linux boxes.
workerONE
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •Toasted_Breakfast
Unknown parent • • •huquad
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •I'm surprised I had to go this far to find immich. I 100% recommend it, and yes it's selfhosting if you run it yourself. Still selfhosted even if you use a VPS as long as you control and administer it.
For hardware, I actually recommend against raspberry pis these days. You can get a cheap mini PC that's much more performant and better supported for the same price as a pi plus the accessories (SD card, case, power supply, etc). Use Debian or Ubuntu as host and follow the guide on the github for installation.
TehNomad
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •Toasted_Breakfast
in reply to huquad • • •Toasted_Breakfast
Unknown parent • • •kossa
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •...you say in your OP. Yet instead of learning, you complain "what kind of crap server is that". You don't learn by thinking anything is the softwares fault.
It is perfectly normal, that you can reach the server IN your home network only when you are connected TO your home network. That is a security feature by your router and thus by design. But in order to learn how to open it up, you would need to be willing to learn. About security, about networking, about how to find servers, i.e. the internet and more.
But for the beginning: how is that even bad or crap? Like, it saves your photos when you come home and connect to wifi. Awesome, congrats!
LordKitsuna
in reply to huquad • • •To be fair until very recently immich would have been a horrible recommendation for someone that is completely new to self hosting because almost every other update was a breaking change that required you to carefully read before updating.
And even if you tried if your installation was old enough eventually your compose file would Drift Away from what main line was and you basically had to seek the help of the developers to fix it up.
It only just recently released what is supposed to be the stable line that should hopefully no longer need these large breaking changes
LordKitsuna
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •Hawk
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •Judging from your comments, you seem to be lacking some basic knowledge and skills to get started.
None of the comments here are useful without getting those up to speed.
You definitely might want to start of looking into networking: how do computers connect to each other and the internet.
Since you're using Linux Mint, I do assume you have some basic knowledge of using the terminal and basic commands.
Next you might want to learn Docker, which is useful when learning self-hosting, as most solutions will have an option to use that.
abeorch
in reply to Hawk • •like this
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modus
in reply to Hawk • • •Do you have any favorite starting points for Docker? I'm still learning myself.
Edit: Looks like Docker's website has some pretty easy-to-follow tutorials.
ByteOnBikes
in reply to Hawk • • •Ooof, yeah reading their comments, I agree.
OP, if you're reading this, start even smaller. Not everything has to be right in your house.
I been deploying web apps since 2010, and I jumped right into self hosting during the pandemic and it was a massive headache or challenges I wasn't prepared to face or maintain.
I gave up (for now) and just used open-source apps and AWS, because I needed availability. And every few months, I do a bit more to one day move everything to pure self hosting.
abeorch
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Toasted_Breakfast
Unknown parent • • •jrubal1462
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •I also knew nothing about self hosting, but wanted to move away from Google photos, and that eventually led me towards self-hosting and immich.
Most people recommend using something like Tailscale so you can access your server from anywhere. That wouldn't necessarily work for me, because I wanted to be able to share links to pics and videos with friends/family who wouldnt be a part of my Tailscale network.
I ended up purchasing a cheap domain, and using cloudflare to allow me to share links broadly. (Because my family deserves better quality videos of my adorable children than the compressed crap that comes through in a group message between iOS and android. I have tried SO hard to convince them to move our group chat do a different platform but I have failed.). It's probably ill-advised for somebody who knows as little as I do to go this route, but I'm filled with the un-earned confidence of a middle-aged white man.
dieTasse
in reply to abeorch • • •Fizz
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •This is kind of an info dump and I havent fully gone through to verify everything but this is a guide from a trusted ytber explaining step by step how he setup and managed his self hosting environment.
wiki.futo.org/index.php/Introd…
For a more bite sized entry into self hosting just join the community (like you are now) and learn about the different services people are hosting and when one sounds good then look into how to set it up and ask questions along the way.
FUTO Self Managed Guide
wiki.futo.orgabeorch
in reply to Fizz • •I had a look at a few guides. They all come with a few assumptions and get into details but I was thinking that any guide needs to cover:
options:
Infrastructure - e.g. VPS/bare metal at home ,
Applications - nextcloud, media server, home automation etc.
Middleware - identity/authentication/ reverse proxy, backup, email, Patching/updates , xdav and other support tools for mobile,
Networking - home network, subnets, vpn/tailscale, firewall, port forwarding, static ips., ipv6
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BlindFrog
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •Think of self-hosting as - instead of depending on cloud services from other entities (google/apple/whoever), you host those services yourself by running them on your own pc or maybe your secondary pc running 24/7 (usually locally, in your own home).
Some common services might be automatic photo backup and storage (like immich), or running an adblocker for your home network, or streaming movie/music from your hard drive to your phone/TV (like jellyfin).
bastion
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •KDE connect and/or Synching/Syncthing-fork.
I don't think you're ready for self-hosting, but getting these installed and sorted out will help you move along that path, plus it will meet your needs in the mean time.
Bit, as others have suggested, get familiar with networking a bit.
You might want to get a raspberry pi or cheap SBC with a good amount of memory and disk space, and fuck around for a bit, trying some things.
weee
in reply to bastion • • •Rooster326
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •If you really want to self host but you aren't interested in a lot of dirty work then you can get a Synology and use Synology photos, right next to Synology drive ( Google Drive substitute) and everything else substitute.
It "just works" and it handles all of the updates/security for me. Even includes secure enough access via quickconnect so I can connect over the Internet.
That said it costs more than diy, and I have hardware limits. I can't just get 2 more drives and hook them up. I have a 2 bay Synology so I would need a whole new unit to get 2 more bays. It's better for me to just buy bigger drives.
Software wise - if it isn't in the Anyone App Store then you can just use docker so it covers everything.
But as someone who is already busy enough with a full time tech job and 2 kids. This solution works for me
freedom
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •Get yourself the cheapest n150 box you can, the 4 port versions are good im case you decise to upgade and convert it to a fw later. Get a 4tb 2.5 ssd if you afford it and a chewp dual or more jbod external for safe backups.
Every year upgrade and stick to proxmox and opnsnese untill/unless you have reason otherwise.
rapchee
in reply to freedom • • •Fractionalsense
in reply to rapchee • • •rapchee
in reply to Fractionalsense • • •Onsotumenh
in reply to abeorch • • •fin
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •amorpheus
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •Going by your comments, I think you need to know a few basics before you get into people's suggestions for actual services. Start with this: more or less, "the cloud" is just someone else's computer. It's bigger, the connection is faster, etc., but the services you use most likely run on a Linux computer much like the one you already have.
For experimenting with the topic, it would be good to have another computer that you can mess around with and not worry about having a usable machine. If you can cobble together a desktop from old parts it will be enough to start the learning process.
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PortNull
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •The Self-Hosting Starter Pack: 5 Simple Tools I Recommend To Get Started With Your Homelab
Theena Kumaragurunathan (It's FOSS)abeorch
in reply to PortNull • •I don't think these self hosting articles are that useful and much more than a list of applications. They send people off in the wrong direction.
They only answer that 'what do I want/could I do' but they don't answer the 'what device do I want to do it on' and 'where do I want to be able to do it' questions - They also don't answer the 'what do I need to learn to do it' - what do I need to protect my data?
And frankly I think they take the wrong approach when there are now more comprehensive solutions that could put selfhosters in a better position and get them thinking about questions like 'What happens when the cheap laptop I'm running this on dies/house catches fire/ How can I stop someone get into my application - How do I not forget all these passwords? - Sure they are great to play around with but would you really recommend anyone start ouy by spinning up Nextcloud and then putting stuff on it they really don't want to lose?
Sorry that might sound grumpy.. I don't mean it to be. Its great that people are being encouraged to try - but they should also be really early on talking about things like 'doing things with a friend or a group of similarly interested people' (I know that sound weird - but you need offsite backup people .. and someone to be able to step in of something happens to you .. or things go wrong. (It takes a village to raise a baby)
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PortNull
in reply to abeorch • • •Nah not grumpy just good additional advice. Thanks for taking the time to add to the conversation
Initial self hosting should be non critical for yourself only for the reasons you mention. After you have worked out kinks and learned more about it all you can start using software for more critical tasks. I still don't use my self hosting for anything apart from myself (except jellyfin for family) because I don't need the pressure of availability :)
Faltsm
in reply to Toasted_Breakfast • • •abeorch
in reply to Faltsm • •Garbage in . Garbage out. If the content is focused in applications AI will just relfect that. Its not a thinking function.
And even if its only trained with the best content you still need to know the questions to ask.
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