I’m looking to create a space for a small subreddit that I moderate that has maybe a couple hundred active users at most. I feel like the documentation provided here leaves a lot up to assuming the reader has prior knowledge of hosting a web service. I don’t have any such prior knowledge so I’m hoping I can ask here. Please bear with me as I fumble my way through asking questions about a thing I’m doing for the first time.
I am thinking this is accomplished with a computer set up at my location, like a tiny little AWS in my bedroom running by the sheer force of my internet connection, and the hopes and dreams for my community. Or am I completely misunderstanding what it means to host an instance?
-Does the local machine store files like pictures posted by users? If yes I assume this means I should build a computer with sufficient storage to meet this demand.
-Does the lemmy install via ansible require the local machine to run an operating system? Or does ansible fill that role? I’m assuming the former based on the documentation for ansible, and that it should be a linux distro but I’m dense, so I’m asking.
-Is it required that the instance be federated to and visible to other instances? I would like for it to be isolated and somewhat private.
-The local machine would be connected to my personal business ISP connection. Could the instance be traced to my physical location? If so, what would be necessary to mitigate that?
-Am I entirely out of my depth? I can follow a guide real well, and problem solve, I just have no experience.
Thank you for your time!
Does the local machine store files like pictures posted by users?
Yes, your server will store all data produced the users on your instance - in the case of an instance that does not federate, this means the media files (images, videos), the content of the posts (which will be in the database) and other data like error logs.
Does the lemmy install via ansible require the local machine to run an operating system?
Yes, ansible is just a tool to automate tasks. The “recipe” of these tasks do are called “playbooks” in ansible. The playbook for installing Lemmy assumes that you are installing things on any server that can run docker.
Is it required that the instance be federated to and visible to other instances?
You can choose to close federation through the web interface, or you even set it up in a way that it never tries to connect to the rest of the Fediverse.
The local machine would be connected to my personal business ISP connection.
Not down to your street address, but a motivated malicious person could use the information about the IP address to find out the general location where you are, your service provider, it could try to find information about your business, etc. There are ways to mitigate ways if you use something that proxies your connection to the outside world.
Am I entirely out of my depth?
Honestly, it does seem so, but once you start the journey of running the services for you and your peers (self-hosting) it can be very rewarding. Perhaps it would be a good idea to hang out around https://lemmy.ml/c/selfhost and start with some other project (e.g, host your own music player with something like Navidrome , or a Wordpress blog which can be based on software that is more mature than Lemmy is at the moment).
