I think of myself as technically inclined. I have installed Linux multiple times and have basic command line knowledge, and I’ve programmed in many languages, with the most experience making a static website game using HTML/CSS/JS.
Additionally, I own the superspruce.org domain (my registrar is Dynadot), but I don’t really know how to wield the power of owning a domain. I also have some spare computers to be used for hosting, a 2009 laptop running Lubuntu and a 3900X+32GB RAM desktop other running KDE Neon, but I’m also open to experimenting with cloud hosting too (I know, sacrilege here).
However, I don’t know much about the TCP/IP protocol or other networking protocols. I’m happy to learn, but the curve would need to start gently.
I would want to try hosting my websites, and also a personal non-federated Lemmy instance to serve as a archivable forum for my games. Even if it’s not very useful, it’s great experience.
I see a number of comments to use a virtual server host, but I have not seen any mention of the main reason WHY this is advisable… If you want to host something from your home, people need a way to reach you. There are two options for this – use a DDNS service (generally frowned upon for permanent installations), or get a static IP address from your provider.
DDNS means you have to monitor whenever your local IP address changes, send out updated records, and wait for those changes to propagate across the internet. This generally will mean several minutes or more of down time where nobody can reach your server, and can happen at completely random times.
A static IP is reliable, but they cost money, and some providers won’t even give you the option unless you get a business-class connection, which costs even more money. However this cost is usually already rolled into the price of a virtual machine.
Keep in mind also that when hosting at home, simply using a laptop to stay online 24/7 is not enough, you also need a battery backup for your network equipment. You will want to learn about setting up a firewall and some kind of IDS to protect the front end of your services, but for starting out you can host this on the same machine as your other services. And if you really want to be safe, set up a second internal machine that you can perform regular backups to, so when your machine gets hacked you have a way to restore the information.
My first server was online for two whole weeks before someone blew it up. Learn security first, everything after that will be easy.
Some things, or points, to consider.
- Do you want whatever you’re hosting to be internet accessible? Or local network only? As it being able to access from anywhere
- If its something you want to be able to use full time, youll eventually want a dedicated machine. I have an *arr stack etc, which I share with a private group. Eventually downtime was an actual consideration and interrupted my normal usage of my main machine. I picked up a secondhand elitedesk mini Pc for £150 and its doing really well.
- Potentially make use of tools like Zerotier for private networking (others hopefully will chime in with alternatives, but I have had good success with zerotier.
- How do you want to host it, and are you willing to learn? Get a bit of knowledge on docker or podman but this is hardmode as most examples will be docker specific. Using containers will make things simpler. The most complicated part IMO is networking but even then its more docker networking stuff than general TCP/IP - (like you mentioned in your post)
- OS - you mentioned using Linux? I personally use Ubuntu just out of defaulting to what i’ve previously used. But Im currently using Manjaro on my non host PC, which I am liking
- Keep things secure - the more you expose to the internet, the more risk. Keep exposure as small as possible, use letsencrypt or alternatives for anything you want to access over the internet etc
good luck have fun!
- I want it to be internet accessible. A friend taught me how to use nginx for the local network, although I’ve forgotten that now.
- My previously mentioned computers are computers I don’t use that much, especially the old laptop. My main computer is a 2021 ROG Strix G15 Advantage Edition. I won’t be hosting from that.
- Private networking is just hosting over a LAN, right?
- Does Docker work well on old hardware and is Docker easy to learn?
- I have the most knowledge on Ubuntu based distros. I don’t think Manjaro, a bleeding edge rolling distro, is good for hosting.
- How do I use let’s encrypt or something to boost my security?
Not who you’re replying to but here are some answers:
- For internet accessibility there will be things to consider. Do you want non-techy friends or family on it? If so you may need to port forward or use a vps. Some ISPs don’t allow port forwarding, but there are a million solutions to this. Otherwise you can use a VPN to connect to your network and have access to your server that way.
- Old laptops are great for hosting. They are typically more power efficient than desktops, although the expansion options aren’t great if you don’t like jank.
- Not sure.
- Yes and kinda. It is super light unless you’re running it on really old stuff. It is easy once you learn. I recommend docker compose to keep everything in a single config file. You can use watchtower to keep things automatically updated.
- I like Debian. I too use a rolling distro on my desktop, and some people do like rolling distros for servers. The idea of stable release distros like Debian are that they are consistant and you don’t have to worry about updates breaking things. The idea of rolling distros on a server is that you will only ever have to deal with small updates rather than giant ones that may break everything (like between Debian versions). I would not recommend manjaro on a server, or at all really. They have a habit of holding back packages for no real reason and causing dependancie issues. If you like rolling I would try Tumbleweed or Arch with Archinstall. There is also Endeavor OS which is basically easier Arch.
- Letsencrypt is for https certificates. You can use self signed certificates, meaning they are made by your computer rather than letsencrypt’s servers, but you will get warnings in your browser and app interfaces for your services may not work. They are just as secure for personal use. Don’t do http on the internet. That is bad. You know the VPN ads that say hackers can steal all your bank passwords if you don’t buy their VPN, well that is not true because your bank uses https. If you access your services through http over the internet, someone will get your password eventually. Do whatever you want on home network though.
Maybe I should just cloud host, as it costs the same as a VPN. But then again, a VPN will also protect my privacy. Do I need to use let’s encrypt if I use a VPN or cloud host if I want to be secure?
Short answer VPN no, cloud yes. That is, if the VPN server is on your network and you are not simply forwarding ports to an external VPN. If your choices are VPN vs cloud, I would recommend cloud as it is satisfying to be able to type in a URL and go to your site instead of having to go through VPN weirdness. If you keep sensitive data on your server then a VPN is definitely better (again, the local kind). I personally just forward 80 and 443 and use nginx to control what domains everything is on.
I reccommend debian headless and docker compose. Set up ssh but i would only open ssh to the internet if your using certificate authenticarion. Chatgpt will be able to help you with most of this except installing docker just copy paste install commands from the docker docs
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the Web IP Internet Protocol TCP Transmission Control Protocol, most often over IP VPN Virtual Private Network nginx Popular HTTP server
4 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 15 acronyms.
[Thread #548 for this sub, first seen 26th Feb 2024, 18:05] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
Seems people are already making great recommentations.
Personally I also use docker-compose, a WireGuard VPN and an Nginx-Server to proxy/ssl-terminate all my services to my VPN or the Internet.
Just host whatever you like/need. Something like Nextcloud is probably a solid start.
Btw, I have not seen it mentioned here, but awesome-Lists are a thing on github where people collect various gems for certain categories. Here is the one for self-hosting which I have used extensively and really like: https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted
Also, when you start hosting more than 2-3 services, keeping them up-to-date might become a hassle which you can forget. For docker-based hosting I’d recommend you setup watchtower, which can keep your servives up-to-date for you.
Also, when you start hosting more than 2-3 services, keeping them up-to-date might become a hassle which you can forget. For docker-based hosting I’d recommend you setup watchtower, which can keep your servives up-to-date for you.
I would caution against automatic updates! Notifications, yes absolutely. But automatically updating things is a great way to have things break suddenly when you’re not in a good place to troubleshoot.
Don’t make anything accessible via the internet if you’re new and starting out. The last thing you want is to accidentally leave a port open, leave an admin page with a default guessable password, or a piece of vulnerable software running and have someone gain access to your local network.
Start locally and learn the basics following the excellent advice of others here, and slowly build your knowledge until you understand the various moving and connecting pieces.
Welcome to the cult!
We all started as beginners, but before you start, take my advice and avoid hosting anything open to the internet until you’ve gained more experience in OS/network hardening and risk assessment.
First off, I think you’re starting on a good footing. Having TCP/IP knowlege is good, but you don’t need it from the beginning - it will be relevant once you get into network segmentation and setting up reverse proxies.
I’d say the first thing is to actually choose a rather simple (but useful) application that you can host on Docker and get some experience from OCI-containers and disaster recovery. A lemmy instance (even non federated) might be too much to begin with. Have you considered paperless-ngx, fresh-rss or even syncthing instead? Or begin with formulating what problem you want solved in your daily life.
I’d say, start by watching this video series to gain a better understanding of Docker (I’ve so far assumed that you won’t do baremetal installs, right?!??). There’s also a pretty good online-lab for you to play around in. Remember, you’ll propably realise that your first deployments could be better, and keep yourself mentally prepared to redo and rebuild eventually.
Feel free to message me if you want guidance going forward!
If you want to expose some service to Internet, first of all learn how to install and correctly use a VPN server (I use Wireguard which I find pretty easy), otherwise keep everything in LAN until you’ll be confident enough to be exposed.
Everyone else is telling you to stay local, which is great advice, as far as it goes. But you said you want to host your website publicly available, so i’d recommend getting a cheap vps and starting there. It’s not on your network, so if you screw up with security, worst case is you start again from scratch. I’d recommend the cheapest virmach VM you can get, with Debian or Ubuntu, if you like snaps.
First things first, set up ssh with key based logins, with a passphrase on a non standard port (doesn’t provide security, but it will keep your logs from getting innundated immediately). Install UFW, and block all incoming traffic, allow all outgoing traffic, and limit traffic to your ssh port. Install docker and add your user to the docker group. Start learning how to use docker, compose, and as your first container, set up duplicati to back up your docker directory (including all your volumes, which I would store as folders inside your docker directory) somewhere else. I’d set it up to run every evening after you go to bed, and i’d also set a cron script to bring down all your containers before you back up, then bring them back up. Just in case.
