this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
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Why is starting with Self-hosting so daunting? (alien.top)
submitted 1 year ago by Ieris19@alien.top to c/main@selfhosted.forum
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I’ve been a Software Engineering Student for 2 years now. I understand networks and whatnot at a theoretical level to some degree.

I’ve developed applications and hosted them through docker on Google Cloud for school projects.

I’ve tinkered with my router, port forwarded video game servers and hosted Discord bots for a few years (familiar with Websockets and IP/NAT/WAN and whatnot)

Yet I’ve been trying to improve my setup now that my old laptop has become my homelab and everything I try to do is so daunting.

Reverse proxy, VPN, Cloudfare bullshit, and so many more things get thrown around so much in this sub and other resources, yet I can barely find info on HOW to set up this things. Most blogs and articles I find are about what they are which I already know. And the few that actually explain how to set it up are just throwing so many more concepts at me that I can’t keep up.

Why is self-hosting so daunting? I feel like even though I understand how many of these things work I can’t get anything actually running!

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[–] Salty-Masterpiece-31@alien.top 4 points 1 year ago (14 children)

Part of working with tech is knowing what to search for und using the right keywords. If you could give an example what guide / information you are unable to find, someone could give you an example how to search for it. I personally know a few junior devs and junior devops which use llama2 / chatgpt since they dont know how to search for it or read the docs.

[–] Ieris19@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (13 children)

I actually hate GPT, dislike it’s answers and find myself knowing better than it most times.

I’ve been trying to setup a DNS server to create my own domains internally within my VPN but I keep finding info on how DNS servers work, and how to make a records on registrars, but nothing on what I actually need to install and run to have my own DNS for example. Same thing goes for many other services, but that’s the one bugging me for the longest time because it should be so simple.

I’ve found plenty of tutorials on how to make a cache DNS, just not an authoritative name server btw, and I’ve searched for both DNS and name server to no avail. If it was Linux I’d write some custom rules in my hostfiles and be done with it, but it’s so much harder to do on Windows and that’s my daily use OS for now…

[–] deeohohdeeohoh@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

I use Pihole for this in my home network. It has the capability to configure local domains for your internal network resolution as well as create whitelist/blacklist and use as a DHCP server alternative to your home router -- you just need to configure your router to point to the Pihole instance for DNS on your LAN network configuration to get started with the DNS piece

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