this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2023
2 points (100.0% liked)

Self-Hosted Main

504 readers
1 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

For Example

We welcome posts that include suggestions for good self-hosted alternatives to popular online services, how they are better, or how they give back control of your data. Also include hints and tips for less technical readers.

Useful Lists

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
communick@selfhosted.forum
2
The intersection between selfhosted and nosurf (alien.top)
submitted 11 months ago by kdokdo@alien.top to c/main@selfhosted.forum
6 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Hello everyone,

One thing I'm sure is in common between self-hosters and people over at r/nosurf is our aversion to the popular big services like Google, Facebook...

I started self-hosting a few years ago because I was sick of depending on big corps, but over time I started getting sick of anything related to technology (even though I'm a dev lol). Recently I've been experiencing downtime on my server and I still haven't figured out the cause, and it's kinda making me feel that I am a slave to my setup, the same way I was a slave to the big corps.

I was wondering if any of you felt something similar, and how would you design a self-hosted setup that's as low-maintenance as possible (I'm already using a VPS instead of a home server to reduce maintenance).

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] kasalacto@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I try to minimize the maintenance cost (time and energy) by keeping in mind that I don't have to update or migrate to something new if everything is working as I want it to be. And if I really have to update, I make sure I also have time for any consequences. I also believe the key to a low maintenance server is automation and templates as this makes rolling back to a last known good configuration easy most of the time.

I have also accepted that time and mental energy has always been the price of self hosting. If you lack these things, you would feel like its a chore. If you have plenty, it can be exciting.

[–] kdokdo@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah that's a good point about updates, but what about security vulnerabilities...

About templates, it's true that my setup is far from being one-click-deployable, but I feel like it takes even more effort to make it as a template?

I do have time and mental energy, I am just starting to be less interested in spending them on server administration... (but I know that it's a compromise anyway, cuz using the normie services has a hidden cost on the long term)

[–] kasalacto@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

I can only access my services through VPN (tailscale) when I am outside, so I don't worry that much about security vulnerabilities. And in my experience so far, security updates are usually more stable than feature updates so I install those without hesitation when I have the time.