My Ultimate Self-hosting Setup
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Hey y'all, I know getting a setup that feels "right" can be a process. We all have different goals, tech preferences, etc.
I wanted to a share my blog post walking through how I finally built a setup that I can just be happy with and use. It goes over my goals, requirements, tech choices, layout, and some specific problems I've resolved.
Where I've landed of course isn't where everyone else will, but I hope it can serve as a good reference. I’ve really benefited from the content and software folks have freely shared, and hope I can continue that and help others.
Happy to answer questions!
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Hey y'all, I know getting a setup that feels "right" can be a process. We all have different goals, tech preferences, etc.
I wanted to a share my blog post walking through how I finally built a setup that I can just be happy with and use. It goes over my goals, requirements, tech choices, layout, and some specific problems I've resolved.
Where I've landed of course isn't where everyone else will, but I hope it can serve as a good reference. I’ve really benefited from the content and software folks have freely shared, and hope I can continue that and help others.
Happy to answer questions!
this is great! i was intrigued by nix and nixOS early into my linux venture and this has probably pushed me to start moving my stuff from Debian, though i am kinda addicted to proxmox.
but the way you're doing truenas is how I'm running my stuff too. way more planning on your end really cleans it all up!
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Hey y'all, I know getting a setup that feels "right" can be a process. We all have different goals, tech preferences, etc.
I wanted to a share my blog post walking through how I finally built a setup that I can just be happy with and use. It goes over my goals, requirements, tech choices, layout, and some specific problems I've resolved.
Where I've landed of course isn't where everyone else will, but I hope it can serve as a good reference. I’ve really benefited from the content and software folks have freely shared, and hope I can continue that and help others.
Happy to answer questions!
Thx a lot for sharing.
I'm a 50+ non-geek Linux user myself, and selfhosting is the one computer 'thing' I would love to be able to setup one day but I'm too afraid to seriously start doing as I'm way too afraid of being that 'low hanging fruit' you mentioned in your post.
I said I was not a geek in the sense that, after almost 40 years using only Apple computers, I've switched to Linux to use it like I used... my Mac. Sure, I've learned to understand a little bit of Linux workings and I would not want to go back to the Mac, no way, I can also write simple bash scripts (with a lot of trials and errors) but that's about the full extent of my computer 'expertise'.
So, even though your post is well written and informative, it was still way beyond my limited skills, I'm afraid. I'm not saying that as downer, it was a really interesting read and very informative with all those useful links, but hopefully as away to let you know there are... extremely... odd users like myself that are very much interested in the idea but also are as clueless as an oyster comes the time to buy a pair of sneakers
In regards to self-hosting, my conclusion so far is that it's a much safer choice for someone like me to not do it. The risk is too real to get into some serious issues. And that I'm better off using the few paid services I rely (all in the EU, many of them small companies I can have have direct/human discussion with) as I know by experience I can trust their expertise a lot more than I woudl ever trust my desire to ever become not completely in competent in those fields
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this is great! i was intrigued by nix and nixOS early into my linux venture and this has probably pushed me to start moving my stuff from Debian, though i am kinda addicted to proxmox.
but the way you're doing truenas is how I'm running my stuff too. way more planning on your end really cleans it all up!
You can pry proxmox from my cold dead hands.
I do sometimes dream of running everything in Docker though for how easy it is to update. I've got the community scripts running and still it's a bit of a maintenance job.
A TrueNAS + Docker machine is pretty tempting. If I were to migrate, that's where I'd go.
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Thx a lot for sharing.
I'm a 50+ non-geek Linux user myself, and selfhosting is the one computer 'thing' I would love to be able to setup one day but I'm too afraid to seriously start doing as I'm way too afraid of being that 'low hanging fruit' you mentioned in your post.
I said I was not a geek in the sense that, after almost 40 years using only Apple computers, I've switched to Linux to use it like I used... my Mac. Sure, I've learned to understand a little bit of Linux workings and I would not want to go back to the Mac, no way, I can also write simple bash scripts (with a lot of trials and errors) but that's about the full extent of my computer 'expertise'.
So, even though your post is well written and informative, it was still way beyond my limited skills, I'm afraid. I'm not saying that as downer, it was a really interesting read and very informative with all those useful links, but hopefully as away to let you know there are... extremely... odd users like myself that are very much interested in the idea but also are as clueless as an oyster comes the time to buy a pair of sneakers
In regards to self-hosting, my conclusion so far is that it's a much safer choice for someone like me to not do it. The risk is too real to get into some serious issues. And that I'm better off using the few paid services I rely (all in the EU, many of them small companies I can have have direct/human discussion with) as I know by experience I can trust their expertise a lot more than I woudl ever trust my desire to ever become not completely in competent in those fields
I’m a 50+ non-geek Linux user myself, and selfhosting is the one computer ‘thing’ I would love to be able to setup one day but I’m too afraid to seriously start doing as I’m way too afraid of being that ‘low hanging fruit’ you mentioned in your post.
Dude, 70 here. Just do it. You're going to make mistakes along the way, you'll learn along the way. You're already a Linux user, so you've got a leg up there. Even if you walk away from selfhosting thinking it's probably better for you to use those small companies, you'll have had an enriching experience. I find selfhosting to be rather rewarding in many aspects. For one, it's one of my hobbies that keeps my mind busy which is a good thing. I'm always digging for something new to learn.
If you are the only user of your server, tying it down becomes a lot easier. allow.host / deny.host, tailscale, ufw, and fail2ban will get you very far and safe so you won't be that low hanging fruit. I am quite certain there are people here would love to help you on your way. I'm one. I'm an expert at nothing, but I don't mind sharing the knowledge (?) I've learned along the way.
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I’m a 50+ non-geek Linux user myself, and selfhosting is the one computer ‘thing’ I would love to be able to setup one day but I’m too afraid to seriously start doing as I’m way too afraid of being that ‘low hanging fruit’ you mentioned in your post.
Dude, 70 here. Just do it. You're going to make mistakes along the way, you'll learn along the way. You're already a Linux user, so you've got a leg up there. Even if you walk away from selfhosting thinking it's probably better for you to use those small companies, you'll have had an enriching experience. I find selfhosting to be rather rewarding in many aspects. For one, it's one of my hobbies that keeps my mind busy which is a good thing. I'm always digging for something new to learn.
If you are the only user of your server, tying it down becomes a lot easier. allow.host / deny.host, tailscale, ufw, and fail2ban will get you very far and safe so you won't be that low hanging fruit. I am quite certain there are people here would love to help you on your way. I'm one. I'm an expert at nothing, but I don't mind sharing the knowledge (?) I've learned along the way.
really?? 70? that is really awesome. things have changed so much since you came into this world.
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You can pry proxmox from my cold dead hands.
I do sometimes dream of running everything in Docker though for how easy it is to update. I've got the community scripts running and still it's a bit of a maintenance job.
A TrueNAS + Docker machine is pretty tempting. If I were to migrate, that's where I'd go.
I was truenas on bare metal for the first year or so, but now I run a truenas VM in proxmox, then use those pools as mounts onto the proxmox. it is really cool!
Until I was in the middle of figuring out how to automate backups of my vms, which paused TrueNas, which was the destination of the backup, was a fun 20 minutes getting it all back running this evening lol
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Hey y'all, I know getting a setup that feels "right" can be a process. We all have different goals, tech preferences, etc.
I wanted to a share my blog post walking through how I finally built a setup that I can just be happy with and use. It goes over my goals, requirements, tech choices, layout, and some specific problems I've resolved.
Where I've landed of course isn't where everyone else will, but I hope it can serve as a good reference. I’ve really benefited from the content and software folks have freely shared, and hope I can continue that and help others.
Happy to answer questions!
wrote last edited by [email protected]Nice writeup and a fun read! Never thought I would encounter a fellow NixOS and FoundryVTT user in the wild, but I realize the Venn diagram of these kinds of users do have more overlap than I thought.
With regards to your point about Foundry needing more power than a cheap VPS: I have it working fine on an Oracle cloud free tier VPS (unfortunately not the ARM-cores). That being said, it does want a little more power.
I am not running it with NixOS though. I am renting a temporary space, so I do not own or want to do too much locally right now, and Oracle OCI was only sort of working with NixOS. I did manage to install it with nixos-infect, but think I messed up the SSH with my reverse proxy and had no way to fall back to a previous version, which begs the question how would you?
You linked to "NixOS friendly hosters", do those give you access to boot options to recover from such a case? Since I did not have that option I determined the risk of failure too great for setting up NixOS on that particular VPS provider.
I also note that you use the nix-foundryvtt module and was wondering how your experience with it was. Does your sops define your login to the website such that it fetches the package automatically or do you have to manually install them?
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Hey y'all, I know getting a setup that feels "right" can be a process. We all have different goals, tech preferences, etc.
I wanted to a share my blog post walking through how I finally built a setup that I can just be happy with and use. It goes over my goals, requirements, tech choices, layout, and some specific problems I've resolved.
Where I've landed of course isn't where everyone else will, but I hope it can serve as a good reference. I’ve really benefited from the content and software folks have freely shared, and hope I can continue that and help others.
Happy to answer questions!
I've used Authelia and Authentic. I personally switched to pocket I'd recently. You can integrate lap and groups easily and I'm amazed at how freaking fast it is. Might be a nice experiment next
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really?? 70? that is really awesome. things have changed so much since you came into this world.
LOL You gave me a belly laugh. Yes. Really 70...well soon to turn 71 ifn' the creek don't rise. I have that same reaction sometimes too. Damn! I'm really 70!? Yes, the world has changed so much since I was born, and frankly, I am glad it has. I am thankful that technology and music have walked along side me all these many years. It's been a good life.
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I was truenas on bare metal for the first year or so, but now I run a truenas VM in proxmox, then use those pools as mounts onto the proxmox. it is really cool!
Until I was in the middle of figuring out how to automate backups of my vms, which paused TrueNas, which was the destination of the backup, was a fun 20 minutes getting it all back running this evening lol
I used proxmox to set up my ZFS pools and use bind mounts. It's fine, I'm sure it's a "grass is greener" thing.
Home labbing is a winter hobby, so in the summer months I hate the time spent updating all the machines when I could be outside.
If I had purely Docker set up, in winter I'd be complaining that "everything is too simple" and "I want more control" etc.
