I self-host a lot of stuff.

[neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk]

I self-host a lot of stuff. Nearly everything that I use. FOSS and self-hosting is a massive part of my computing experience.

I love reading about people enjoying / exploring self-hosting stuff.

I struggle when people advocate "just self-host it", without giving due consideration to the costs, risks, security considerations, and so on.

I know that I've posted this a few times now, but this discussion seems to pop up quite a lot. So:

'Self-host it' is not the answer

Neil Brown's personal blog.

(neilzone.co.uk)

#SelfHosting #FOSS #blog

[henryk@chaos.social]

@neil Me too. The best comparison I heard (was that you?) was: backyard chickens.
Some people have these. It gives them certain benefits, not the least having something to care for. But they *need* to be cared for.

[neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk]

@henryk Interesting analogy!

[leberschnitzel@existiert.ch]

@neil I'm in the same boat, and I always try to clarify that it is one of my hobbies, so like others love to spend money and time on, for example, skiing, I do the same for self hosting. And I don't expect of anyone that they should just do the same, ESPECIALLY is they lack technical knowledge or joy of debugging

[colman@mastodon.ie]

@neil “just host it yourself” is techno-libertarian nonsense. It’s like the Linux crowd’s “all you need to do is recompile the flux capacitor with the flibertygibbet flag and reverse polarity on the ant hill and if you can’t do that you don’t deserve to have a computer“ stuff.

It’s also notably atomising. Community level hosting is one thing — and has its own problems when confidentiality is an issue — but self hosting is just out of reach of most people.

[ahnlak@kavlak.uk]

@neil I think self-hosting is a bit like doing your own car servicing.

Sure, you can do it and if you know what you're doing you'll probably be happy and saving yourself some money - but unless you *actually* know what you're doing, many things can and will come back to bite you in the ass

Hell, I *do* know what I'm doing and I'm very happy to pay someone else to do quite a lot of things I could, theoretically, do myself.

[flowti@mastodon.me.uk]

@neil This is a very thoughtful and balanced article.
It's great though that there are things like #YUNOhost, lowering a lot of the technical barriers.
Still, I have had to learn a lot and put in quite a lot of time. And I haven't exactly done it for fun - more for ethical reasons.
It would be nice if there were more providers of online services to choose from, and you could simply choose a trustworthy one for a reasonable fee. Not everyone should have to host but we need a certain number to.

[lobster@defcon.social]

@neil

Tee hee!
Great info for those of us in Brexitland/Europa

It takes me a long time BUT:

- Moving to FLOSS
- Moving to sustainable and interoperable hardware
- Supporting next generation of hacktavists

[piepants@famichiki.jp]

@neil I self host, knowing the risks and challenges. Those same risks and challenges are why I don't push it on others, but I will fully support anyone who does want to take it on.

[trantion@masto.ai]

@henryk @neil I was just thinking about gardening. I grow veg because I want to, not to save money or because I don't trust the shop.

I self host some things (but mostly only on my LAN) and use a mix of self managed and provided services for other things. I'd rather have a healthy ecosystem of good providers people can choose instead of using Google and Microsoft for everything, rather than expect everyone to self host.

[tomstoneham@dair-community.social]

@neil Great piece. I am a year into self-hosting and did it entirely for the learning experience.

I quickly realised that I wasn't confident enough in my security to use Nextcloud or Vaultwarden and am aware that I have probably made my home network vulnerable to a concerted attack.

So it has ended up very much a small scale hobby, not hosting anything confidential or essential to day-to-day functioning (where I pay for Proton, Signal, Bitwarden etc.).

[tootbrute@fedi.arkadi.one]

@piepants @neil lots of middle ground people can do first before trying self-hosting.

use whatsapp --> use signal --> run a matrix server

ms office --> libreoffice/only office --> self-host collabra

lol
hard to get them off that sweet crack cocaine of "convenient" big tech stuff though.

[delilahtech@tech.lgbt]

@neil
I have built and operated my own hardware firewall, and it worked wonderfully, until my ISP changed my modem to a non-bridgeable one

I have built (numerous times) a software server on my laptop to host a local blog. I wrote tutorials to myself so I can replicate it on the next occasion—which always necessitated a refreshed tutorial

I want to have a hardware firewall between me and the internet. I want a non-google email. I kind of want my own Fediverse instance

I don't have the time, am low on money, and have few spoons

I will find that firewall, but it will likely be a secondhand commercial rig, and my networking knowledge/skills aren't there

I want to build a DMZ for IoT things, run my own cameras, keep my smart thermostats from calling home every fifteen minutes

But I can't find the energy to figure out how to freaking use the thermostats I have

I'm with you 100%—I could self-host... most things

But I can't, actually

[marramgrass@social.lol]

@neil I have self-hosted stuff in the past, and occasionally think about doing so again for some stuff. But less and less of my computering is recreational and I choose to pay companies to worry about everything for me rather than spend my spare time doing more of what I do when I'm working.

Which is, of course, a kind of privilege in itself.

None of that is a criticism of course, just a reality that I've resigned myself to and remind myself of every time I think "oh, I could set that up myself".

[rail@snailedit.social]

@neil and you gotta hope the tools you’re using is actually secure

(www.reddit.com)

[petko@social.petko.me]

@Colman @neil

As opposed to 'just pay the faceless corp instead of self-hosting.' This is notably not techno-libertarian at all, very inclusive, and the opposite of atomizing --
just look at Facebook and Twitter after all, they are the *Threads* that knit together our nations!!!

If self-hosting shit is anything like a political statement, I'd say it's closer to anarchy than libertarianism.

[nocturnalnessa@infosec.exchange]

@neil in a better timeline, i'd like the idea of neighborhood/community hosting. like, the local library doing it, with help of tech savvy volunteers. that would be wholesome

[xchaos@f.cz]

@neil "It appears that “self-hosting” might mean different things to different people."

Definitely. We are able to do #selfhosting because we are local ISP for 25 years. We run our own datacenter from at least 8 years, and I was planning how to do the waste heat recycling for 10 years. We have access to second-hand hardware, because it would be hard to afford only the new hardware.

So #selfhosting is still collective activity of some kind, you need small business, or cooperative, or something, because you have expenses.

I suppose aggregating VPS-es for multiple instances on same physical hardware may have some advantages eg. with containers sharing the same ZFS filesystem (you can turn on eg. de-duplication of files)

So the #selfhosting usually anway about seeking some kind of cooperation. I would not be able to "selfhost" without cooperating with experienced admin...

[unqualifiedtechbros@mastodon.social]

@neil
Do you recommend yunohost?

[neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk]

@unqualifiedtechbros I have no experience of it, I'm afraid.