site-posts/Self hosting.html

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<p>It is honestly insane the age we live in. I grew up with this stuff, but
looking at history we are in a sci-fi era. Instanteaous, light speed
communication as a price the modern consumer can afford, tiny network endpoints
to all of human knoweldge in our pockets at a very affordable price, with more
computing power than what was available for 99% of human history, autonomous
programs that can do everything from monitor crops and oil rigs, all the way to
<a
href="https://www.gihub.org/resources/showcase-projects/autonomous-shipping-ports/">
autonomous ship ports</a> moving millions of dollars of goods. We are in the
future, and we just take it for granted.</p>

<p>With that said, alot of services and goods that used to be physical are now
completely online. Very few people own paper maps, own CD's of their music, buy
copies of their movies, or keep physical filing cabinets of documents. Now
everything is streamed or cloud hosted. And this is wonderful for convience
sake. Now your tiny computer in your pocket that was once only your
communication machine is now your communication, entertainment, business,
and navigation.</p>

<p>Now centeralization isn't always a bad thing. A centeralized point of
control for a small group is good, it allows ease of communication and
orgainization, by having only one point to go through. That strength is also
centeralization's weakness, it has one point of failure. If google maps goes
down for a week starting tommorow, alot of people, escpecailly the younger
ones, would probably be unable, or at least not very confident, in their
ability to navigate. Now of course people would be able to navigate still, and
plenty of people 25 and younger will be able to figure out how to get around,
be it google map alternatives, paper maps, dedicated gps, or map quest.
However, think how much easier it would be if even the few of us that are
technically inclined, hosted our own maps. You could update the maps when you
wanted to. You could download only sections of maps that you would use. You
could modify and update the maps as you see fit. They could be as accurate or
inaccurate as you wish, depending on the area they are for. The <i>freedoms</i>
afforded to the user is endless.</p>

<p>I can see some would say "Well maps stay pretty consistent, why would I need
my own? I just need to get from point A to point B, why would I care? And I can
agree, hosting your own maps is quite a niche thing to do, possibly only for
the ultra paranoid (not as paranoid as <a
href="https://www.netburner.com/learn/how-to-set-up-an-ntp-server-on-your-network/">
seting up your own NTP server :)</a>).
Therefore, I would like to offer up a more relatable
alternative. Hosting media such as movies, TV shows, Music, and even home
photos and and videos. Take something like plex, its easy to setup on spare
hardware, supported on just about every platform you can dream of, easy to
scale with new drives, supports about every OS and file format available, and
easy to manage users. If you host your own movies (that you legally or not so
legally obtain), you never have to worry about netfilx removing your favorite
series, or the general whims of huge corporations and their disputes. Same goes
for music, music can be removed from tidal or spotify at a moments notice, due
to the relationships of large record label companies and spotify.</p>

<p>Well, if we can afford ourselves more freedom and control over our own
content, what else can be self hosted? 
<a href="https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted">Alot!</a>
Thats kinda the point of this site! I self host my own git server, so that
github (and microsoft) can't remove my work if they feel like it, so that I can
host my own code. I host my own matrix server, so that my own communications
aren't at the whims of discord. Self hosting is so rewarding and freeing, if
you're the technical one of your friends or family, you may as well.</p>
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    <figure>
        <img src="../img/nas.jpg"></img>
        <figcaption>The flashy $80 piece of hardware running most of my self
            hosted services</figcaption>
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<h4>How to get started</h4>

<h5>Getting hardware</h5>
<p>This is kindof optional, depending on what you plan on hosting. I recomend
getting a cheap used machine off of ebay. You can find some cheap 19" server
machines on there, however I went with a simple tower that would be easy to
throw in my room. The big advantage of a large machine is the ability to use
lots of full size 3.5" hard drives. I recomend this for those wanting to host
media.</p>

<p>For those wanting to host smaller things, such as git servers, matrix, or
smart home tools, a raspberry pi with a 64 or 128 Gb SD card is usually more
than enough to get everything you need done.</p>

<p>For those that need something more reliable then residential internet to
host their services, renting a VPS is also an option, however you give up alot
of flexibility when you are not using your own physical hardware, such as
encryption. This option, however, will be generally cheaper for those not
needing huge amounts of disk space.</p>

<h5>Getting an OS</h5>
<p>For those using a raspberry pi, you're best off using raspian. For those on
their own hardware/VPS hardware, Ubuntu Server is a pretty good option. Its
very stable and comes with repositiories for all of the most common software
you'll use. For those who are willing to put in more work, a gentoo server can
be very stable and offer performance boosts to those on limited hardware.</p>

<h5>Getting services</h5>
<p>Start installing services you may need! Be sure to be familiar with the
terminal/SSH, and run the server headless. You may need to port forward for
certain services, however be sure to keep that to a minimum. Your best bet is
that anything that doesn't need to be accessable by the entire world, put
behind your firewall and setup a VPN into your home network. This will make it
so you only have to expose one port, and assures that youre only exposing the
hardened services of OpenVPN and other such pieces of software.</p>

<p>Thats about all have to say on it! I hope you enojyed and I've convinced you
to start self hosting for you and your family!</p>

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