115 lines
6.2 KiB
HTML
115 lines
6.2 KiB
HTML
<div class="post-2-1">
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<div>
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<p>It is honestly insane the age we live in. I grew up with this stuff, but
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looking at history we are in a sci-fi era. Instanteaous, light speed
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communication as a price the modern consumer can afford, tiny network endpoints
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to all of human knoweldge in our pockets at a very affordable price, with more
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computing power than what was available for 99% of human history, autonomous
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programs that can do everything from monitor crops and oil rigs, all the way to
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<a
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href="https://www.gihub.org/resources/showcase-projects/autonomous-shipping-ports/">
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autonomous ship ports</a> moving millions of dollars of goods. We are in the
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future, and we just take it for granted.</p>
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<p>With that said, alot of services and goods that used to be physical are now
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completely online. Very few people own paper maps, own CD's of their music, buy
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copies of their movies, or keep physical filing cabinets of documents. Now
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everything is streamed or cloud hosted. And this is wonderful for convience
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sake. Now your tiny computer in your pocket that was once only your
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communication machine is now your communication, entertainment, business,
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and navigation.</p>
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<p>Now centeralization isn't always a bad thing. A centeralized point of
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control for a small group is good, it allows ease of communication and
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orgainization, by having only one point to go through. That strength is also
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centeralization's weakness, it has one point of failure. If google maps goes
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down for a week starting tommorow, alot of people, escpecailly the younger
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ones, would probably be unable, or at least not very confident, in their
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ability to navigate. Now of course people would be able to navigate still, and
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plenty of people 25 and younger will be able to figure out how to get around,
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be it google map alternatives, paper maps, dedicated gps, or map quest.
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However, think how much easier it would be if even the few of us that are
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technically inclined, hosted our own maps. You could update the maps when you
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wanted to. You could download only sections of maps that you would use. You
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could modify and update the maps as you see fit. They could be as accurate or
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inaccurate as you wish, depending on the area they are for. The <i>freedoms</i>
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afforded to the user is endless.</p>
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<p>I can see some would say "Well maps stay pretty consistent, why would I need
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my own? I just need to get from point A to point B, why would I care? And I can
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agree, hosting your own maps is quite a niche thing to do, possibly only for
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the ultra paranoid (not as paranoid as <a
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href="https://www.netburner.com/learn/how-to-set-up-an-ntp-server-on-your-network/">
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seting up your own NTP server :)</a>).
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Therefore, I would like to offer up a more relatable
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alternative. Hosting media such as movies, TV shows, Music, and even home
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photos and and videos. Take something like plex, its easy to setup on spare
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hardware, supported on just about every platform you can dream of, easy to
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scale with new drives, supports about every OS and file format available, and
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easy to manage users. If you host your own movies (that you legally or not so
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legally obtain), you never have to worry about netfilx removing your favorite
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series, or the general whims of huge corporations and their disputes. Same goes
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for music, music can be removed from tidal or spotify at a moments notice, due
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to the relationships of large record label companies and spotify.</p>
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<p>Well, if we can afford ourselves more freedom and control over our own
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content, what else can be self hosted?
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<a href="https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted">Alot!</a>
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Thats kinda the point of this site! I self host my own git server, so that
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github (and microsoft) can't remove my work if they feel like it, so that I can
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host my own code. I host my own matrix server, so that my own communications
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aren't at the whims of discord. Self hosting is so rewarding and freeing, if
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you're the technical one of your friends or family, you may as well.</p>
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</div>
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<div>
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<figure>
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<img src="../img/nas.jpg"></img>
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<figcaption>The flashy $80 piece of hardware running most of my self
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hosted services</figcaption>
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</figure>
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</div>
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</div>
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<div>
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<div>
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<h4>How to get started</h4>
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<h5>Getting hardware</h5>
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<p>This is kindof optional, depending on what you plan on hosting. I recomend
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getting a cheap used machine off of ebay. You can find some cheap 19" server
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machines on there, however I went with a simple tower that would be easy to
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throw in my room. The big advantage of a large machine is the ability to use
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lots of full size 3.5" hard drives. I recomend this for those wanting to host
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media.</p>
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<p>For those wanting to host smaller things, such as git servers, matrix, or
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smart home tools, a raspberry pi with a 64 or 128 Gb SD card is usually more
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than enough to get everything you need done.</p>
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<p>For those that need something more reliable then residential internet to
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host their services, renting a VPS is also an option, however you give up alot
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of flexibility when you are not using your own physical hardware, such as
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encryption. This option, however, will be generally cheaper for those not
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needing huge amounts of disk space.</p>
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<h5>Getting an OS</h5>
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<p>For those using a raspberry pi, you're best off using raspian. For those on
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their own hardware/VPS hardware, Ubuntu Server is a pretty good option. Its
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very stable and comes with repositiories for all of the most common software
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you'll use. For those who are willing to put in more work, a gentoo server can
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be very stable and offer performance boosts to those on limited hardware.</p>
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<h5>Getting services</h5>
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<p>Start installing services you may need! Be sure to be familiar with the
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terminal/SSH, and run the server headless. You may need to port forward for
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certain services, however be sure to keep that to a minimum. Your best bet is
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that anything that doesn't need to be accessable by the entire world, put
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behind your firewall and setup a VPN into your home network. This will make it
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so you only have to expose one port, and assures that youre only exposing the
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hardened services of OpenVPN and other such pieces of software.</p>
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<p>Thats about all have to say on it! I hope you enojyed and I've convinced you
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to start self hosting for you and your family!</p>
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</div>
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</div>
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