UPDATE: To everyone who suggested YUNO, thank you so much. This seems like it is about to make my journey much easier. It is basically almost exactly what I was looking for, but I was unaware that it existed.
Thank you ALL for your suggestions, actually. It’s a bit overwhelming for an almost complete noobie but I an going to look into all of the suggestions in time. I just saw that there were several mentions of YUNO so I decided to make that one of the first things I investigated.
So, about two months ago, I had a very eye opening experience. As the result of a single misconfigured security setting on my Android, I was locked out of my Google Account on my phone AND all of my PCs. I had no access whatsoever to Google, or any of the literally hundreds of services that I get through Google.
This is when I realized that I relied entirely on Google/Android because those two days were actually very difficult, being cut off from media, services, passwords, everything, from the past almost twenty years of my life, could be taken away from me in an instant. The decades of my life that were locked away in my Google Account included hundreds of thousands of pictures, almost a hundred thousand audio tracks, several hundred books, several hundred apps, thousands of videos, etc. ad infinitum. Unfortunately, very little of this material was backed up at that point. That is my fault. Also, the misconfigured security setting was my fault as well.
The amount of data, media, memories, services, etc. that would have been lost is actually endless and it would have affected my life in several ridiculously negative ways.
Luckily, in the end, I was able to get my access back and then basically immediately grabbed all of the several terabytes of information and media of mine that they had, and that I was almost locked out of. I have it all in my house now on a drive in my computer, with a backup made on another disconnected disk.
I then decided that no corporation was ever going to have such an insanely high level of influence on and control over my entire life and my media ever again. That experience was actually very scary.
I’ve been trying to get into SelfHosting, but am finding it quite daunting and difficult.
There is a LOT of stuff that I have to learn, and I am mostly unsure of where to even begin. I know basically nothing about networking.
I need to learn the very basic stuff and work my way up from there, but everything that I’ve seen on the Internet assumes that the reader already has a basic to intermediate understanding of networking and the subjects that surround it. I do not, but I am going to learn.
I just need someone to show me where to start.
Thanks in advance for any assistance!
As the result of a single misconfigured security setting on my Android, I was locked out of my Google Account on my phone AND all of my PCs.
Just a heads up on what you are getting yourself into, if you fuck up your self hosted setup badly enough there is no recovery.
That isn’t necessarily intended to scare you off from self hosting, just that the first and most important lesson to learn is to have a good system of backups that are backed up automatically, are easy to recover from, and are separated enough from other copies of the data that if something goes terribly wrong one copy will survive.
Thanks for the advice. Currently, I have a backup of all of my important data on a high capacity HDD that is completely disconnected from any devices. There is no real way to automate backups with that setup, but it’s what I am working with at the moment.
I’d recommend setting your sights on the 3-2-1 rule. 3 copies of your data, 2 different mediums, 1 off-site. Hetzner Storage Box is a good cheap offsite option.
The FUTO guide is meant for total beginners.
since you’re so new to self hosting, don’t open anything up to the internet. You’re in for a world of pain if you do.
If you have systems or services you’re dependant so strongly, always have an backup / emergency access. 3rd party or self hosted.
My 5c but I think you agree.
Point being as a decades old it professional I see design more important as the detail implementation.
Goddamned inflation. It used to be just 2 cents worth!
Yunohost should be the software you’re looking for. Install stuff by clicking. Much less terminal stuff
How secure is yuno? Is it actually secure plugging into your Ethernet for remote access to something like immich?
It’s super intimidating when the weight of the weight of the global hacking community is attacking you from the moment you expose a port.
Is their progress on a simple sustainable solution to security? Is this the primary roadblock to self hosting becoming more common place? Or am I way off
+1 for YunoHost from the POV of a total self-hosting newbie (I’m now self-hosting my own GoToSocial, Pixelfed, PeerTube and NextCloud thanks to it… upgrades and backups are super easy, too)
Can I ask where you host your backup service without paying another cloud provider?
Sevral people have mentioned Yuno and I’m going to look into it shortly. Thanks for the input!
There’s Yuno, CasaOS is ridiculously easy to setup, manage and maintain as well. There’s UnRaid (not free, but very good), Proxmox is extremely versatile.
I am currently running light services (caldav, carddav, PW manager, and some other lighter stuff) on an N150 mini PC, and have a hefty server for heavier services running on Proxmox.
Of course, I follow the 3-2-1 backup rule, but only for data I could never get again. Movies, Series, music, I never back up.
As someone who went through this after trumps 2nd term and power grabs i can give you my process:
- angrily unsubscribe all big tech subscriptions
- make a protonmail and tutamail account, realize I like proton suote more and decide to subscribe
- transfer all passwords to proton suite
- download all photos and other from cloud to an external drive. TURNS OUT THIS TAKES SEVERAL DAYS WTF
- angrily order a rasp-pi and an external SSD
- use step by step tutorials from pimylifeup to install docker and immich. Fall in love
- gradually (via help of google and GPTs) become confident enough with command line to start managing the server headless over SSH
Fast forward 6 months: My router is now running OpenWRT. With a few necessary exceptions my network access is always through ProtonVPN. My external devices are connected via wireguard to the router when not on home wifi and only after that reach the www. I have 24/7 access to my services from everywhere. My main server is now an old office mini pc running about 10 services. Im using borg for nightly snapshots(its a bit like apple time machine) and after that everything is backed up to another server at a friends house via rsync and ssh. I have a third mini computer whose purpose is to be my tv’s UI with access to services like the national broadcasts web ui and my own jellyfin and invidious (adless youtube client) The tv does not have an internet connection anymore. I even made a custom land page that automatically opens full screen in a browser when open my tv.
The point is: this builds gradually and you have fun doing it. …until it breaks :D The most painful parts involved networking so you can settle for LAN only at first to keep things simple
A single misconfigured thing can suck real bad as you’ve seen.
Selfhosting involves lots of things that can be misconfigured or go bad.That’s not to scare you out of it out anything, merely to congratulate you in seeking knowledge first.
Disclaimer: I’m biased towards networks because I’m a network engineer, opinions may differ.
I would say… having at least a vague grasp of layers 1-4 of the traditional network model is a decent start.
You don’t need to understand everything, but knowing a minimum will help a lot imho.It’s hard to point you in the right direction without knowing what you already know or not.
