15 ms·

Ask HN: Do You Self Host?

4 points by chippyty 3y ago

If not, what is the biggest obstacle to self hosting, say... your email?

t312227 3y ago
yes ... everything i need. and i'm doing this since a pretty long time-frame ... so i know what i do ;) using linux in general - the debian gnu/linux distribution on x86/amd64 in particular ...
itzprime 3y ago
used to self host email, but not getting blacklisted was pure pain - so I switched to fastmail. I stopped mostly hosting things, using Syncthing to sync my files. Don't need a lot more.
- chippyty 3y ago
  I never got blacklisted using the same domain and server for more that 4 years now. What was your provider? Sometimes you get an ip address that is blacklisted already... I use Hetzner or Privex
bcx5k15 3y ago
Email is one of the hardest things to self-host because of spam filtering.
- chippyty 3y ago
  Did you use a turnkey solution like Mailinabox or Ireadmail?
  - bcx5k15 3y ago
    The problem is around DNS/IP whitelisting I worked for a large bank and we eventually gave up on it for customer emails because trying to keep your domain/IP ranges in the correct lists so that you didn't end up in spam folders was so operationally expensive
chippyty 3y ago
I personally self host - email - a couple meta search engines (librex and searxng) - a couple of invidious instances - an xmpp server for chatting with friends - an openvpn instances - tor as dns resolver - pihole as dns blocker (even locally on my laptop) - jitsi for video meetings - some webservers (i don't do AWS or similar stuff) - translation service - pastebin - nitter - gothub -nextcloud for pictures, address book from my phone (GrapheneOs)
- gaws 3y ago
  > - an xmpp server for chatting with friends How did you convince them to use XMPP when, for so many, Discord is the "easier" option?
  - OkayPhysicist 3y ago
    Have nerdy friends? We used Mumble+XMPP for years until my (highly technically inclined) friend group merged with another substantially less-so one.
    - gaws 3y ago
      > Have nerdy friends? Many nerdy people use Discord, unfortunately.
mattbillenstein 3y ago
Was self-hosting email for maybe 20 years myself - but I'd say I only really understood enough to make it work. Been using https://mailinabox.email/ https://mailinabox.email/ for the last 5 years or so and I'm pretty happy with that - works better than what I was doing myself using mostly the same underlying tools.
- chippyty 3y ago
  Yes, Mailinabox works surprisingly well, not to mention that it takes care even of requesting and deploying SSL Certificates.
timonoko 3y ago
Yes. Expect "hosting" means I can access all kind of services via public SSH-port.
Hackbraten 3y ago
I'm struggling with TLS certificates. I've been self-hosting a BIND instance for my personal domain for 8 years, but I have no idea how to add Let's Encrypt support to that. So all I do is maintain my zone files manually, so all our devices have their own host name on the domain. But I haven't been able to host any services, because I have no idea where to start learning how to integrate Let's Encrypt.
- chippyty 3y ago
  You mean make Bind capable of creating TXT records for letsencrypt?
  - Hackbraten 3y ago
    If that’s what it takes to get a wildcard certificate, then yes.
    - t312227 3y ago
      hello, 1. what do you want to do with your certificate? 2. why do you want a wildcard certificate!? imho. its a lot easier - and also a bit safer - to use certificate(s) with actual names in it. ps. you are able to specify multiple names for a certificate :) idk for example so its valid for "domain.tld" and "www.domain.tld" etc. cheersv
      - Hackbraten 3y ago
        > what do you want to do with your certificate I want to be able to reach various appliances in our home network (router, modem, etc.) via HTTPS without having to dismiss those scary warnings all the time. > why do you want a wildcard certificate!? Because most of those appliances are not connected to the public internet. They do allow uploading a certificate though.
        t312227 3y ago
        hello, hmmm ... idk. for LAN-based appliances, which will likely even have invalid names a la * router.my.home or * nas.my.home or whatever "dummy-tld" + local domain one uses ... so if i want to use certificates in such an environment, i would create my own CA and import its public cert(s) into my browsers - or OSes - certificate-store. problem solved!! and also learned some useful lessons regarding "run your own CA" :) cheersv
billybuckwheat 3y ago
I have a personal instance of Nextcloud running on a Raspberry Pi. As for self hosting other apps/tools, I'm just a bit too lazy to do that.

4 points by chippyty 3y ago

If not, what is the biggest obstacle to self hosting, say... your email?

yes ... everything i need. and i'm doing this since a pretty long time-frame ... so i know what i do ;) using linux in general - the debian gnu/linux distribution on x86/amd64 in particular ...

itzprime 3y ago

used to self host email, but not getting blacklisted was pure pain - so I switched to fastmail. I stopped mostly hosting things, using Syncthing to sync my files. Don't need a lot more.

chippyty 3y ago
I never got blacklisted using the same domain and server for more that 4 years now. What was your provider? Sometimes you get an ip address that is blacklisted already... I use Hetzner or Privex

bcx5k15 3y ago

Email is one of the hardest things to self-host because of spam filtering.

chippyty 3y ago
Did you use a turnkey solution like Mailinabox or Ireadmail?
- bcx5k15 3y ago
  The problem is around DNS/IP whitelisting I worked for a large bank and we eventually gave up on it for customer emails because trying to keep your domain/IP ranges in the correct lists so that you didn't end up in spam folders was so operationally expensive

chippyty 3y ago

I personally self host - email - a couple meta search engines (librex and searxng) - a couple of invidious instances - an xmpp server for chatting with friends - an openvpn instances - tor as dns resolver - pihole as dns blocker (even locally on my laptop) - jitsi for video meetings - some webservers (i don't do AWS or similar stuff) - translation service - pastebin - nitter - gothub -nextcloud for pictures, address book from my phone (GrapheneOs)

gaws 3y ago
> - an xmpp server for chatting with friends How did you convince them to use XMPP when, for so many, Discord is the "easier" option?
- OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  Have nerdy friends? We used Mumble+XMPP for years until my (highly technically inclined) friend group merged with another substantially less-so one.
  - gaws 3y ago
    > Have nerdy friends? Many nerdy people use Discord, unfortunately.

mattbillenstein 3y ago

Was self-hosting email for maybe 20 years myself - but I'd say I only really understood enough to make it work. Been using https://mailinabox.email/ https://mailinabox.email/ for the last 5 years or so and I'm pretty happy with that - works better than what I was doing myself using mostly the same underlying tools.

chippyty 3y ago
Yes, Mailinabox works surprisingly well, not to mention that it takes care even of requesting and deploying SSL Certificates.

timonoko 3y ago

Yes. Expect "hosting" means I can access all kind of services via public SSH-port.

Hackbraten 3y ago

I'm struggling with TLS certificates. I've been self-hosting a BIND instance for my personal domain for 8 years, but I have no idea how to add Let's Encrypt support to that. So all I do is maintain my zone files manually, so all our devices have their own host name on the domain. But I haven't been able to host any services, because I have no idea where to start learning how to integrate Let's Encrypt.

chippyty 3y ago
You mean make Bind capable of creating TXT records for letsencrypt?
- Hackbraten 3y ago
  If that’s what it takes to get a wildcard certificate, then yes.
  - t312227 3y ago
    hello, 1. what do you want to do with your certificate? 2. why do you want a wildcard certificate!? imho. its a lot easier - and also a bit safer - to use certificate(s) with actual names in it. ps. you are able to specify multiple names for a certificate :) idk for example so its valid for "domain.tld" and "www.domain.tld" etc. cheersv
    - Hackbraten 3y ago
      > what do you want to do with your certificate I want to be able to reach various appliances in our home network (router, modem, etc.) via HTTPS without having to dismiss those scary warnings all the time. > why do you want a wildcard certificate!? Because most of those appliances are not connected to the public internet. They do allow uploading a certificate though.
      - t312227 3y ago
        hello, hmmm ... idk. for LAN-based appliances, which will likely even have invalid names a la * router.my.home or * nas.my.home or whatever "dummy-tld" + local domain one uses ... so if i want to use certificates in such an environment, i would create my own CA and import its public cert(s) into my browsers - or OSes - certificate-store. problem solved!! and also learned some useful lessons regarding "run your own CA" :) cheersv

billybuckwheat 3y ago

I have a personal instance of Nextcloud running on a Raspberry Pi. As for self hosting other apps/tools, I'm just a bit too lazy to do that.