7 ms·

How do users behind NAT run their own tent servers? If they can manage to run their own HTTPS servers from behind NAT, if they have those skills (not to mentio

by creat0 14y ago

How do users behind NAT run their own tent servers? If they can manage to run their own HTTPS servers from behind NAT, if they have those skills (not to mention a reachable IP), then why do they need tent? Couldn't they just host all their content on their own server? I can see tent as providing some sort of coordination of user data hosted on different servers, but I'm not seeing how tent enables users to host their own content and have full control over it. Maybe that's not the goal? Correct me if I'm wrong but what this tent idea seems to lead to is a proliferation of tent service providers, not independent users running tent servers behind consumer ISP accounts. If that's true, then how can we be sure these service providers will not adopt the same sort of annoying monetization strategies of providers like Facebook and Twitter? By no means am I suggesting tent could not be useful. I just want some clarification of what problem they are trying to solve. (There is no shortage of problems to choose from. :)

wmf 14y ago
Servers belong in the cloud, not at home. The cloud is available to consumers.
- creat0 14y ago
  What is "hosting"? If you and I have a peer-to-peer connection and I queue up some content for you and possibly others who are on our private network, and you choose to retrieve it, is that "hosting"? Are these rules about what belongs in the cloud and what does not published somewhere? Who drafted them? Marketers? Do they apply to both home and business consumers? C'mon. (Now there may be some interesting uses for the cloud, for sure. But to suggest I have to upload everything I want to send you to someone else's server in "the cloud" before you can access it makes little sense, unless of course you are working for a cloud provider.)
  - wmf 14y ago
    I'm not talking about someone else's cloud server; I'm talking about your cloud server. The one that you will control because you pay for it. (Interesting that you went from complaining about NAT to assuming that a P2P connection is established. Which is it? Anyway, I cut the knot; my cloud server suffers no NAT.)
    - creat0 14y ago
      Yes, I'll admit I did jump from HTTPS to P2P. Although, I'm assuming that Tent is capitalizing on the term "decentralized" as in P2P. I do believe in the idea of using the cloud and having your own server. I hear you. I cut the knot myself. I'm just not sure that such use of cloud servers has to include storing lots of (sensitive) data on them. We all know that's been the marketing push. But I'm not convinced it's the wisest thing to do. Think of it this way. That cloud server you pay for gives you a reachable IP, something maybe your ISP does not give you. What can you do with a reachable IP? You can use it to traverse NAT. And once you can do that, then many possibilities open up to you. The internet becomes vastly more functional. From perusing the website in your profile some years ago I know that you were once interested in P2P. Have you "given up" on it?
      - wmf 14y ago
        Another reason I prefer storing data on my cloud server is that my home computer is now a laptop and I put it to sleep when I'm not around. (I guess this is kind of irrational; it wouldn't hurt to leave it on.) Yes, I have pretty much given up on P2P because the cloud dropped in price much more rapidly than residential broadband has increased in performance. I first realized this when I noticed that Megaupload/Rapidshare were faster than BitTorrent. The reason I was interested in P2P was because it was cheaper, but now it isn't.
        creat0 14y ago
        This makes it easier for me to understand your comments on P2P. Thanks for filling me in. I might have guessed (incorrectly) that the reason you would suggest the cloud over home is security. Is it easier for me to secure my laptop behind my home ISP connection (by just disconnecting it; or relying on the ISP's DMZ, NAT and the lack of any programs listening for connections) than it is to secure a cloud server that is always on, always connected and always listening for connections? Random thought: Does anyone ever use Wake-On-Lan anymore? Could it be useful in some present day context?
        14y ago
- EvanAnderson 14y ago
  Servers belong on the Internet. If users have an Internet connection at their home and are willing to accept the potential reliability issues associated with hosting a server at home then, by all means, host a server at home. UPnP NAT traversal is decently-supported in many consumer-oriented routers, as is dynamic DNS. I wish that the tech community hadn't lost sight of this and formed this artificial distinction between the Internet and the "home Internet". We could have been focusing efforts on making hosting services on servers in users' homes easier, but the siren-song of offering hosted services to create recurring revenue streams won out.
  - creat0 14y ago
    Do you think the possibility of "always on" computers at home (e.g., running low power ARM CPU's) is a real one? Would this change the way we think about "reliability"? (Of course the canonical example of the need to be "always on" is email. We've come to expect that the server handling our mail is always up.)
    - EvanAnderson 14y ago
      I think that low-power computers are the future of "always on". I'm migrating the "always on" home computers I use, and those of my family members, in that direction. I don't think email is a good "host at home" candidate, personally. Anti-spam services benefit too much from an economy of scale that comes from shared hosting. Having said that, though, I've hosted my email (SMTP and IMAP) on a consumer-grade Internet since June 2004. I've had outages because of service-provider issues (Time Warner) once in awhile, but the outages of significant duration (24 - 36 hours) have been either I was using unreliable old hardware. In those outages my secondary MX picked up my mail just fine and I worked from cached email on my personal computers. Assuming I was using more robust hardware or, for that matter, more simple hardware (a plug-computer that I could swap with a spare, moving an SD card containing all my email and configuration between) I wouldn't have ever had an outage longer than 8 hours since 2004. If the server was in a larger city (rather than the rural setting where it's hosted) I don't think I would have suffered thru than 8 hour power outage, either. The Tent protocol sounds like something that would work best hosted by your ISP, a third-party hosting service, or a rented platform in a third-party data center ("the cloud"). (It actually sounds like a naive re-implementation of some of the functionality of SMTP.) The things I'm most interested in hosting at home are things like home automation and Internet-connected appliances / devices. These products typically aren't going to be receiving requests from a large number of Internet hosts, don't necessarily need 24 x 7 uptime, and, most importantly, won't work if the home's Internet connection or power has failed (and, thus, don't gain any reliability benefit by being "cloud"-based).

by creat0 14y ago

wmf 14y ago

Servers belong in the cloud, not at home. The cloud is available to consumers.

creat0 14y ago
What is "hosting"? If you and I have a peer-to-peer connection and I queue up some content for you and possibly others who are on our private network, and you choose to retrieve it, is that "hosting"? Are these rules about what belongs in the cloud and what does not published somewhere? Who drafted them? Marketers? Do they apply to both home and business consumers? C'mon. (Now there may be some interesting uses for the cloud, for sure. But to suggest I have to upload everything I want to send you to someone else's server in "the cloud" before you can access it makes little sense, unless of course you are working for a cloud provider.)
- wmf 14y ago
  I'm not talking about someone else's cloud server; I'm talking about your cloud server. The one that you will control because you pay for it. (Interesting that you went from complaining about NAT to assuming that a P2P connection is established. Which is it? Anyway, I cut the knot; my cloud server suffers no NAT.)
  - creat0 14y ago
    Yes, I'll admit I did jump from HTTPS to P2P. Although, I'm assuming that Tent is capitalizing on the term "decentralized" as in P2P. I do believe in the idea of using the cloud and having your own server. I hear you. I cut the knot myself. I'm just not sure that such use of cloud servers has to include storing lots of (sensitive) data on them. We all know that's been the marketing push. But I'm not convinced it's the wisest thing to do. Think of it this way. That cloud server you pay for gives you a reachable IP, something maybe your ISP does not give you. What can you do with a reachable IP? You can use it to traverse NAT. And once you can do that, then many possibilities open up to you. The internet becomes vastly more functional. From perusing the website in your profile some years ago I know that you were once interested in P2P. Have you "given up" on it?
    - wmf 14y ago
      Another reason I prefer storing data on my cloud server is that my home computer is now a laptop and I put it to sleep when I'm not around. (I guess this is kind of irrational; it wouldn't hurt to leave it on.) Yes, I have pretty much given up on P2P because the cloud dropped in price much more rapidly than residential broadband has increased in performance. I first realized this when I noticed that Megaupload/Rapidshare were faster than BitTorrent. The reason I was interested in P2P was because it was cheaper, but now it isn't.
      - creat0 14y ago
        This makes it easier for me to understand your comments on P2P. Thanks for filling me in. I might have guessed (incorrectly) that the reason you would suggest the cloud over home is security. Is it easier for me to secure my laptop behind my home ISP connection (by just disconnecting it; or relying on the ISP's DMZ, NAT and the lack of any programs listening for connections) than it is to secure a cloud server that is always on, always connected and always listening for connections? Random thought: Does anyone ever use Wake-On-Lan anymore? Could it be useful in some present day context?
        14y ago
EvanAnderson 14y ago
Servers belong on the Internet. If users have an Internet connection at their home and are willing to accept the potential reliability issues associated with hosting a server at home then, by all means, host a server at home. UPnP NAT traversal is decently-supported in many consumer-oriented routers, as is dynamic DNS. I wish that the tech community hadn't lost sight of this and formed this artificial distinction between the Internet and the "home Internet". We could have been focusing efforts on making hosting services on servers in users' homes easier, but the siren-song of offering hosted services to create recurring revenue streams won out.
- creat0 14y ago
  Do you think the possibility of "always on" computers at home (e.g., running low power ARM CPU's) is a real one? Would this change the way we think about "reliability"? (Of course the canonical example of the need to be "always on" is email. We've come to expect that the server handling our mail is always up.)
  - EvanAnderson 14y ago
    I think that low-power computers are the future of "always on". I'm migrating the "always on" home computers I use, and those of my family members, in that direction. I don't think email is a good "host at home" candidate, personally. Anti-spam services benefit too much from an economy of scale that comes from shared hosting. Having said that, though, I've hosted my email (SMTP and IMAP) on a consumer-grade Internet since June 2004. I've had outages because of service-provider issues (Time Warner) once in awhile, but the outages of significant duration (24 - 36 hours) have been either I was using unreliable old hardware. In those outages my secondary MX picked up my mail just fine and I worked from cached email on my personal computers. Assuming I was using more robust hardware or, for that matter, more simple hardware (a plug-computer that I could swap with a spare, moving an SD card containing all my email and configuration between) I wouldn't have ever had an outage longer than 8 hours since 2004. If the server was in a larger city (rather than the rural setting where it's hosted) I don't think I would have suffered thru than 8 hour power outage, either. The Tent protocol sounds like something that would work best hosted by your ISP, a third-party hosting service, or a rented platform in a third-party data center ("the cloud"). (It actually sounds like a naive re-implementation of some of the functionality of SMTP.) The things I'm most interested in hosting at home are things like home automation and Internet-connected appliances / devices. These products typically aren't going to be receiving requests from a large number of Internet hosts, don't necessarily need 24 x 7 uptime, and, most importantly, won't work if the home's Internet connection or power has failed (and, thus, don't gain any reliability benefit by being "cloud"-based).