I recently got into the world of self-hosting, and although I’m doing it through a VPS I’ve learned many interesting things, even so, I’ve only had my VPS contracted for 10 days, and of those 10 days, 8 I spent burning my head learning concepts that I had never heard or understood, and actually it’s funny because I remember that’s what it was like to learn to use Linux.
To begin with, I started with Ubuntu 22.04 and docker, in some situations installing the service was simple, running a command in my console and opening a browser in localhost and the port used, simple, but as I was installing services I found some that they simply exceeded my patience and knowledge, as was Peertube where I simply do not understand why I need to put a name and a password to a thousand different databases, and many times they use concepts like <SECRET KEY> I don’t have the slightest idea what it means.
And so, I came across Yunohost, who makes the selfhosting process miserably easy, but so easy it honestly makes me feel dirty, to the point that I remember dualbooting Windows simply out of fear of Linux.
Now, I have 100% intentions to learn all those concepts that I don’t know and manage my servers on my own and it’s not that I’m “afraid” to do things on my own, but I need a stable server where I can have my services hosted, I can’t create a docker instance to realize the following week that I restart the server to update that I forgot to point to a persistent volume and I lost all my data, which didn’t happen to me but it was possible because in the end I do this for hobby and I’m experimenting.
And I don’t know, I don’t feel exactly “good” with Yunohost, I mean, it works great but what if for example I want to host something that is not in their list of supported services? I basically screwed myself. I feel like I’m in the same situation where I dualbooted Windows just for fear of Linux.
Edit: Thank you all for commenting! I am not answering them one by one because it would take me too long, but I want to clarify that I do read the messages and I agree with most of the comments, if not all! Although yes, I won’t keep burning my head over it, while my VPS works, I’ll learn everything I can virtualizing on my own PC.
I swear you will never, ever be satisfied with anything you do with your mindset. Just chill. It’s a hobby. There is no right way to do it.
There are bazilion things to learn and not enough time. You can’t expect to do everything what enterprise level sysadmins do with big money to spend or, for that matter, to do something that seems like everyone’s doing. We do what we can.
One day you start with Ubuntu and then you hear all the crap about it and you use Debian. It’s all fine but then you use Alma/RockyLinux because that’s what real servers are using. And then you set up 30TB of zfs storage for what, 20-30gb worth of some family photos. You learn shell and python to automate simple things but everyone’s using Rust now so you have to use Rust because python is a slow crap. You want fancy website? How about learning JS, TS, React, Vue, Angular, Svelte? Why stop there? Learn Node/deno. Are you into home automation? Learn how to solder things to Arduino. Why are you not using Proxmox? Learn how to use that too. Do you even firewall? Learn pfSense. Docker’s nice but real servers use K8. Learn that too.
Next thing you know you now own a whole rack of machine that costs more than what most of the small companies have and an imposter syndrome.
Have fun. This rabbithole is sure fun but you will never catch up everything.
Yunohost is, to me anyways, a good stepping stone in learning the hosting side of things. You can have something up and running while you learn the rest.
I don’t think you should feel bad about it, everyone needs some kind of “training wheels” or “guard rails” when they’re first getting in to any hobby.
I think of it in terms of my other hobbies, would I have started off in electronics repair if I had to fix a modern motherboard for my first project? Maybe, but I would have struggled mightily. Instead I started doing simpler circuits and worked my way up while learning theory and technique.
If there’s an automated set up, absolutely go for it, you shouldn’t be doing the same mundane task over and over again. I, however, recommend at least once to do it yourself/go over the docs just to understand how to troubleshoot when stuff breaks or if it interests you how the software works. For example: A lot of people think that Watchtower queries the docker repo to see when it was last updated and that’s how it processes it’s updates. The truth is, watchtower downloads the entire image, checks it against your currently used image and if it’s not the same it updates. What then happens is that server maintainers set the poll interval really low (like 10-15m) and end up using a lot of bandwidth.
Its all good, I use yunohost as well and have a second server for the stuff that arent on their list like minecraft server for example, if you want to host something that isnt on their list, you can set up a second server on raspberry for example and play with reverse proxy.
Do what you want. Everyone started somewhere. If yunohost is yours then so be it. If you like it, stick to it. If you grow tired of it, move on.
If you want to really use your server, yunohost might even be good for you. because other people help harden the configs and prepare updates… you can even participate on their github or forum if you want to have a look at how things work. but they don’t use docker.
btw: yunohost is based on debian. so if you’re missing some software… you can just install docker and install your software. or create a new user account for it. or use some other container engine or virtualization tech. it’s all there. you might want to have a look at their ‘redirect’ app. It can do reverse proxy. I use it for exactly that, to reverse proxy into my containers with ‘extra’ software.
As other people pointed out: You don’t always have to start at zero and learn everything. it’s okay to sometimes start with something working and see how they did it. maybe disassemble and reassemble parts and try to contribute. there is no need to feel ‘dirty’ because of that.
Bro, just chill and enjoy. Use what works for you. If you ever want to leave your comfort zone there are thousand options to still keep it simple.
Holly crap that looks amazing. I just installed Ubuntu server and got paperless working, but I think I’m gonna redo it with yunohost. Thanks for the lead!
Ok that didn’t work, back to unbuntu…
