I do use Bitwarden, however to boot any computer in my lab, it requires a system/BIOS password, an encryption passphrase, and and OS password to get to the desktop. LOL So, Bitwarden is of no use in that scenario. I guess I could put everything on a usb key, but then again I want ‘them’ to have to beat me with a pipe wrench until I cough up the passwords.

I want an internet more like it was before I was born

I’m 71, so I was virtually there when they flipped the switch, and I was, to say the least, addicted. I’ve had a lifelong romance with technology. Yes, it was much simpler then, not a whole lot going on really. A few BBS, ASCII porn, then Geocities…lol what was that? However, I look at what we have now, and what we had then, and personally think the things I liked about the olden days are far outweighed by what we have in 2025.

The reason I asked is because it just seemed like such an absolutist thing to say. I’ve rarely found life to be that absolute. Life is a series of concessions and amalgamations of compromise. Unless you’re willing to go live in an isolated cabin in the woods, devoid of any technology, I don’t see how you can avoid those concessions and compromises. One has their core values and beliefs yes, yet one must be flexible lest life snaps you off at the knees.

Congratulations of the local ISP collaboration. I’ve read some on the topic and that is way more capital than I have, and far too many aggravations than I would want to take on. Wish you the best with your endeavors.

NordPass’s annual password trend report confirmed what we all suspected – Gen Z is worse than Boomers when it comes to using insecure passwords (if you’re looking for strong passwords, just use Home Assistant’s hardware names and they’ll be uncrackable)

I believe in long, complex, and complicated passwords. One of the things I’ve taught myself is how to create long, complex, and complicated THAT I CAN REMEMBER! Making long, complex passwords is a snap. Remembering them is where it’s at. Cue relevant xkcd cartoon. At my age, that can be quite the trick.

Thanks for the backup. LOL I get nervous sharing code. Sure it worked for me, but in the back of my head I see some poor guy deploying any code I’ve used and smoke starts coming out of his server, the front cover falls off, and his Ethernet cable is belched out the back. LOL

Cloudflare gives unlimited data

True. I’ve never measured the bandwidth, but staring at ntopng flows for a few minutes and you can kind of get the enormity of ingress/egress, which is sometimes mind blowing to me especially for a little homelab outfit like mine. I was just curious if you had a handle on other venues besides the big guys, for the 'at least it’s not Cloudflare brethren in the group. I mean, I know how I am about Google in that I absolutely deny any access. They aren’t on my ‘I HATE’ list or ‘I wish they’d go tits up’ list, I just don’t use them for anything. Now I’m sure that periodically, during my internet travels, I inadvertently use one of their services. With a vast catalog of services that Google possesses, they’ve got their fingers in everybody’s pie. So I can kind of understand the Anti-Cloudflare coalition.

I did it more for the security aspect, but as @MinFapper@startrek.website points out, there are many advantages. The AI crawlers, the bad actors, et al make even the free tier worth considering. Don’t go in blindly tho. Do some searching and reading and make up your own mind.

More eloquent than anything I could conjure up. In the ‘at least it’s not Cloudflare’ column, how do you feel about https://ngrok.com/ or similar? I’ve never explored those avenues, but from what I hear, ngrok is fairly popular.

https://github.com/beatkind/watchtower/releases/tag/v2.3.1

For that kind of money, I would expect the SSD drive

For that kind of money, I would expect breakfast and a blowie every morning.

Locate and edit the config/config.php. There is a line that starts with ‘trusted_domains’ Add your new domain thusly:

'trusted_domains' =>
  array (
    0 => 'old-domain.com',
    1 => 'new-domain.com',
  ),

You’ll have to update your web server configuration, your DNS records, and you may have to clear any server cache you may have.

ETA: Ooops! Forgot to add citation: https://help.nextcloud.com/t/howto-add-a-new-trusted-domain/26

There is a Watchtower fork. The older Watchtower has not been updated in two years.

https://watchtower.devcdn.net/container-selection/ By default, watchtower will watch all containers. However, sometimes only some containers should be updated.

There are two options:

1. Fully exclude: You can choose to exclude containers entirely from being watched by watchtower.
2. Monitor only: In this mode, watchtower checks for container updates, sends notifications and invokes the pre-check/post-check hooks on the containers but does not perform the update.

Not trying to get into a pissing contest, or twist your arm into anything…however, honest question: What do you consider your ISP? Centralized or no? I mean, there are only around 10 to 15 major Tier-1 backbone ISPs that I know of, everyone else contracts with them. There are about 12–14 true Tier-1 backbone providers that form the core of the global Internet, and a few dozen additional very large backbone networks (Tier 2) that also carry massive amounts of international internet traffic.

Implement fall backs. If your selfhosted services are public and mission critical, you should have something in your trick bag to fall back to.

Well, for one, it’s not quite as bloated as NextCloud imho. Just you and your files. It does have add ons, but they are not required.

Owncloud? It does have an ios and android app

Like in - one time payment with infinite time ownership?

It’s like paying off and owning a house. Sure, you own it, but quit paying state taxes (assuming US, or Council Tax and Business Rates for UK etc) for a very long time and find out what happens. LOL

You’re not slow…sheesh.

The version I’m using does not include AI, basically because I don’t have the equipment to run AI 100% local, and n8n AI makes you tap public AI outlets. Both versions are available. The community version of n8n is open-source.

A workflow:

n8n is a workflow automation platform that gives technical teams the flexibility of code with the speed of no-code. With 400+ integrations, native AI capabilities, and a fair-code license, n8n lets you build powerful automations while maintaining full control over your data and deployments.

There are over 400 different integrations: https://n8n.io/integrations Of course, the AI stuff you can skip. And when you get to the point of proficiency, you can build your own templates and workflows.

For instance, here is a workflow designed to automatically convert media: https://noted.lol/self-running-video-encoder-bash-n8n/

Another example is pulling logs: https://noted.lol/system-log-dashboard-n8n/

There are literally endless things you can integrate and build with n8n.

https://n8n.io/

https://noted.lol/tag/n8n/

I am the only user of my network. I don’t host any publicly, forward facing services. After reviewing a lot of options, I settled on Cloudflare for the homelab and on the VPS I use Caddy, Tailscale, Crowdsec, and a few other pieces to make me sleep better at night. LOL

Pangolin

I will say that Pangolin is pretty tight. It combines a lot of the things you would normally have to deploy separately. Nice package.

I bought a domain from NamesCheap for less than $5 USD, and used the Cloudflare issued nameservers. Cloudflare does not require you to purchase a domain through them, but they do require you to use their nameservers for obvious reasons.