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Selfhosted @lemmy.world
jonathanvmv8f @lemm.ee

Where to find guide on self hosting for a complete beginner?

I am completely new to the realm of self hosting. I don't know a single thing about how I can self host stuff. Regardless, I have the curiousity to learn it by myself but I don't know where to start. I cannot find any sort of wiki or FAQ articles, nor do I have the ability to ask the forum for every single problem or doubt I encounter during the setup. Can someone direct me to a beginner friendly site that teaches all there is about self hosting and all the questions and misconceptions that come with it?

Additionally, is a self hosted server only accessible inside my home? What about accessing the services outside, like Bitwarden or Nextcloud apps that require syncing and availability of data wherever I am? If it is useless outside, there would be no point for me personally to self host in the first place since I am perfectly fine with using cloud services for now and the convenience that comes with it. Plus, no one else in my family cares about self hosting and I don't wish to spend the effort to convince them to in vain, so setting up a server for convenience of everyone at home is also out of the question.

33 comments

  • Asking broadly like this is akin to asking for a guide on how to cook, it’s generally too broad for there to be a single guide. You first need to figure out what your goals are (you state one already, you’d like it to be externally accessible), determine what services you want to host, and then start looking at how to do so.

    The advice I’d give is to start with a solid base, you’ll need something to self host on and it really shouldn’t be the PC you use for other things. Get it setup to run a virtualization OS such as proxmox and use that as your starting point. Then do a lot of reading. I spend probably three to four times as much time reading about the service I’m planning to deploy compared to actually doing the work to deploy it. Lastly, plan. You should have a solid plan in the beginning of how you want your service to work (what will be external vice internal only, how will you setup the networking stack to do that, are you going to have a domain, and will you use subdomains or folders to divide services, what does your IP space look like, will you host your own firewall to make the networking more controlled or fight with your ISPs router, do you want to use docker, kubernetes, or maybe full VMs for each service, do you want/need a UI to manage things from or are you comfortable with CLI, etc). These answers will lead you to guides for various services as well as service specific forums where help is more focused.

    • That is a great analogy of explaining the broadness of the concept of self hosting that I wasnt able to understand from the other comments.

      As a beginner, I would like to start out with a storage provider like Google Drive (& Google Photos). I currently don't have any hardware for a home server but I can get one as per my requirements.

      The biggest issue for me would be the OS running in the home server. I would preferably want something compatible with Windows since I have worked with Windows for my whole life. I am also fine with working with Linux, however I don't want to spend weeks banging my head on setting up and using Linux before I even start configuring it for my home server. I will be able to handle learning about networkings of the server on the go and troubleshoot problems as long as the OS does not bother me. As with self hosting, I am a beginner in the field of Linux so I don't know what 'distro' would be best for me for this purpose, but nonetheless I will research more about it thanks to your headstart.

      • I see you want to store photos/files and you mentioned bitwarden.

        Remember: Backup, backup and backup.
        And if possible: Test it.

      • I still feel like a noob, but I spent a lot of time to get to this point where I am now. I can install fresh OS and run Nextcloud in less than 1 hour probably. When I started it took few months, I was burning all my free time but I loved it. It takes only few steps, but its probably a pain if everything is new. My steps would be:

        1. Install Debian OS
        2. Install docker and docker-compose
        3. Install portainer (also docker container, has simple web GUI to manage all other containers)
        4. Load docker-compose (with nextcloud and db config) in portainer stacks and start nextcloud container

        Googling steps above for your OS or hardware should point you in the right direction, but there are many other ways of course. You can use any OS, but Linux is the way to go, especially if you are looking for help on lemmy.

        Im accessing server using wireguard, it behaves like Im home and it needs to be set on each client (scanning QR code or loading config). Wireguard requires opening port 51820 on your router, but that should be safe enough. Alternative is tailscale that doesnt require opening port at all. Other options are probably too complex (read unsafe) for begginers afaik.

        If you are going to selfhost cloud service then also look into backup solutions. Losing data is not fun at all.

        My post might not answer your questions, just wanted to share my thoughts. If you decide to dive into selfhosting, Id say arm yourself with time and patience and get some cheap or free hardware to start with (old laptop with dead screen and battery should be more than enough) and enjoy your linux advantures.

        Good luck

    • Agreed.
      I spent so much time wrapping my brain around traefik and reverse proxy until some helped me and I setup traefik in a whole week (8-12h each day).
      But most of it was research and trying out. And failing hard for the first few times.

  • Take a service you enjoy (say movie watching) and researvh something that interests you.
    For example jellyfin or plex. Now you get to the question of how to implement that.
    No you research that. 10-40 browser tabs later you got most of the neccessary information and implement it.

    Repeat that cycle.

    Now you want to pull it all together (say make it reachable from outside). You research security practices and find, that maybe you want a reverse proxy + 2FA + Fail2Ban.
    Now you do it again but with the intention of not one single application but many.
    When you get your stack together, you begin the next project like securing your stack, improving it etc.

    Theres no FAQ on how to start it because everyone begins differently.
    Some do media hosting, some want a backup solution centrally managed, some need a document management system, accounting/budgeting, security, development etc.

    My personal journey was
    Raspberry Pi
    Linux
    OpenMediaVault
    Network shares for Windows
    Plex
    Ditch plex for Jellyfin
    Find out docker exists
    Dive into torrenting so *arr stack + Jellyfin automation
    Get help from a discord on how to get started with traefik
    Introducing Authelia
    Trying random projects

    If you want a hand holding (no offense. Everyone may need it at some point) guide, take a look at Ibracorp. Both the community as well as this, reddits and other communities have awesome guides on how to configure something.
    But at the core of everything is one: What bothers you and how do you intend to change it?

  • There's no guide thats covers everything, because the possibilities are nearly endless.

    The first step is to get a server and choose an OS. You can build your own server at home or you can rent a VPS.

    If you rent a VPS your services will be accessible from everywhere. If you decide to get a homeserver everything will be only accessible at your local network. You can acces your services from outside through VPN or port forwading.

    When your server is ready, you can start to host your services. Just look at the documentation of the project e.g. on github.

33 comments