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The general advice I've seen is to not host your own server. But I think it would be a great learning experience. If you cover the basics, is your server stil

The general advice I've seen is to not host your own server. But I think it would be a great learning experience. If you cover the basics, is your server still extremely vulnerable?

madez 9y ago
Who is giving the advice to not host your own server? My advice is to do host your own server.
- peterwwillis 9y ago
  Yep, you should definitely host your own server. And build your own Linux distro. And your own computer. Then weave your own cloth, sew your own clothes, cobble your own shoes. Build a car. Buy some land. Build a house. Move to the country. Raise chickens. Till and sow land. Get off the grid. Abandon the modern world. It's perfectly possible to drive a car without building one, or to become technically proficient without hosting your own server. If you DIY something, you may learn a lot about it, but it won't make you any better at the thing you actually wanted to do with it.
  - NinjaKitten 9y ago
    You could have said that without the snark.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - madez 9y ago
    It is not about learning everything by doing it yourself from scratch. Hosting a service yourself on your own server is becoming simpler and simpler by the day. Capable hardware is cheaply available in the form of single board computers and projects like Freedombox[0] and Yunohost[1] make the hosting part simple for the services they preconfigure. I don't know why you write such a confrontative comment. Hosting your server is important to have control over your data. You don't need to build your own Linux distro for that... [0] https://freedombox.org/ https://freedombox.org/ [1] https://yunohost.org/ https://yunohost.org/
    - dvtv75 9y ago
      Yup, I have an Odroid X running Ubuntu (I couldn't find a Debian that was set up to run on it). It's my mail server, apache server, has an outward facing SSH server, and acts as a sensor data logger. It's pushed pretty much as far as it will go, for a little system like that, with a fairly high load average at times. Recently had a power cut that killed the system, but rather than reinstall I poked around for a few hours until I discovered the bootloader's zImage had been corrupted. Copied another over from the original install image, and away it went. When I find myself a decent job, I'll dedicate a more powerful system to the task, maybe virtualize a few of the servers. Fun projects, although there are many head-hit-keyboard moments in setting it up.
      - madez 9y ago
        I have an A20-Olinuxino-Micro with a battery, so the device can cleanly shutdown when power is lost. I strongly recommend only buying devices that are compatible with Debian main, or mainline Linux at least. Usually I just check if it's compatible with Debian main, and if it's not, I move on. The latest shiney SoC is not worth the software pain caused by uncooperative manufacturers.
        newbear 9y ago
        Cool, and as to whether basic security will keep my server safe?
    - peterwwillis 9y ago
      First of all, it wasn't a confrontational comment, it was irony. And no, self-hosting does not help you control your data. Control would imply some kind of access control or lock, which all hosted services provide. Privacy would imply encryption, which you should be applying to your self-hosted service's files anyway, and can also apply to a hosted service.
      - madez 9y ago
        It was confrontational because you ridiculed a point of what I said by extremely overdoing it. Even the part you ridiculed — which wasn't the main point — is important. Learning and figuring stuff out by doing it yourself is very important. One doesn't need to go to the absurdly extreme like you ironically promoted. I host my own server and virtually only I have access to it. Clearly, that gives me privacy to a large degree.
Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
No, not really. I host plenty of servers, someone's gotta do it.
moftz 9y ago
Not host your own hardware or not get a dedicated server? Whether you host your own hardware in your home or rent a dedicated server, you are still responsible for proper security. Renting a VPS is a different story, you are relying on the hosting company to properly setup security for the guests. At least when you can run on bare metal, you can audit yourself. If I need to be able to quickly scale and do other "cloud computing" things, running EC2 or similar instances is pretty much the only way but if I need some real security, hosting on my own is the best option.
peterwwillis 9y ago
No, but yes. You can make a very secure system by hosting it yourself. Do you need a very secure system? Or do you just need to know that you need a firewall, and to manage your credentials securely, and to segregate applications' security domains, and do filtering of inputs, and blocking of brute force attacks? You probably just need to learn about security, and learning to host yourself is not the same thing.
- newbear 9y ago
  Ya you are right. My question is, is knowing basic security enough to feel secure in hosting yourself

The general advice I've seen is to not host your own server. But I think it would be a great learning experience. If you cover the basics, is your server still extremely vulnerable?

madez 9y ago

Who is giving the advice to not host your own server? My advice is to do host your own server.

peterwwillis 9y ago
Yep, you should definitely host your own server. And build your own Linux distro. And your own computer. Then weave your own cloth, sew your own clothes, cobble your own shoes. Build a car. Buy some land. Build a house. Move to the country. Raise chickens. Till and sow land. Get off the grid. Abandon the modern world. It's perfectly possible to drive a car without building one, or to become technically proficient without hosting your own server. If you DIY something, you may learn a lot about it, but it won't make you any better at the thing you actually wanted to do with it.
- NinjaKitten 9y ago
  You could have said that without the snark.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- madez 9y ago
  It is not about learning everything by doing it yourself from scratch. Hosting a service yourself on your own server is becoming simpler and simpler by the day. Capable hardware is cheaply available in the form of single board computers and projects like Freedombox[0] and Yunohost[1] make the hosting part simple for the services they preconfigure. I don't know why you write such a confrontative comment. Hosting your server is important to have control over your data. You don't need to build your own Linux distro for that... [0] https://freedombox.org/ https://freedombox.org/ [1] https://yunohost.org/ https://yunohost.org/
  - dvtv75 9y ago
    Yup, I have an Odroid X running Ubuntu (I couldn't find a Debian that was set up to run on it). It's my mail server, apache server, has an outward facing SSH server, and acts as a sensor data logger. It's pushed pretty much as far as it will go, for a little system like that, with a fairly high load average at times. Recently had a power cut that killed the system, but rather than reinstall I poked around for a few hours until I discovered the bootloader's zImage had been corrupted. Copied another over from the original install image, and away it went. When I find myself a decent job, I'll dedicate a more powerful system to the task, maybe virtualize a few of the servers. Fun projects, although there are many head-hit-keyboard moments in setting it up.
    - madez 9y ago
      I have an A20-Olinuxino-Micro with a battery, so the device can cleanly shutdown when power is lost. I strongly recommend only buying devices that are compatible with Debian main, or mainline Linux at least. Usually I just check if it's compatible with Debian main, and if it's not, I move on. The latest shiney SoC is not worth the software pain caused by uncooperative manufacturers.
      - newbear 9y ago
        Cool, and as to whether basic security will keep my server safe?
  - peterwwillis 9y ago
    First of all, it wasn't a confrontational comment, it was irony. And no, self-hosting does not help you control your data. Control would imply some kind of access control or lock, which all hosted services provide. Privacy would imply encryption, which you should be applying to your self-hosted service's files anyway, and can also apply to a hosted service.
    - madez 9y ago
      It was confrontational because you ridiculed a point of what I said by extremely overdoing it. Even the part you ridiculed — which wasn't the main point — is important. Learning and figuring stuff out by doing it yourself is very important. One doesn't need to go to the absurdly extreme like you ironically promoted. I host my own server and virtually only I have access to it. Clearly, that gives me privacy to a large degree.

Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago

No, not really. I host plenty of servers, someone's gotta do it.

moftz 9y ago

Not host your own hardware or not get a dedicated server? Whether you host your own hardware in your home or rent a dedicated server, you are still responsible for proper security. Renting a VPS is a different story, you are relying on the hosting company to properly setup security for the guests. At least when you can run on bare metal, you can audit yourself. If I need to be able to quickly scale and do other "cloud computing" things, running EC2 or similar instances is pretty much the only way but if I need some real security, hosting on my own is the best option.

peterwwillis 9y ago

No, but yes. You can make a very secure system by hosting it yourself. Do you need a very secure system? Or do you just need to know that you need a firewall, and to manage your credentials securely, and to segregate applications' security domains, and do filtering of inputs, and blocking of brute force attacks? You probably just need to learn about security, and learning to host yourself is not the same thing.

newbear 9y ago
Ya you are right. My question is, is knowing basic security enough to feel secure in hosting yourself