8 ms·

> 1) I upgrade from 17->18->19->20->21 and hope nothing breaks! I did a similar path (started from 18 iirc) and nothing broke. But there's a catch, because I

by znpy 6y ago

> 1) I upgrade from 17->18->19->20->21 and hope nothing breaks! I did a similar path (started from 18 iirc) and nothing broke. But there's a catch, because I have some safeguards in place: 1. Nextcloud has its own dataset in a ZFS zpool. I take snapshots hourly, and I took a snapshot just before upgrading 2. I run nextcloud and its own postgreql via docker-compose. the docker-compose file along with the configuration and data are stored in nextcloud's own dataset. This means that os-level dependencies are not a problem for me. this also mean that reverting the whole thing to before-upgrade is very easy: just rollback to the before-update snapshot. 3. (unrelated) snapshot are replicated to another location, which means that I might perform the upgrade on that other site and switch the dns when it's done and if i'm satisfied. I don't do that, for my personal use 1-2 hours downtime it's okay. 4. I'll let nextcloud perform its auto-upgrade procedures, take a snapshot after every upgrade, and at the end I'll perform the tasks suggested in the self-assesment page (adding indexes, changing columns types etc). You don't have a nextcloud problem, you have a system administration problem.

prophesi 6y ago
> You don't have a nextcloud problem, you have a system administration problem. Those aren't mutually exclusive. Sure, better dev ops would make major upgrades safer and easier. But for a hobbyist self-hosting their own instance, a LTS release would be a godsend to save them hours of unpaid work.
- znpy 6y ago
  An good hobbyist should challenge themselves from time to time ;)
  - zelon88 6y ago
    We wouldn't tell Google engineers to mess with his Google drive in prod... why should he sacrifice data availability and integrity?
  - nickthemagicman 6y ago
    Maybe they're challenging themselves on things that interest them more...and just want a functioning Nextcloud instance?
  - imwillofficial 6y ago
    Who said it was a challenge? When does grunt work move beyond challenge to the point of not being worth it? I got out of self hosting because my time is too valuable. It did teach me lots of new skills, so that was great! However, somebody not wanting a time sink, is not them avoiding challenge.
    - prophesi 6y ago
      This is the boat I'm in. And even if you do "everything right" and have snapshots before & after every update, you still need to actually debug why the update failed in the first place. So even then, LTS releases would be a greatly appreciated feature.
contravariant 6y ago
I don't disagree but as a hobbyist I don't really want system administration problems. Well and I was mostly interested in Nextcloud as a possible alternative to Dropbox/Google drive with versioning and, I hoped, backups. However the only proper backup solution that I could confidently state would allow me to recover should disaster strike was the one you just explained e.g. putting everything in docker and snapshotting the entire filesystem. At which point I'm basically running 3 virtual file systems on top of each other just to have a better UI, which seemed a bit silly.
- znpy 6y ago
  First things first: don't get me wrong, I do understand your point. The thing is: you have a system administration problem, whether you want or not (that is a big part of what you're actually paying for when you buy Dropbox or when you let Google feed on your data). Now, as an hobbyist, when you start depending on services you set up and manage yourself, it would be a good idea to take some time to learn additional tools to enjoy your hobbies more. Think about this as in "leveling up" your hobby. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Now on a lighter tone, there are simpler ways to have a backup strategy, as long as you are okay with lower guarantees. You might not use zfs, and use simple LVM snapshots. You might want to use no snapshotting at all and just do a nightly backup via a cronjob: at 3AM you just switch everything down (docker-compose down if you're using it), do a rsync to another host, start it back up. It's way simpler but you'd only get a yesterday's copy in case of problem. But then again, that would safeguard you when doing upgrades: disable backup, perform upgrade, test everything, re-enable backup, resume operations. Worst case scenario you rsync back the yesterday's data and you resume normal operation.
  - dsr_ 6y ago
    > you have a system administration problem, whether you want or not Right. You can pay people to do things for you, or you can do them yourself, but either way the things have to be done, and they should be done by someone who is good at it and has a contract with you -- employment or otherwise.
l72 6y ago
That's very true. I run quite a few services on my local network for my family (wireguard, nextcloud, homeassistant, frigate, pihole, jellyfin, bitwarden, ...). While I enjoy setting up and playing with these service, I need to think about managing all these services as little as possible as I don't want to spend all my free time being a system admin. Also, often a new release is not just a system admin task. Sure, it may not be _that_ hard to do a full backup, pull new docker images, spin them up and verify everything. The time sink comes from keeping track of all the releases of all the different projects, reading up about changes, how the upgrade process works, and so on. On top of that, my family has become reliant on several of these services, especially nextcloud and bitwarden. The last thing they want are major changes to it. Long term stability with minimal changes can be a feature!
- BrandoElFollito 6y ago
  I am exactly in the same situation as you (I did not know frigate, but I do not have cameras either - otherwise you listed my main systems). I managed to reduce administration to a minimum by using watchtower to automatically upgrade my containers and using mostly the :latest label. This bit me only twice in a few years: - with the 19-20 migration of Nextcloud, I had one big blank screen when logging in but the synchronization was working. Turns out it was a new default app (something about dashboarding) that was causing it. Googling an fixing took an hour. - with one upgrade of Home Assistant where my devices were not available anymore, there was a problem with the upgrade which they fixed quickly but I have already upgraded. Reading the docs/forum and fixing took an hour. I can live with these two hours across two or three years. I backup /etc on my server with Borg and I know that, worst case, I will recover. I tested this DRP two weeks ago bare metal (recovering to an empty VM from scratch, that is an ubuntu ISO and ultimately getting my encrypted backups from a friend's system -> it really helped to highlight what I was missing)
  - tp3 6y ago
    I'm currently testing a new appliance setup with Nextcloud which includes the ability to use containers as a default for everything, if your container can be moved to an empty VM, nothing gets deleted as I didn't touch it. I would be really happy if this helped.
jcastro 6y ago
> the docker-compose file along with the configuration and data are stored in nextcloud's own dataset. What a great idea!

by znpy 6y ago

prophesi 6y ago

> You don't have a nextcloud problem, you have a system administration problem. Those aren't mutually exclusive. Sure, better dev ops would make major upgrades safer and easier. But for a hobbyist self-hosting their own instance, a LTS release would be a godsend to save them hours of unpaid work.

znpy 6y ago
An good hobbyist should challenge themselves from time to time ;)
- zelon88 6y ago
  We wouldn't tell Google engineers to mess with his Google drive in prod... why should he sacrifice data availability and integrity?
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
  Maybe they're challenging themselves on things that interest them more...and just want a functioning Nextcloud instance?
- imwillofficial 6y ago
  Who said it was a challenge? When does grunt work move beyond challenge to the point of not being worth it? I got out of self hosting because my time is too valuable. It did teach me lots of new skills, so that was great! However, somebody not wanting a time sink, is not them avoiding challenge.
  - prophesi 6y ago
    This is the boat I'm in. And even if you do "everything right" and have snapshots before & after every update, you still need to actually debug why the update failed in the first place. So even then, LTS releases would be a greatly appreciated feature.

contravariant 6y ago

I don't disagree but as a hobbyist I don't really want system administration problems. Well and I was mostly interested in Nextcloud as a possible alternative to Dropbox/Google drive with versioning and, I hoped, backups. However the only proper backup solution that I could confidently state would allow me to recover should disaster strike was the one you just explained e.g. putting everything in docker and snapshotting the entire filesystem. At which point I'm basically running 3 virtual file systems on top of each other just to have a better UI, which seemed a bit silly.

znpy 6y ago
First things first: don't get me wrong, I do understand your point. The thing is: you have a system administration problem, whether you want or not (that is a big part of what you're actually paying for when you buy Dropbox or when you let Google feed on your data). Now, as an hobbyist, when you start depending on services you set up and manage yourself, it would be a good idea to take some time to learn additional tools to enjoy your hobbies more. Think about this as in "leveling up" your hobby. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Now on a lighter tone, there are simpler ways to have a backup strategy, as long as you are okay with lower guarantees. You might not use zfs, and use simple LVM snapshots. You might want to use no snapshotting at all and just do a nightly backup via a cronjob: at 3AM you just switch everything down (docker-compose down if you're using it), do a rsync to another host, start it back up. It's way simpler but you'd only get a yesterday's copy in case of problem. But then again, that would safeguard you when doing upgrades: disable backup, perform upgrade, test everything, re-enable backup, resume operations. Worst case scenario you rsync back the yesterday's data and you resume normal operation.
- dsr_ 6y ago
  > you have a system administration problem, whether you want or not Right. You can pay people to do things for you, or you can do them yourself, but either way the things have to be done, and they should be done by someone who is good at it and has a contract with you -- employment or otherwise.

l72 6y ago

That's very true. I run quite a few services on my local network for my family (wireguard, nextcloud, homeassistant, frigate, pihole, jellyfin, bitwarden, ...). While I enjoy setting up and playing with these service, I need to think about managing all these services as little as possible as I don't want to spend all my free time being a system admin. Also, often a new release is not just a system admin task. Sure, it may not be _that_ hard to do a full backup, pull new docker images, spin them up and verify everything. The time sink comes from keeping track of all the releases of all the different projects, reading up about changes, how the upgrade process works, and so on. On top of that, my family has become reliant on several of these services, especially nextcloud and bitwarden. The last thing they want are major changes to it. Long term stability with minimal changes can be a feature!

BrandoElFollito 6y ago
I am exactly in the same situation as you (I did not know frigate, but I do not have cameras either - otherwise you listed my main systems). I managed to reduce administration to a minimum by using watchtower to automatically upgrade my containers and using mostly the :latest label. This bit me only twice in a few years: - with the 19-20 migration of Nextcloud, I had one big blank screen when logging in but the synchronization was working. Turns out it was a new default app (something about dashboarding) that was causing it. Googling an fixing took an hour. - with one upgrade of Home Assistant where my devices were not available anymore, there was a problem with the upgrade which they fixed quickly but I have already upgraded. Reading the docs/forum and fixing took an hour. I can live with these two hours across two or three years. I backup /etc on my server with Borg and I know that, worst case, I will recover. I tested this DRP two weeks ago bare metal (recovering to an empty VM from scratch, that is an ubuntu ISO and ultimately getting my encrypted backups from a friend's system -> it really helped to highlight what I was missing)
- tp3 6y ago
  I'm currently testing a new appliance setup with Nextcloud which includes the ability to use containers as a default for everything, if your container can be moved to an empty VM, nothing gets deleted as I didn't touch it. I would be really happy if this helped.

jcastro 6y ago

> the docker-compose file along with the configuration and data are stored in nextcloud's own dataset. What a great idea!