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I agree with this take 100 fucking percent. I want to be able to consume and run code provided by other people on hardware/networks that I own. In which case

I agree with this take 100 fucking percent. I want to be able to consume and run code provided by other people on hardware/networks that I own. In which case - Docker/Containers/K8s(or my preference, MicroK8s) are a fucking godsend compared to 10 years ago. I host about 25 services, I have all the config in a single repo, and can rebuild the whole fucking thing in about 10 minutes. Adding a new machine to take load is as easy as installing ubuntu server, adding microK8s, and running a SINGLE freaking line on the cli. Boom - done. I do this basically each time we get a new machine... the old one goes to live in the server farm. All the backups? Easy, since the storage is my NAS, mounted in microK8s, and I can just run scheduled backups there for literally every new service, without any additional config as I add them. It's incredible. I have done the whole "SSH into each machine and tediously configure it to run a specific application, configure my router, make sure the config files are in the right place, configure backups, worry about HDD lifespan, etc" bullshit for long enough to know that I don't EVER want to go back to that. The people that keep talking shit about containers are still incredibly focused on the use-case of "I host my own blog" like that's all that self-hosting is. But it's not - I self host open source applications as a complete replacement for shitty, ad-driven, recurring subscription fee based SaaS companies. Meal planning (mealie), Calorie tracking (calorietracker), Video streaming (jellyfin), Google Docs/Notion/etc (bookstack/nextcloud), Authentication (keycloak), File sharing/storage (seafile), Digital Library (calibre), Home automation (openhab), Asset tracking (snipeit), todo lists (Taiga), scheduling (cal) etc... Containers aren't there to help you host your blog. They're there to let me host your application. Configured quickly and simply. If there's company making money through a recurring subscription based website... There is someone who has made a decent clone that I can self-host. And these tools make that process much easier than it used to be.

superkuh 4y ago
Meal planning? Text file. Calorie tracking? Text file. Video streaming? Share video file with static webserver. Google Docs? Share documents with static webserver. Authentication? I don't understand what this is or why it is needed. File sharing/storage? Share with a static webserver. Digital library? Files and folders, if you want to share, share with static webserver. Home automation? I don't know what this is. Todo lists? Text file. Scheduling? Text file. You'd be surprised what you can do with simple files and a single static webserver.
35mm 4y ago
How do you manage the databases?
- horsawlarway 4y ago
  Container images that have access to an NFS mount from my NAS. You need to be careful with your mount options here, since soft mounts can cause corruption in some cases and performance is not fantastic (although nfs v4.1 is better than nfs v3) - but overall it works and keeps backups strategies simple since everything is on the NAS. Sadly - it's fairly slow (sqlite in particular is painfully slow when under lots of load and needs care to ensure only one machine is writing to it at a time) but right now I'm avoiding more complex setups since it's not normally a problem with just me+family using things. Long term - I've been considering moving to iSCSI, or something more robust, but it just hasn't been worth the trouble yet. Did make me like sqlite a whole lot less though - I opt for mariaDB/Postgres on any service that supports a remote db - they seems to do just fine. 3 years in on this setup and no corruption outside of sqlite on a soft mount (which was solved by reverting to my last backups).

superkuh 4y ago

Meal planning? Text file. Calorie tracking? Text file. Video streaming? Share video file with static webserver. Google Docs? Share documents with static webserver. Authentication? I don't understand what this is or why it is needed. File sharing/storage? Share with a static webserver. Digital library? Files and folders, if you want to share, share with static webserver. Home automation? I don't know what this is. Todo lists? Text file. Scheduling? Text file. You'd be surprised what you can do with simple files and a single static webserver.

35mm 4y ago

How do you manage the databases?

horsawlarway 4y ago
Container images that have access to an NFS mount from my NAS. You need to be careful with your mount options here, since soft mounts can cause corruption in some cases and performance is not fantastic (although nfs v4.1 is better than nfs v3) - but overall it works and keeps backups strategies simple since everything is on the NAS. Sadly - it's fairly slow (sqlite in particular is painfully slow when under lots of load and needs care to ensure only one machine is writing to it at a time) but right now I'm avoiding more complex setups since it's not normally a problem with just me+family using things. Long term - I've been considering moving to iSCSI, or something more robust, but it just hasn't been worth the trouble yet. Did make me like sqlite a whole lot less though - I opt for mariaDB/Postgres on any service that supports a remote db - they seems to do just fine. 3 years in on this setup and no corruption outside of sqlite on a soft mount (which was solved by reverting to my last backups).