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If you don't need all that cloud operations/deployment infrastructure, self hosting a website from home in 2023 is as easy as it was in 2003. Get a DDNS, do the
by ktpsns 4y ago
If you don't need all that cloud operations/deployment infrastructure, self hosting a website from home in 2023 is as easy as it was in 2003. Get a DDNS, do the NAT port forwarding, run some apache/nginx/whatever and push your files with sftp or similar to the server. In contrast to 2003, upstreams got better -- even Germany has average upstream speeds of 20mbit/second nowadays [1]. With 20mbit/sec you can do quite something with a page-only website and contemporary event based webservers. And thanks to SoC systems, energy consumption is a no brainer.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1338657/average-internet-speed-germany/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1338657/average-internet...
- michalwarda 4y agoDefinitely. I'm just so used to the git pipeline flow that it would break my usual flow a bit too much :). That's why those new tools just make it so amazing! Especially combined with better and better ISP
- dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago> self hosting a website from home in 2023 is as easy as it was in 2003. Get a DDNS, do the NAT port forwarding Did they have CGNAT in 2003? Because that breaks everything.
- flyinghamster 4y agoEven from the client side, CGNAT can break a lot of things. I'm very glad that my mobile provider gives me IPv6 as well - that allows me to get to my home systems without any NAT in the way. Even hotspot clients get an IPv6. Of course, IPv6 is its own can of worms, but (cross my fingers) it's working for me.
- Semaphor 4y agoI wish I could get both. Alas, I’m not behind a CGNAT and getting IPv6 would require giving that up :/
- IgorPartola 4y agoUse 6in4.
- wingworks 4y agoalso tailscale could be an option.
- shortcake27 4y agoCGNAT is both amazing and shocking. Amazing in that it kinda works. And shocking because the average person will never know why their shit is broken. For me it broke online gaming. Luckily my ISP simply gives a static-ish IP to anyone who has an issue with CGNAT. But some ISPs force you to pay for a static IP, and some don’t even offer static IPs. I mean, I’d pay, but soon that won’t even be an option. It’s scary.
- blacklight 4y agoFor me 2023 is exactly like 2003 from this point of view: a dynamic DNS account with inadyn/ddclient to refresh it when the IP changes, and it's almost like having a static IP. Even better if you have e.g. a Linode or any server with a public IP that can run Wireguard or OpenVPN. Then you can run your own VPN server, configure your DNS, and connect to anything from anywhere. Yggdrasil (https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/ https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/) is also another interesting IPv6-based solution - I have played with it a bit, but I still prefer to use my VPN, and do nginx reverse proxy from my Linode to my network over VPN when needed.
- aidenn0 4y agoI'm in the US so I pay over $100/mo. for 15mbps upstream, but at least no NAT.
- hsn915 4y agoThat is not "easy". If it was, no one would be using cloud hosted sites like carrrd or squarespace or wix or whatever
- Godel_unicode 4y agoThose are not solutions to “I don’t know how to host”, those are solutions to “I don’t know or want to know anything about how websites work below the GUI layer”. The hosting (in terms of dns and serving the bits) is almost incidental to their business model of designing and managing.
- poisonborz 4y agoNot _exactly_ as easy, you also need a valid https cert, and set up a cronjob to renew it. And for some other reply here, "as easy as it was in 2003" really doesn't mean "easy" :v
- TheCoelacanth 4y agoYou don't have to have that. Expectations have just increased since 2003.
- cma 4y agoiOS won't let websockets work without https so I think you can't do things like self-host jitsi meet. Many appliance type devices won't allow adding self-signed certificates either.
- the_jesus_villa 4y agoTo be fair, you couldn't self host jitsi meet in 2003 either
- TheCoelacanth 4y agoWebsockets didn't exist in 2003, so that's just a case of higher expectations.
- cma 4y agoBack to plain sites and not websockets, browsers didn't go through a missing https warning process in 2003 either so there are higher barriers and not just expectations.
- KronisLV 4y ago> Not _exactly_ as easy, you also need a valid https cert, and set up a cronjob to renew it. Web servers like Caddy automate this for you: you just indicate that you want HTTPS for a particular site and the rest is taken care of for you (in the case of public sites and HTTP-01 challenges, at least). Link: https://caddyserver.com/docs/quick-starts/https https://caddyserver.com/docs/quick-starts/https Even Apache2 has mod_md which does pretty much the same thing (sans DNS-01 provider integrations, at least out of the box), so it's going to be good enough for most cases and similarly easy to Caddy. Link: https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/mod_md.html#mdomain https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/mod_md.html#mdomain Nginx integrates well with certbot, which does take a bit more work and configuration, but even that is passable: https://certbot.eff.org/ https://certbot.eff.org/ Things can get a bit tricky when you want to run your own CA or ensure mTLS, but in most cases neither will be necessary. As for whether you even need HTTPS in the first place, I'd say that it won't hurt in most cases and will guard against MitM, the ISP included.
- klysm 4y agoTrue if you ignore certs and the possibility of CG-NAT.
- TJSomething 4y agoMy problem is that I have never been able to purchase residential internet that allowed me to open port 443 or port 80.
- pkulak 4y agoUse Cloudflare. Or, rent the cheapest machine you can with a public IP and use something like Rathole. I like Cloudflare because it’s fast and free, but they do MITM you.
- buildbuildbuild 4y agoCloudflare Tunnel is great for NAT traversal.
- clnq 4y agoWhy do ISPs do this? Is there a legitimate reason or they just feel that their clients don’t host these services so they might as well block the ports for safety?
- jamesfinlayson 4y agoNot sure but probably some security thing - if you don't need it why leave it open to abuse. An ISP I've used in the past hasn't allowed self hosting on a standard plan but has allowed on a plan you need to ask for specifically.
- cycomanic 4y agoI would argue it is much easier now. There are a ton of distributions who are catering for this use case, yunohost is probably the most well known one, but there are a lot more if you look on the awesome selfhosted list. I would also say that if you only want a static site the OPs setup is almost overkill. Just install caddy and a dyndns service. Takes care of the certificate for you and is super simple to setup.
- francislavoie 4y agoFYI, Caddy has a DDNS plugin https://github.com/mholt/caddy-dynamicdns https://github.com/mholt/caddy-dynamicdns. Works with any DNS provider that has a Caddy DNS plugin which you'd typically use to solve ACME challenges, but instead it will set A/AAAA records.
- zephyros 4y agoThis is new to me. I was going to run a separate DDNS for my homeserver, but given that the domain is only used in Caddy anyway, this reduce 1 place to configure stuff. Thanks
- tbran 4y agoThanks for your work on Caddy! Also, for those that don't know, Caddy also automates SSL certs (unlike nginx) and can render markdown files using templates [0]. [0]: https://caddyserver.com/docs/caddyfile/directives/templates https://caddyserver.com/docs/caddyfile/directives/templates
- the_common_man 4y agoYeah, cloudron is a other distro for this use case.
- nerdponx 4y agoHonestly a basic VPS is a lot easier to me than running a physical home server. Dirt cheap, never have to worry about power failures, dust, heat, home ISP being shitty, etc.
- JohnFen 4y agoI do both. I run a home server with several services that are used by me when I'm not home, and by my close friends. I also use a VPS for services intended for the general public.
- nubinetwork 4y agoDoing both makes a lot of sense for development as well... you don't want to pay for a VPS for something that isn't going to be developed to completion or run full time, save that for the real projects.
- normaler 4y agoI run vpcs and homeserver I avoid all the DNS and port forwarding issues by having a wireguard Server in obenbsd that also runs unbound, so i habe some internal DNS entrys for stuff i host at home linke Cale der and co tacts
- randomluck040 4y agoI have only a static website with not too much content or traffic, I even use the free oracle VPS that they offer. It took some while to get the hang of ingress rules and opening ports in their interface in addition to the CLI but now it works and I’m not paying anything. Out of curiosity: where do you get your VPS?
- judge2020 4y ago> even Germany has average upstream speeds of 20mbit/second nowadays [1] Is it common for EU countries to not have symmetric gigabit fiber?
- vladvasiliu 4y agoAt least in France, it's very common. I'd say symmetric is the exception.
- shortcake27 4y agoSame in Australia. I don’t believe you can get a symmetrical residential connection. Business, sure. But residential, no.
- justinclift 4y agoOn that note: with our (Australian) National Broadband Network (NBN), residential connections don't always have the best uptime. For example, at my last house (Melbourne), a 100/40 FTTC connection... the NBN company kept on having multi-hour outages (booked ahead of time) every 2-3 months. Note that's not my ISP, it's the NBN itself. For "upgrades" in the area and similar. So very much "not business grade". Not even startup grade really. :(
- input_sh 4y agoNote: Europe, but outside EU/EEA. Yup. I have a gigabit fibre right up to my home, but the best speed available to me as an individual is 400/40. Gets really annoying from time to time when I need to upload like a couple of gigabytes. On the bright side it's like €30/month, which also gets me cable and some streaming service subscriptions (HBO Max, Tidal, shit like that), which from what I can tell is a pretty good deal compared to more western countries.
- fallenhitokiri 4y agoGoing from 1000/50 to 1000/1000 would cost me an 860€ premium right now (Germany) and this is a good offer, it can get more expensive without special promotion.
- thayne 4y agoIn many places in the US 20mbit/s up is either very expensive, or not an option.
- phodo 4y agoWhat is the worst case scenario for security on your network, in the above self hosted setup ?
- wink 4y agoNo idea where they got that data but I call bullshit. Most people I know are still on DSL which means 20mbit upstream is the usual maximum (sometimes 40), so not sure where this even amount of fibre users would live.
- sneak 4y agoIn the US this is almost always prohibited by the residential internet terms of service, and can subject you to account cancellation.
- grep_name 4y agoIs it really? Which part is prohibited? Isn't that part of what you sign up for when you specify upload speed with your service contract? I'm in the US and have never not had something or other being served on public facing ports
- sneak 4y ago"servers" are the part that is prohibited per ToS, even if the ports aren't blocked.
- drittich 4y agoI use DDNS with Cloudflare, which offers free DNS. I built an open source Windows client for this (could be cross-platform, just haven't bothered yet). https://github.com/drittich/DnsTube https://github.com/drittich/DnsTube