5 ms·

How can a mobile phone's network be as stable as that of a datacenter? Without that stability it's not going to be practically useful.

sk0g 3y ago
I guess a caching layer could help, like CloudFlare's DDoS protection that still tries to serve a page if a cached version exists. At that point I'm not sure if it's functionally different to syncing markdown files to something like S3 or GitHub pages.
- cryptonym 3y ago
  Only works if the content is popular in your region and you are only half-self-hosting.
- rollcat 3y ago
  > I guess a caching layer could help In practice this works only for trivial apps, that have no dynamic content, don't serve large files, don't see a lot of traffic, doesn't come from all over the world (each PoP has a separate cache), etc. CDN caching is opportunistic, most services assume server-grade hardware at the origin that can take some "warmup" load on its own. Also if you're introducing a third-party CDN/cache, you're already throwing away a whole bunch of reasons for self-hosting in the first place.
  - onion2k 3y ago
    In practice this works only for trivial apps, that have no dynamic content, don't serve large files, don't see a lot of traffic, doesn't come from all over the world (each PoP has a separate cache), etc. So something exactly like a blog then.
    - rollcat 3y ago
      True, but this means your solution is competing with Github pages, Netlify, etc. and your visitors are still subject to the whim of the caching layer. I'm not aware of any classical CDN product that works Great even when the origin server doesn't. Building a CDN for that purpose only would be extremely niche - generic CDNs with a hand-tuned caching policy are great at many other things, such as live video delivery, so you'd be building a non-generic CDN in a saturated market. Then the question of how does the CDN make itself aware of the content it needs to prefetch... once you devolve into that, well you've reinvented git push to Netlify, but with 10x the amount of quirks, oddball architecture, and less flexibility.
  - account42 3y ago
    > apps Make websites not apps.
    - rollcat 3y ago
      If you're building something as complex and convoluted as a blog hosted on a smartphone being tunnelled to the outside world and proxied through a purpose-built CDN, I don't think you can call it a website anymore. I do agree, let's build websites instead.
- opan 3y ago
  Please (everyone), stop pushing cloudflare on to everyone.
  - sk0g 3y ago
    I'm not pushing anything, just haven't seen pass-through proxy that has a similar failure mechanism for when websites are down. They have enough of a market share without me promoting them anyway.
    - cryptonym 3y ago
      That's a feature of basically any CDN and some existed well before Cloudflare entered the market. Nowadays you find dozen of CDNs. A personal site may be fine without it. If your plan is having an offline version ready to be served, as you expect a lot of downtime, distributed cache might not be the best architecture. Some CDN offer a dedicated layer of cache in front of your origin, but that sounds overkill for a personal blog.
NoGravitas 3y ago
Personal sites don't really need the kind of network stability we've come to expect. It would also be nice to see a move to more offline-tolerant networks for a lot of things.
- guessbest 3y ago
  You know what is offline-tolerant? NNTP and email.
  - phkahler 3y ago
    >> You know what is offline-tolerant? NNTP and email. Imagine a distributed social network where updates come via email. Updates are identified by the email client (or other) and automatically sent to whatever program needs to process them. You end up with a local copy of everyones stuff that is kept for a period of time.
    - ianburrell 3y ago
      I have been working on idea for generic store-and-forward messaging. Basically, email for everything. The idea is that store-and-forward is more reliable when there are limited or no network. It would also work well for interplanetary communication. For some applictions, it is simple to fallback or use always and luckily the basics are included. Unfortunately, lots of applications won't work at all and many would have to be rewritten.
      - rakoo 3y ago
        You're probably aware of http://www.nncpgo.org/ http://www.nncpgo.org/ then
        Fnoord 3y ago
        Why is this website hosted in Russia (given current geopolitics), and why does this website have a certificate issued by ca.cypherpunks.ru instead of say Let's Encrypt?
Ajedi32 3y ago
I would envision something like this being used with an older phone permanently connected to a charger and Wi-Fi or possibly a USB docking station with Ethernet, not running on your personal phone over mobile data. The latter would be terrible for battery life.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

sk0g 3y ago

I guess a caching layer could help, like CloudFlare's DDoS protection that still tries to serve a page if a cached version exists. At that point I'm not sure if it's functionally different to syncing markdown files to something like S3 or GitHub pages.

cryptonym 3y ago
Only works if the content is popular in your region and you are only half-self-hosting.
rollcat 3y ago
> I guess a caching layer could help In practice this works only for trivial apps, that have no dynamic content, don't serve large files, don't see a lot of traffic, doesn't come from all over the world (each PoP has a separate cache), etc. CDN caching is opportunistic, most services assume server-grade hardware at the origin that can take some "warmup" load on its own. Also if you're introducing a third-party CDN/cache, you're already throwing away a whole bunch of reasons for self-hosting in the first place.
- onion2k 3y ago
  In practice this works only for trivial apps, that have no dynamic content, don't serve large files, don't see a lot of traffic, doesn't come from all over the world (each PoP has a separate cache), etc. So something exactly like a blog then.
  - rollcat 3y ago
    True, but this means your solution is competing with Github pages, Netlify, etc. and your visitors are still subject to the whim of the caching layer. I'm not aware of any classical CDN product that works Great even when the origin server doesn't. Building a CDN for that purpose only would be extremely niche - generic CDNs with a hand-tuned caching policy are great at many other things, such as live video delivery, so you'd be building a non-generic CDN in a saturated market. Then the question of how does the CDN make itself aware of the content it needs to prefetch... once you devolve into that, well you've reinvented git push to Netlify, but with 10x the amount of quirks, oddball architecture, and less flexibility.
- account42 3y ago
  > apps Make websites not apps.
  - rollcat 3y ago
    If you're building something as complex and convoluted as a blog hosted on a smartphone being tunnelled to the outside world and proxied through a purpose-built CDN, I don't think you can call it a website anymore. I do agree, let's build websites instead.
opan 3y ago
Please (everyone), stop pushing cloudflare on to everyone.
- sk0g 3y ago
  I'm not pushing anything, just haven't seen pass-through proxy that has a similar failure mechanism for when websites are down. They have enough of a market share without me promoting them anyway.
  - cryptonym 3y ago
    That's a feature of basically any CDN and some existed well before Cloudflare entered the market. Nowadays you find dozen of CDNs. A personal site may be fine without it. If your plan is having an offline version ready to be served, as you expect a lot of downtime, distributed cache might not be the best architecture. Some CDN offer a dedicated layer of cache in front of your origin, but that sounds overkill for a personal blog.

NoGravitas 3y ago

Personal sites don't really need the kind of network stability we've come to expect. It would also be nice to see a move to more offline-tolerant networks for a lot of things.

guessbest 3y ago
You know what is offline-tolerant? NNTP and email.
- phkahler 3y ago
  >> You know what is offline-tolerant? NNTP and email. Imagine a distributed social network where updates come via email. Updates are identified by the email client (or other) and automatically sent to whatever program needs to process them. You end up with a local copy of everyones stuff that is kept for a period of time.
  - ianburrell 3y ago
    I have been working on idea for generic store-and-forward messaging. Basically, email for everything. The idea is that store-and-forward is more reliable when there are limited or no network. It would also work well for interplanetary communication. For some applictions, it is simple to fallback or use always and luckily the basics are included. Unfortunately, lots of applications won't work at all and many would have to be rewritten.
    - rakoo 3y ago
      You're probably aware of http://www.nncpgo.org/ http://www.nncpgo.org/ then
      - Fnoord 3y ago
        Why is this website hosted in Russia (given current geopolitics), and why does this website have a certificate issued by ca.cypherpunks.ru instead of say Let's Encrypt?

Ajedi32 3y ago

I would envision something like this being used with an older phone permanently connected to a charger and Wi-Fi or possibly a USB docking station with Ethernet, not running on your personal phone over mobile data. The latter would be terrible for battery life.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]