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I'm scared of running stuff on servers. Jk. But kinda. I have a little hobby website. Mostly for fun, I keep rewriting it in different languages, stacks, and d

by groggo 3y ago

I'm scared of running stuff on servers. Jk. But kinda. I have a little hobby website. Mostly for fun, I keep rewriting it in different languages, stacks, and deployment methods. At one point it was on a $5 AWS server. It continuously ran out of memory and crashed. Then it crashed for some other reason, I think because it ran out of disc space from log files. Then the postgres database got encrypted for ransom because I stupidly left it open without a password. So now I use things like Fly.io and Firebase. And they work great for hobby stuff. I'd like for my projects to grow, and this article makes a good case why I should be competent enough to run them on a server myself. At work I help run a much larger website that we run with K8s and a managed db. The idea of directly running that on servers seems equally daunting. But I know it shouldn't be that way. Thanks for the reminder.

Brian_K_White 3y ago
There are people with a specific huge vested interest in making sure you always feel that way. So that alone is a good reason to try to resist that feeling. Not just for the obvious reason to grow your abilities, because you can say exactly the same about everything and you can't become expert in everything. But simply because someone makes a lot of money off of you if you feel like you need them, and they are big enough to do many indirect things and change the entire environment to make you feel you need them and never even question it, and suffer essentially ostricisation if you ever do question it. Making those baby sysadmin mistakes is perfectly fine. Everyone must make them. Are you ever going to forget to secure the access to any db after that? That is not only one specific conig but an entire class of problem that you are alert to now. Not only is it ok because it's low stakes and then you know better for high stakes at work after that, but really even at work it should be normal to suffer a breakage once in a while, because at work it's even more important that you know how to recover when it inevitably happens anyway even without making mistakes. I don't mean break things on purpose, I just mean if you never suffer a problem, you never become prepared to deal with a problem. That is not good. Besides, no matter what you still suffer equivalent problems, cloud or no cloud. What's the difference between your db going down from a hardware fault or misconfig, or a cloud account getting killed because of a billing or tos error? Also, k8s actually makes an otherwise manageable system into a daunting one. All in all, more and better reasons to be brave than to be afraid.
neurostimulant 3y ago
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. You apply what you learn to make your next server setup better. Your db got encrypted by a ransomware? Then for your next setup you'll make sure to configure the database to only listen to local network connections and have daily offsite backup. Out of disk space due to huge log files? Then your next setup will have an automatically rotated log files. Your apps died without you noticing? Then your next setup will feature health checks and alerting. Repeat this enough time and you'll eventually have a bullet proof setup. Of course, not wanting to go through all of this is a valid choice too, especially if you have no interest in running your own services.

by groggo 3y ago

Brian_K_White 3y ago

There are people with a specific huge vested interest in making sure you always feel that way. So that alone is a good reason to try to resist that feeling. Not just for the obvious reason to grow your abilities, because you can say exactly the same about everything and you can't become expert in everything. But simply because someone makes a lot of money off of you if you feel like you need them, and they are big enough to do many indirect things and change the entire environment to make you feel you need them and never even question it, and suffer essentially ostricisation if you ever do question it. Making those baby sysadmin mistakes is perfectly fine. Everyone must make them. Are you ever going to forget to secure the access to any db after that? That is not only one specific conig but an entire class of problem that you are alert to now. Not only is it ok because it's low stakes and then you know better for high stakes at work after that, but really even at work it should be normal to suffer a breakage once in a while, because at work it's even more important that you know how to recover when it inevitably happens anyway even without making mistakes. I don't mean break things on purpose, I just mean if you never suffer a problem, you never become prepared to deal with a problem. That is not good. Besides, no matter what you still suffer equivalent problems, cloud or no cloud. What's the difference between your db going down from a hardware fault or misconfig, or a cloud account getting killed because of a billing or tos error? Also, k8s actually makes an otherwise manageable system into a daunting one. All in all, more and better reasons to be brave than to be afraid.

neurostimulant 3y ago

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. You apply what you learn to make your next server setup better. Your db got encrypted by a ransomware? Then for your next setup you'll make sure to configure the database to only listen to local network connections and have daily offsite backup. Out of disk space due to huge log files? Then your next setup will have an automatically rotated log files. Your apps died without you noticing? Then your next setup will feature health checks and alerting. Repeat this enough time and you'll eventually have a bullet proof setup. Of course, not wanting to go through all of this is a valid choice too, especially if you have no interest in running your own services.