Self Hosted - Self-hosting your services.

11419 readers

1 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules

No harassment
crossposts from c/Open Source & c/docker & related may be allowed, depending on context
Video Promoting is allowed if is within the topic.
No spamming.
Stay friendly.
Follow the lemmy.ml instance rules.
Tag your post. (Read under)

Important

Beginning of January 1st 2024 this rule WILL be enforced. Posts that are not tagged will be warned and if not fixed within 24h then removed!

Lemmy doesn't have tags yet, so mark it with [Question], [Help], [Project], [Other], [Promoting] or other you may think is appropriate.

Cross-posting

[email protected] is allowed!
[email protected] is allowed!
[email protected] is allowed!
[email protected] is allowed if topic has to do with selfhosting.
[email protected] is allowed!

If you see a rule-breaker please DM the mods!

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

[Rant] … all I want is dropping some files into a directory and call it a day (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I can't help but feel overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of self-hosting modern web applications (if you look under the surface!)

Most modern web applications are designed to basically run standalone on a server. Integration into an existing environment a real challenge if not impossible. They often come with their own set of requirements and dependencies that don't easily align with an established infrastructure.

“So you have an already running and fully configured web server? Too bad for you, bind me to port 443 or GTFO. Reverse-proxying by subdomain? Never heard of that. I won’t work. Deal with it. Oh, and your TLS certificates? Screw them, I ship my own!”

Attempting to merge everything together requires meticulous planning, extensive configuration, and often annoying development work and finding workarounds.

Modern web applications, with their elusive promises of flexibility and power, have instead become a source of maddening frustration when not being the only application that is served.

My frustration about this is real. Self-hosting modern web applications is an uphill battle, not only in terms of technology but also when it comes to setting up the hosting environment.

I just want to drop some PHP files into a directory and call it a day. A PHP interpreter and a simple HTTP server – that’s all I want to need for hosting my applications.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Containers really shine in the selfhosting world in modern times. Complete userspace isolation, basically no worries about dependencies or conflicts since it's all internally shipped and pre-configured, easy port mapping, immutable "system" files and volume mounting for persistent data... And much more. If built properly, container images solve almost all problems you're grappling with.

I can't imagine ever building another application myself without containerization ever again. I can't remember the last time I installed any kind of server-side software directly on a host without containerization, with the exception of packages required by the host that are unavoidable to support containers or to increase security posture.

I'm my (admittedly strong) opinion, it's absolute madness, and dare I say, reckless and incomprehensible, why anybody would ever create a brand new product that doesn't ship via container images in this day and age, if you have the required knowledge to make it happen, or the capacity to get up to speed to learn how to make it happen (properly and following best practices of course) in time to meet a deadline.

I'm sure some would disagree or have special use-cases they could cite where containers wouldn't be a good fit for a product or solution, but I'm pretty confident that those would be really niche cases that would apply to barely anyone.