Selfhosted

Nah fuck that, work smarter not harder

Youre good. Self hosting is what you define it as. No one elses opinion of it matters.

I run a combo of homelab apps and vps apps.

All that matters is if it works for you

Yunohost is, to me anyways, a good stepping stone in learning the hosting side of things. You can have something up and running while you learn the rest.

I don't think you should feel bad about it, everyone needs some kind of "training wheels" or "guard rails" when they're first getting in to any hobby.

I think of it in terms of my other hobbies, would I have started off in electronics repair if I had to fix a modern motherboard for my first project? Maybe, but I would have struggled mightily. Instead I started doing simpler circuits and worked my way up while learning theory and technique.

If it works for you and allows you to start learning, there's no problem with it. Too many people seem to think that if you haven't compiled whatever yourself, it's not true "self hosting" but you should do what works best for you to get to the goal you want.

If there’s an automated set up, absolutely go for it, you shouldn’t be doing the same mundane task over and over again. I, however, recommend at least once to do it yourself/go over the docs just to understand how to troubleshoot when stuff breaks or if it interests you how the software works. For example: A lot of people think that Watchtower queries the docker repo to see when it was last updated and that’s how it processes it’s updates. The truth is, watchtower downloads the entire image, checks it against your currently used image and if it’s not the same it updates. What then happens is that server maintainers set the poll interval really low (like 10-15m) and end up using a lot of bandwidth.

I spent days trying to go from 0-100 figuring out the technical stuff and was making myself very stressed out and upset. I decided to just go to Yunohost and it just made things dead simple and in retrospect, enjoyable.

When I'm ready to learn I'll spin up a new server and try to implement the same services the "hard" way, but for now I'll continue to enjoy all the benefits of self hosted with a dead simple solution for implementing it. Don't let e-peens get you down.

Yunohost is awesome, if only for the dyndns. I try to host most of the stuff in docker but dyndns never quite worked for me unless it was the yunohost one.

Holly crap that looks amazing. I just installed Ubuntu server and got paperless working, but I think I'm gonna redo it with yunohost. Thanks for the lead!

Do what you want. Everyone started somewhere. If yunohost is yours then so be it. If you like it, stick to it. If you grow tired of it, move on.

Firstly, you are to praised for wanting to learn as many today only want to learn what is pertinent to making money and not learning for the pure good that it does. Secondly, you should not feel bad about using Yunohost. Everyone needs to start somewhere and everyone was once a newbie. Have you given any thought to purchasing a laptop or desktop on the used marketplace to use as machine to learn Linux on? I highly recommend people go that route. A Lenovo T430 - 450 can usually be had for about 130-160 dollars. This will help making learning an all-in experience. I found that being immersed in the world of Unix-like operating systems was essential for my own learning. I am self-taught when it comes to Linux and the BSDs. The best system admins know that in the Unix world you're constantly learned. The kernel and tools that comprise the operating system are many and rather vast.

Let me ask you this: What is your goal in self-hosting? Think about why it is that you want to do it and work on one service at a time. I self-host my own Mastodon and Lemmy services in docker containers on an Arch Linux box in my home. Do they have 100% uptime? Um, yeah no, because it is a learning environment and in learning you have to permit yourself to make mistakes. The learning lab environment is one that will teach you to carefully plan updates, server migrations, server hardware upgrades, etc. It teaches you the non-technical side of things like planning.

I have also seen a lot of folks try to run before they have learned to walk and want to zoom right to technical complexities of self-hosting. Please take the time to learn Linux and start with the basics. Become comfortable with the command line and the troubleshooting tools that are available to you. By learning the basics and progressing towards your goal steadily, you will find yourself less frustrated and the learning experience more enjoyable and personally valuable.

If you want to really use your server, yunohost might even be good for you. because other people help harden the configs and prepare updates... you can even participate on their github or forum if you want to have a look at how things work. but they don't use docker.

btw: yunohost is based on debian. so if you're missing some software.... you can just install docker and install your software. or create a new user account for it. or use some other container engine or virtualization tech. it's all there. you might want to have a look at their 'redirect' app. It can do reverse proxy. I use it for exactly that, to reverse proxy into my containers with 'extra' software.

As other people pointed out: You don't always have to start at zero and learn everything. it's okay to sometimes start with something working and see how they did it. maybe disassemble and reassemble parts and try to contribute. there is no need to feel 'dirty' because of that.

Its all good, I use yunohost as well and have a second server for the stuff that arent on their list like minecraft server for example, if you want to host something that isnt on their list, you can set up a second server on raspberry for example and play with reverse proxy.

Bro, just chill and enjoy. Use what works for you. If you ever want to leave your comfort zone there are thousand options to still keep it simple.

I've never used Yunohost, but I've tried many other ways of self hosting. From barebones Linux machine to using truenas now.

Proxmox and truenas are the best I've used. Proxmox and the LXC containers are just so very cool :) But I did end using truenas, simply because of truecharts.

I don't want to spend forever installing something new, so using a shortcut is pretty cool and nothing wrong with that if it works 💪