I am really new to selfhosting, trying to learn the basics.
I have a raspi 5 with docker installed and a domain.
My question is, as I collect all my knowledge from all over the internet, is there a selfhosting guide for dummies? IT would be cool to have some guidance at hand to rfer to when i do dumb shit.
Unfortunately not as self hosting is really just an amalgamation of a number of different technologies, concepts, groups of best practices, and there are nine and a half viable ways to do any given thing you’ll want to do. For my day job I manage several public systems that serve millions of requests a day and even I can’t really give you a “One definitive way of doing things”, but I have my preferences.
I think if you wanted a rough plan of what would be the most valuable things to learn in which order it would be
Docker, especially persisting your storage and also how its network works. Use containerized services only on your local network at first to get a feel for things, and give yourself the ability to screw things ip without putting yourself in any danger.
VPNs and how they work. You can start with a direct stupid simple VPN like WireGuard, or Tailscale if you want a mesh-VPN. This will allow you to reach your services remotely without having to worry too much about security and the micromanagement that can sometimes come with it.
Reverse proxies for things you’d like to expose to the public. At this point you want to learn as well about things like server hardening, have a system in place to automate software updates etc. there’s a common misconception that using a reverse proxy is innately much safer than port forwarding directly to your services. It can help by obscuring your home IP, and if you pair it with a WAF of some kind that’ll help you with much of the chaff attacks that get tossed your way, but at the end of the day in both cases you’re exposing the web services on your local network to the internet at large, so you have to understand the risk and reward of doing this.
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Unfortunately not as self hosting is really just an amalgamation of a number of different technologies, concepts, groups of best practices, and there are nine and a half viable ways to do any given thing you’ll want to do. For my day job I manage several public systems that serve millions of requests a day and even I can’t really give you a “One definitive way of doing things”, but I have my preferences.
I think if you wanted a rough plan of what would be the most valuable things to learn in which order it would be
Docker, especially persisting your storage and also how its network works. Use containerized services only on your local network at first to get a feel for things, and give yourself the ability to screw things ip without putting yourself in any danger.
VPNs and how they work. You can start with a direct stupid simple VPN like WireGuard, or Tailscale if you want a mesh-VPN. This will allow you to reach your services remotely without having to worry too much about security and the micromanagement that can sometimes come with it.
Reverse proxies for things you’d like to expose to the public. At this point you want to learn as well about things like server hardening, have a system in place to automate software updates etc. there’s a common misconception that using a reverse proxy is innately much safer than port forwarding directly to your services. It can help by obscuring your home IP, and if you pair it with a WAF of some kind that’ll help you with much of the chaff attacks that get tossed your way, but at the end of the day in both cases you’re exposing the web services on your local network to the internet at large, so you have to understand the risk and reward of doing this.