I had a website that was set up for only my personal use. According to the logs the only activity I ever saw was my own. However, it involves a compromise. Obscurity at the cost of accessibility and convenience.

First, when I set up my SSL cert, I chose to get a wildcard subdomain cert. That way I could use a random subdomain name and it wouldn’t show up on https://crt.sh/

Second, I use an uncommon port. My needs are very low so I don’t need to access my site all the time. The site is just a fun little hobby for myself. That means I’m not worried about accessing my site through places/businesses that block uncommon ports.

Accessing my site through a browser looks like: https//randomsubdomain.domainname.com:4444/

I’m going on the assumption that scrapers and crawlers are going to be searching common ports to maximize the number of sites they can access over wasting their time on searching uncommon ports.

If you are hosting on common ports (80, 443) then this isn’t going to be helpful at all and would likely require some sort of third party to manage scrapers and crawlers. For me, I get to enjoy my tiny corner of the internet with minimal effort and worry. Except my hard drive died recently so I’ll pick up again in January when I am not focused on other projects.

I’m sure given time, something will find my site. The game I’m playing is seeing how long it would take to find me.

A few years ago I was in a position where I was seeing two shitty, manipulative people taking advantage of three of my friends in three different situations. My three friends had all been warned about the manipulators but still felt the need to be nice, diplomatic and caring towards them anyways.

I ended up spending a lot of time talking with my friends, pointing out bad behaviour and encouraging my friends to put their own interests first. I never blamed my friends for their behaviour and instead tried to give them the tools for identifying and dealing with their manipulators.

Eventually they all came to realize of just how awful those manipulators were and I made myself available for my friends to vent when the time came. It sucked having to watch my friends go through all those emotions in the end. They all were really hurt.

I do think I did the right thing. They felt hurt but they did more than just get over it. They all learned from those experiences. We don’t talk as much as we used to but when we do talk, I’m always happy to hear that they are still putting themselves first and not giving any manipulators their time.

I also got to learn from all of that because too had been dealing several manipulative people in my own life at that time. Teaching my friends helped reinforce what I had learned and the results made me feel more confident in my own life choices that I had made in the recent past.

There’s a few things I backup from my phone.

• Music downloaded from Seeker
• Youtube audio downloaded from YTDLnis
• Backups of Termux
• Notes in plain text
• Backups from certain apps that make their own backup data
• Pictures that I have sorted and want to saved

I have an Android phone so I use Termux as a terminal emulator. I use ssh and passwordless keys to make transfers simpler and quicker.

Although this is closer to a backup process and not like SyncThing where it’s syncing a folder between two devices. I don’t believe rsync is capable of acting like SyncThing but I’m tempted to dig into rsync more and see if I can put something basic together one day.

I do something similar using only rsync. I’ve had nothing but headaches whenever I used automated file syncing programs. The bare bones aspect of just using rsync has made it a much more consistent experience.

I found using automated file syncing programs have too much complexity under the hood that just seems to lead to more time troubleshooting issues.

Another option that’s available is hosting your own Kiwix instance and downloading the Arch Wiki .zim file.

I have a few other .zim’s from the Kiwix library including Alpine Wiki, Stack Overflow, Man pages and a full copy of Wikipedia. There’s a lot available at that Kiwix library which can make for a good offline digital library.

I do something something like this using wildcard certs with Let’s Encrypt. Except I go one step further because my ISP blocks incoming data on common ports so I end up using an uncommon port as well.

I’m not hosting anything important and I don’t need to always access to it, it’s mostly just for fun for myself.

Accessing my site ends up looking like https://randomsubdomain.registered-domain-name.com:4444/

My logs only ever show my own activity. I’m sure there are downsides to using uncommon ports but I mitigate that by adjusting my personal life to not caring about being connected to my stuff at all times.

I get to have my little hobby in my own corner of the internet without the worry of bots or AI.

I have two systems that sort of work together.

The first system involves a bunch of text files for each task. OS installation, basic post OS installation tasks and a file for each program I add (like UFW, apparmor, ddclient, docker and so on). They basically look like scripts with comments. If I want to I can just copy/paste everything into a terminal and reach a a specific state that I want to be at.

The second system is a sort of “skeleton” file tree that only contains all the files that I have added or modified.

.
├── etc
│   ├── crontabs
│   │   └── root
│   ├── ddclient
│   │   └── ddclient.conf
│   ├── doas.d
│   │   └── doas.conf
│   ├── fail2ban
│   │   ├── filter.d
│   │   │   └── alpine-sshd-key.conf
│   │   └── jail.d
│   │       └── alpine-ssh.conf
│   ├── modprobe.d
│   │   ├── backlist-extra.conf
│   │   └── disable-filesystems.conf
│   ├── network
│   │   └── interfaces
│   ├── periodic
│   │   └── 1min
│   │       └── dynamic-motd
│   ├── profile.d
│   │   └── profile.sh
│   ├── ssh
│   │   └── sshd_config
│   ├── wpa_supplicant
│   │   └── wpa_supplicant.conf
│   ├── fstab
│   ├── nanorc
│   ├── profile
│   └── sysctl.conf
├── home
│   └── pi-user
│       ├── .config
│       │   └── ash
│       │       ├── ashrc
│       │       └── profile
│       ├── .ssh
│       │   └── authorized_keys
│       ├── .sync
│       │   ├── file-system-backup
│       │   │   ├── .sync-server-fs_01_root
│       │   │   └── .sync-server-fs_02_boot
│       │   └── .sync-caddy_certs_backup
│       ├── .nanorc
│       └── .tmux.conf
├── root
│   ├── .config
│   │   └── mc
│   │       └── ini
│   ├── .local
│   │   └── share
│   │       └── mc
│   │           └── history -> /dev/null
│   ├── .ssh
│   │   └── authorized_keys
│   ├── scripts
│   │   ├── automated-backup
│   │   └── maintenance
│   ├── .ash_history -> /dev/null
│   └── .nanorc
├── srv
│   ├── caddy
│   │   ├── Caddyfile
│   │   ├── Dockerfile
│   │   └── docker-compose.yml
│   └── kiwix
│       └── docker-compose.yml
└── usr
    └── sbin
        ├── containers-down
        ├── containers-up
        ├── emountman
        ├── fs-backup-quick
        └── rtransfer

This is useful to me because I can keep track of every change I make. I even have it set up so I can use rsync to quickly chuck all the files into place after a fresh install or after adding/modifying files.

I also created and maintain a “quick install” guide so I can install a fresh OS, rsync all the modified files from my skeleton file tree into place, then run through all the commands in my quick install guide to get myself back to the same state in a minimal amount of time.

In a post with multiple people talking about how often men are inserting themselves in communities not meant for men, it would be nice to have some sort of supporting evidence to the to the claim that women are inserting themselves in men’s spaces.

A few words doesn’t really give context or support for such a claim.

because that’s the default social perspective you seem to be implicitly reinforcing.

If I was quoted directly I might be able to understand what I am implicitly reinforcing. Otherwise this seems like a personal attack and a distraction from the conversation I laid out in my first comment.

However, people generally give shitty women and their crappy behavior a way larger pass than men for the same offensive actions. And that’s institutionalized in our laws.

There are many laws in the world that vary greatly from region to region, are we totally sure women have more freedom in comparison to men in the way they act? I would like to see support for such a claim. A claim that involves half the population.

and as for the authoritative voice… that’s just what people do. pulling rank is part of the social game way all play to push ourselves up over one another. ‘as an x’ can be anything. it’s a rhetorical device.

Being social is not a game. It’s a thing people and also a wide variety of other animals do. It’s done for a wide variety of reasons. There are people who dedicate their lives to observe other animals and understand the complexity of being social. It’s not fair to reduce 8 billion people to a single category from a single person’s social experience.

That sucks that people have to experience social moments as a constant struggle to push themselves over each other. It’s definitely not the only way to live. There are communities online and offline, past and present that are able to exist without constant conflict within their social circles or communities. It involves being open and willing to accept others just as they are. If someone does not want to be open or accepting, then of course they will be angry or miserable.

Personally, I’ve made efforts throughout all my life to distance myself from people who think being social is a game. Today I surround myself with people who caring and loving without the need to be dominant over each other. It’s possible with a lot of work and persistence. I could blame others for feeling miserable but then I would never ever be happy.

women insert themselves into men’s spaces too.

Is this all there is to comment after I pointed out my observations about men dominating spaces? Should I have also pointed out how much more frequent it is for men to invade other people’s safe spaces and not other people invading men’s spaces?

why is it that you inherently value women over men?

Where did I say I inherently value women over men? I can appreciate others without putting others above me from a hierarchy perspective.

I find it interesting how men regularly insert themselves into places or communities that are not designed for their specific label. I want to wonder what it is about women specifically that really makes men so uncomfortable about women having a place to discuss the world amongst themselves. But it doesn’t take long to see a common trend that appears which is a man is attempting to push their dominance over a situation.

Often times a comment begins with “As a man…” and it’s obvious the commenter is positioning themselves as an “authoritative” voice. Placing themselves higher than the women in a woman’s community. As if their words, experiences or perspectives hold more weight then the other people in this community not designed for men.

I often see this behaviour also within men’s communities such as Men’s Liberation. It confuses me greatly to see “As a man…” comments in the Men’s Liberation community because why do you need to declare your man status, in a men’s community, talking about men’s issues?? It seems to me it’s about placing their own thoughts, experiences and perspectives over the other, “lesser” men in the community. Often those comments ignore the message of the article or video while adding absolutely nothing additional to the conversation. They just stated they are men. That’s it.

The same men that argue against a segregated internet would not hesitate to join a men’s only community in real life or not. It’s not even a conscious effort for them to join a men’s only community. So when a community appears that doesn’t include them, I imagine it must feel insulting to be excluded this one time.

There’s over 8 billion people on this planet with over 8 billion different experiences, not everyone is going to relate to everything all the time. An individual’s experience is not universal. An individual’s experience does not give them authority over another groups experiences. Spending a life trying to dominate everything around yourself is an impossible task because there will always be people who will defy your authority. Nature in general doesn’t have a single fuck to give about one person’s dominance.

Good on the women who persist to exist in men dominant spaces. It’s a steep uphill battle. It’s an exhausting battle that seems never ending. I recently read how some of these women only communities operate behind the scenes and how they deal with certain issues. It showed how much effort they put into their community. I have an even greater appreciation for their existence now and I hope they continue to exist and grow.

I actually started with RPi’s. The first one, a used Pi 4b, is dedicated only to HomeAssistant. I don’t tinker with it anymore because it does what I want and I don’t want unexpected downtime when I have to use the bathroom or use the lights in my room.

I bought a used Pi5 with the intention of upgrading later. In life I am quite minimal and find a joy in using what little tools and material I have to create something new. That seems to hold true to technology and scripting too. The RPi5 with an old USB3 HDD is actually way more power than I can currently use and can imagine using for a long time. The extra room to work is convenient though.

I’ll have a look into some of the places you suggested, those seem like the places to draw good inspiration from, thank you.

I started out rewriting my network backup scripts only to realize I was adding functionality to a previous script I wrote to automatically mount and dismount luks encrypted volumes. I still want to type in my luks passphrase because I don’t want everything automated and prefer to include inconvenience as an additonal security measure in securing some of my data.

I also came to the realization recently that the reason I don’t relate strongly to other self hosters is because I’ve unknowingly been trying to create a minimal self hosted system that is more beneficial to small, low powered devices.

I’ve been using Alpine Linux, I install only the bare, older but well established tools and have been creating scripts soley based off those tools instead of seeking out bigger, more complicated modern tools. For example creating workflows by only using rsync or using https://github.com/RayCC51/BashWrite to create a blog that only uses bash and GNU sed to create a static blog site.

At least now that I’m aware of this, I can keep an eye out for such projects or communities and would hopefully be able to contribute something in that direction.

I’ve experienced gatekeeping issues long before I got into self-hosting specifically. Years ago I wanted to learn C++ for Arduino and I was constantly talked down for asking questions.

“Why don’t you just do …” in response to a question feels very rude as a newcomer because it feels like I am being talked down to for not knowing what others already know. Even when I made an effort to show I was making an effort to learn on my own, I was still belittled.

I’m all for hearing different ways of approaching my issue but from the replies, it often feels like other people insist there is only one true specific way to handle an issue.

When I first got into self-hosting, people kept pushing Cloudflare on me. When I expressed concern over a large centralized corporation having that much control and how they might have service issues, I was mocked really hard. Half a year later and there was a significant outage and suddenly there’s all this talk about how centralized the internet is and how that is bad.

After that I took it upon myself to find alternative ways to protect myself without Cloudflare’s services but every step of the way has been an isolating experience. Every step of the way has been full of people saying that my efforts are pointless and that the bots will win anyways so I shouldn’t bother.

I decided to try to secure myself through multiple layers of obscurity and every question in that direction has been full of people saying that obscurity is not security, the bots will find you anyways!

I’ve stopped myself from asking too many questions now. I still keep learning in my direction. I feel like I’ve managed to find multiple solutions that both obscure and protect myself. I’ve constantly check my logs for months now and the bot is less than I expected in places I expect them to be and completely zero in other places I thought there would be some activity.

I want to share what I have learned and my experiences but I know I will receive backlash for deviating from the norm.

I’ve spent a lot of my self-hosting efforts trying to find ways to protect myself with minimal use of third party services, documenting as much as I could only feel afraid to share what I have learned.

This comment may not be about learning self-hosting as a beginner specifically but the vibe has been pretty damn consistent throughout me learning C++, self-hosting, linux and shell scripting. All things I enjoy but all so full of people ready to talk down to someone who wants to learn.

I have three backups. One is my laptop where all the backups initially start. Then that gets copied to a plugin USB SSD. Then another copy goes to my server which has another USB SSD. That means I don’t have an off site backup.

I don’t have a place to host an off site backup and I’m not comfortable or interested in using cloud services. Instead I just decided that if it all goes up in flames. So be it.

It’s just data and backups are just nice a convenience. I’ll be upset but there’s more important things in life to worry about.

I’ve always lived a life of minimalism and to me stuff is stuff. None of it mattered before I was born and none of it will matter after I die. That happiest and most free feeling I ever experienced was when I spent years travelling with only a 34 litre backpack and that’s kind of been my baseline for happiness ever since.

I’ve had so many people in the past abuse my trust and acceptance. They basically loved the way I treated them as individuals that are able to do things their own way but deeply hated me for being me. I don’t conform to their perspective of me and so they spent great amounts of time and energy trying to change me.

I’m really fortunate to have met people in the last 4-5 years who love and accept me just as I am. So now I have a stronger sense of what I want in a friend.

There are a few things I look for in a friend. Over a period of time, I want to see how they talk about and treat other people. How they talk about and treat themselves. I want to see if they have the ability to self reflect and make choices and changes in a way that betters themselves. I want to see if they treat me the same way they treat other people. I want to see how accepting they are about people are situations that are very different from their lived experiences. I also want to see how they treat animals and the environment around them.

Since no two people are the same, I have no strongly defined criteria. Instead I observe and try to view their words and actions as a whole. There’s a lot of ways to judge who is healthy for me and who is only interested in themselves.

I may only have a few friends now but I have a deep love for the friends that I have because they keep proving to me how caring and amazing they are to me.

apk seems to have some tricks in there that aren’t as well known.

I managed to catch in the IRC channel that apk add doc will automatically download any related man pages for packages with any future downloads through apk. That made life a bit more convenient instead of downloading all those packages separately.

My web facing server has just enough packages installed to (kinda securely) host a Caddy and Kiwix docker container to work with my domain name and make a comfortable work environment through SSH. My Pi for my HomeAssistant docker container has less because it’s locked down to just my local network.

I also wrote my own install scripts so reinstalling everything and getting it back to a running state would take about 15 minutes for each device.

And I also wrote my own backup/restore scripts that evolved over 3/4 of a year. I use them often so I have confidence in those scripts.

I personally don’t really care too much. I have multiple ways of dealing with issues for something that’s a hobby to me. Which is why I stick to simplicity.

I’m sure this is a thing for people to worry about when dealing with more complex setups. I just wanna vibe out in my tiny corner of the internet.

On Alpine Linux I update my two Pi servers at 2 in the morning daily. It’s simpler compared to Debian which needs unattended-updates. Just add apk update && apk upgrade to a cron job and you’re good to go.

I only have three docker services which is simple enough to update manually.

I like to keep things as simple as possible for my already chaotic brain.

I’ve read about that and I already have that in my notes as well.

It doesn’t really affect my needs because my ISP blocks incoming on those ports anyways. Also I’m choosing not to use a tunnel at the moment so I’ll be using a higher port anyways.

The last time I asked about it, a few people seemed to agree it was something to do with the firewall settings. That seems most likely since I was able to connect when I disabled my firewall. I’m not a fan of working with iptables. The language for that type of networking is gibberish to me.

I had also tried going from docker compose to rootful podman compose and ran into the same issue. Although I’m trying to work away from podman compose in the future, just taking it in steps.