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 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.
Here's an example of what my server skeleton file tree looks like
. ├── 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 └── rtransferThis is useful to me because I can keep track of every change I make. I even have it set up so I can use
rsyncto 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,
rsyncall 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.