AngryishHumanoid

So I’m discovering, heh. I got the instance up in a relatively short period of time, I’m spending far more time on email, domain, logging, backups, decisions, etc. I know I could just be a barebones “who cares about any of that” instance since it’s largely gonna be my own personal playground, but where’s the fun of that?

For the record the domain provider I selected masks my info at no extra charge.

Huh. I hadn’t really thought too much about having to block that kind of traffic, I’ll add that to the list to think about.

Interesting. And yeah I’m aware of the federation issue, I was gonna use that to my advantage in terms of my plans to slow roll who to federate to to keep my bandwidth and storage allowances under control. I also know there is a script you can set up which will handle the initial contact to federate automatically.

I get it, but the whole point of this is for me to utilize hardware I already have. If I get to a point where it’s not working out I can always go that route but I want to learn on my local machine and I can always switch later.

Not complete randos, but yeah it’ll likely be a very minimal group of people if at all. And I’m not looking forward to modding so I doubt I’ll go the route if having a lot of comms in my instance, but we’ll see what happens.

Well in general I know I’m an idiot, so for the moment I’ll just stick with Lemmy instance feedback cause that’s at least easier for me to address without expensive therapy.

Good to know, I’ll take a look at those. Thanks!

32gb, not unlimited but good enough that I am willing to proceed, then limit bandwidth usage through restrictive federation.

Yeah that’s a future line item if I make it far enough, heh. It’s under the “who to federate with” bullet point.

Sure I am, but depending on how much of my free time goes into this we’ll see if it stays that way…

One of my earlier deployment plans had me using Ansible, then a bot aided revision had me remove it since I’m doing a single machine install and a fairly straightforward process. From my understanding I’ll get a better learning experience not using it so I figured that was better.

You sound like my wife.

Good point, that was purely a vanity issue: I have a specific name I want for my instance, and I wanted it to be as short a URL as possible so I was willing to spring for the domain. I’m not saying I’m doing all this just for the pun I have in mind, but I did spend far too long on that step of my deployment plan.

If at some point in the near future you step outside and hear a weird screaming sound echoing around the globe, that’s me.

Good question, mostly just cause I use Lemmy so wanted to stick with what I know more of at this point.

I need a new hobby, I'm going to set up my own Lemmy instance. Am I an idiot?

Of the many useful things I could do with my spare time instead I’m setting up a Lemmy instance because why not. The scope of this is definitely greater than any self-hosting I’ve ever attempted, so please feel free to tell me just how much trouble I’m in. I’m just giving the broad strokes to see if I’ve made any crucial errors (other than deciding to do this at all).

And if this is a completely wrong place for a post like this or I’m missing data I’m supposed to include I apologize, I probably need a sanity check, in more ways than one.

First limitation, I’ll be hosting it on an existing Linux Mint box acting as a file share mostly and occasional gaming PC/movie streaming box. Its hardware is overkill for this, I do not anticipate issues when it is in use. It receives regular updates and weekly reboots, instance will be set to automatically restart. NVMe with loads of space for local storage, RAID SSDs for data offload/backup.

Second limitation, I hate Cloudfare and Oracle. I do not want to use either of them.

Third limitation, money. Cheaper is better. I have a URL picked out and a registrar which will give me the cheapest long term option, in case I actually keep this thing going.

Last limitation, I’m already in over my head so I’ll be relying on a lot of googling and probably some chat bots to figure things out as I go through the actual deployment process. What could go wrong?

So, Lemmy hosted on Linux Mint box using Docker containers. ISP is a good one for this I’m told, no CGNAT, largely stable public IP but I’ll have a script running in case it does change. Confirmed ports 80/443 are open. Using Caddy for the HTTPS. Closed registration to start, if by some miracle I make it to actually wanting to allow additional users it will not be fully open, and I’ll use Brevo for the email SMTP. Security wise I know I’m making it harder for myself by exposing my IP, I’m going to have UFW running and Crowdsec to help keep incoming bad traffic out.

Down the line I’ll get Lemmy updates, backups, retention rules in place/automated, and make decisions on federation, etc. Thoughts?