As title says, i want to start self hosting but i have a lot of questions about it. For more context, i want to self host XMPP, matrix, Immich, an email, forgejo and a minimal website. i want to ask you:
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Where should i buy my domain and are there any things i should be careful about?
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does the end of my domain (idk the specific name but .XYZ) matter at all?
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I get that i should use a used PC (i have none lying around), but how old?
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Am i willing to self host too much stuff?
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Can i use Gentoo, Devuan, or other non-systemd distros as an OS?
Sorry for the noob questions but i struggle to find answers online, feel free to tell me to RTFM _;
Also, i have experience with Linux as a desktop OS, more specifically 3 years, one of which mostly in gentoo, but i’ve daily driven Arch, Artix, Debian, Void among others
Where should i buy my domain and are there any things i should be careful about?
As someone else said, check the renewal price, not just the price for initial registration. And obviously try to pick a registrar that you find reasonably trustworthy.
does the end of my domain (idk the specific name but .XYZ) matter at all?
It’s called a top-level domain (TLD). TLDs are handed out by the IANA to various entities. Those entities (eg. a branch of government of a country) can set requirements for registrants and I think they also influence how much domains under that TLD cost. So you might want to pick one with sensible requirements (usually they’re pretty lax but eg. some countries may require citizenship or registering a business with them) that you’re able and willing to meet, is cheap, and that you more or less trust the managing entity of.
I get that i should use a used PC (i have none lying around), but how old?
Depending on your hardware requirements etc. and what you want to achieve by self hosting, I would suggest looking into renting a cheap VPN instead of buying an old computer. It’ll be more expensive in the long term, yes, but you won’t have to worry (as much) about things like getting a static IP address, power usage/outages, noise and possibly heat in the summer, fiddling with router settings, telling everyone your home IP address and sharing bandwidth with your server. A third option would be something like a raspberry pi, if it’s enough for your needs.
Am i willing to self host too much stuff?
The limiting factor, aside from possibly hardware if your services become very popular or are particularly demanding, will likely be your patience in figuring out how to get things working. Email can be a particularly bad one, especially if you need to be able to communicate with mainstream email services. Of course everything also requires occasional maintenance, which again takes time and patience.
Can i use Gentoo, Devuan, or other non-systemd distros as an OS?
Sure, why not? But for a beginner I would recommend picking something with a good amount of documentation and support available to make finding relevant information easier and to (hopefully) be able to rule out the choice of OS as a potential cause when things don’t work.
Some are harder to answer than than the others.
- Wherever’s cheap, and not shady. Namecheap, porkbun come to mind. I personally bought mine at OVH as it was cheap and they are an ok-ish hosting provider. You can transfer to another service once you find a more favorable deal before renewing. It’s worth reading up on how the ownership, tranfer, etc works.
- Yes, as others said .xyz is usally used by spammers, so might be blocked by providers. You could use your countries 2 letter tld, depending on the restrictions they have on them. Or something generic but not plagued by spam users.
- I have several services on an i7 6700TE. Old, low clockspeeds. But 8 threads and the iGPU can handle the media transcodes I need. RAM, storage and connecrivity are more crutial IMO. Newer hardware has better efficiency and features. Look at what you need, and chose accordingly. Have enough PCIe slots + lanes for SSDs and addin cards. Have enough SATA or M.2 ports for the storage. Have enough network ports for whatever you decide to do.
- At first, probably. Don’t let us stop you tho. Just don’t pwn yourself by letting any traffic in and out of your home network. You’ll see how much time and energy you have and need for building this and keeping it in good shape. I like to plan ahead and strive for perfection, but usually settle for good enough because of the hardware limitations and time I want to spend with others instead.
- I mean, as long as it works for you, I guess. I am not familiar with them. I run Proxmox as a hypervisor and mostly Debian containers and Alma VMs. As these are the more supported ones. If you go for containerisation with say Podman, or Docker, then the host OS will matter less.
I hope this gives you a direction at least. Others, feel free to correct me.
- If you’re in the EU, metcup is priced well and competent. If you’re somewhere else, I got no idea.
- Not really, just preference. Often some of them are just more expensive than others, both to register and to maintain. Some don’t support DNSSEC (really) which you really don’t need to care about, but it’s a difference that may exist.
- Literally any age. The older it is, the less it can do and/or the more power it’ll use to do it. Depending on where you are and now specifically what you pay for electricity, using a newer system can quickly pay off. Most things in the list you gave aren’t ‘intensive’ to host, but depending on features enabled immich can at least at times require some CPU and memory. The rest can run on a raspi (meaning literally any PC will do as well).
- If you’re hosting on an old PC (x86), I would suggest going with a hypervisor (proxmox is popular for good reason), and then hosting everything else as a lxc or VM. If you want to actively do things by hand, to learn or just experiment, use Debian. It’s the most common server operating system used, and will often be the assumed default for guides or installation instructions.
Whatever you pick, do not install everything just onto “the server”. Pick some form of abstraction (VM, lxc, docker, kubernetes, …) to isolate and manage your services.
Important: do not host your own email, ever. Let alone as a beginner project. You can host it behind a forwarder that acts as the destination for the other mail providers, but don’t have a public facing, DNS registered mail server (neither at home, nor as a vps or something). It will cause nothing but problems. You will regret it. Quickly.
Where should i buy my domain and are there any things i should be careful about?
Just becareful about renewals. Sometimes a domain will be cheap year one, but crazy expensive year 2+. I personally use Porkbun
does the end of my domain (idk the specific name but .XYZ) matter at all?
Sometimes it can matter. If you host email, some TLDs are classed as higher risk and could be wholesale blocked or classed as higher risk.
Am i willing to self host too much stuff?
That’s a question of how much time do you mind spending configuring, maintaining, and upgrading. I run way too many services. Some of them require more effort than others. Forgejo requires more effort to get working than Immich for me trying to get Forgejo Actions working well.
Where should i buy my domain and are there any things i should be careful about?
not sure. i host at home and vpn in with tailscale
does the end of my domain (idk the specific name but .XYZ) matter at all?
shouldnt matter i believe?
I get that i should use a used PC (i have none lying around), but how old?
depends on what youre doing, but for simple file sharing and some small automations you could probably get away with a 10ish year old computer. i used a 2012 hp pc for many years. only replaced it abt a year ago.
Am i willing to self host too much stuff?
if your machine can handle it, who cares?
Can i use Gentoo, Devuan, or other non-systemd distros as an OS?
you can use anything you like. host everything on plan9 for all i care.
email, sharing links on corporate owned social media
I think an XYZ domain would get you insta-blackholed as a potential spammer
