Out of curiosity I’m currently considering to self-host a Lemmy and a Mastodon instance. Just for me (and maybe 2-3 close friends) privately. The proposition of having full control over my social media sounds appealing to me.
However, I’m not a software developer and I have next to no experience in self-hosting anything. Also, I don’t plan to make self-hosting a hobby of mine.
Given these circumstances - how much time investment do you think is needed to keep everything running smoothly. I wouldn’t mind spending 1-2 hours a week, but if it’s more like 1-2 hours a day, I would stay clear.
Also, are there resources for troubleshooting available? I found the installations guides and some seem to be quite good for a layperson, giving step-by-step advice, however where to go if it doesn’t work?
I’m trying to make up my mind if it would be worthwhile to try or if I set myself up with wasting a lot of time :) So, any advise is welcome.
Usually, maintaining a server doesn’t take much time once set-up. I personally use NixOS to manage my server, but it’s very complicated, and I would not recommend it to a non-developer. However, there is tools/OS called YUNoHost, that is able automatically set up a bunch of services including lemmy and mastodon.
They also provide a free third level domain name (or can use your own, but do it before installing Mastodon or Lemmy, as it’ll break federatio.), but you’ll need to provide a server. You can rent one (I use an OVH VPS), but you may also just use a spare computer at home, or buy a cheap one (Everything that isn’t a slow HDD should work well). I’m unsure about what capacity you need to plan for storage thought.
You should also probably make sure your ISP provide a static IP (that may disabled by default) and that they allow to configure port forwarding (can be found in the router settings usually).
Also, don’t forget to set up an automatic backup system. YUNoHost probably recommend something in that matter.
This. Also, regarding the time it will require, it’s usually (for anything self-hosted, I haven’t tried those two) a downward curve : it takes a lot of time to understand how things work initially, and after that it takes less and less time, to the point where the only things you have to do is to manage updates once in a while. With an occasional big day because something broke. Of course, I’m saying this because you said it’s just for you and your friends, if you start doing moderation, the time required quickly explode up. :)
A note regarding self hosting at home : even if you figure you do have a static IP and can route traffic to your host, it’s a bit of a roulette, because ISPs consider that high incoming traffic on listening ports is a suspicious activity which probably means you’re a terrorist or something, normal people don’t do that, how dare you. I’ve had a ISP block traffic between friends and me with no warning and a laughably ignorant support (if anyone is from France, it’s SFR ; don’t use them for self-hosting with external access) before giving up and subscribing to a professional ISP (one meant for businesses). Your mileage may vary, but the annoying thing is that you won’t know it before you’ve got used to your services.
I feel you, I don’t know a single person using SFR(mobile mostly but also internet access) who hasn’t had ridiculous problems with them.
Free has never let me down (static IP, port forwardings etc), or ofc OVH if you go the more “pro” way.
Bonne weekend !
Yeah indeed, I went with OVH. :) At the beginning of 2023, I switched to FDN, though (an associative ISP) since they finally offered fiber subscription. They are activists for freesoftware and net neutrality, so I feel safe with them. Fun fact : they actually outsource the handling of the pipes to KOSC, just like OVH (which explains why the prices are basically the same at OVH and FDN). Have a nice week-end too. :)
I just checked out YUNoHost, which sounds like an excellent stepping stone, thanks for the recommendation! I’ll go with a VPS, so ISP shouldn’t be a concern. I think, I’ll just try it out - at worst I’ll lose a couple of hours of my time ;)
I started with YUNOhost to gain some experience with selfhosting. Along with that I would recommend to read through some security best practices to cover some basic pitfalls.
I also like the idea of selfhosting lemmy, but i have the impression the user experience will be degraded, as it will get federated events much slower than a server with thousands of users. Also, no “global” tab because you’re the only user, so you won’t discover new stuff
Kbin has the link aggregator/forum functionality as well asicroblogging built in. So it would give you what Lemmy gives you and what Mastodon gives you all in one.
Honestly, if you don’t feel like self-hosting could be a hobby, just don’t do it.
If done correctly, it can take up quite some time, but that can definitely be worth it (privacy, freedom, hobby/fun, etc). But if not done correctly, that can cause problems in security, performance, compatibility and perhaps even financials.
Just find an instance you like (read the rules about privacy, allowed languages, allowed content, etc) and create an account there.
and a Mastodon instance
A Mastodon Mastodon instance, or just something to interact with Mastodon-compatible services? For the later maybe have a look in GoToSocial, especially when you host it as single-user instance just for you.
It needs very low resources and fits in a single Docker container with a single volume. All you need to keep in mind is that it is alpha software and not every single feature is fully supported yet. You also need a client because GoToSocial is just a server/back-end.
how much time investment do you think is needed to keep everything running smoothly
For GoToSocial it took me around a weekend, including learning how to use Docker and trying things out a lot.
I’ve had some bad experience setting up Mastodon. Tried everything, docker, baremetal, OS package, local build… In the end I decided to use Pleroma. Infinitely simpler.
Lemmy is also pretty easy to setup if you don’t use Docker.
As to maintenance, my experience has been…I don’t have to. For small instances, things could generally run themselves indefinitely. I have a dozen servers running on my VPS, ranging from telegram bots to websites to things like Lemmy. Some of them receivs a fair amount of traffic. I pretty much never need to login to my VPS.
I’m a software engineer, I have taken classes on docker, I host my own web pages, etc. and I STILL can’t get it my own instance of Lemmy running. The instructions are unclear. They have bugs in their docker-compose.yml file. It’s really bad. I have been working on it after work each day for the past 4 days. So far I got the UI working, but i can’t log in or create an account. And I had to disable logging to get it running because I was getting an error with how the logger was defined in the yml file.
And because I was frustrated, even though I really, really didn’t want to, I tried using their ansible setup. It still didn’t work, and it completely fucked my server. It took me a few hours to undo all the shit it did.
It’s not in a good state right now. Hopefully they fix it soon.
I STILL can’t get it my own instance of Lemmy running. The instructions are unclear. They have bugs in their docker-compose.yml file. It’s really bad.
It’s a whole mess, yes. Also they want to create random containers and random volumes all over the place with random IDs for names and by default suggest messing with upstream files and configuration before creating the containers.
I hope the devs will one day provide a proper container with environment variables for configuration.
My advice is. Try to keep wat you selfhost doable to run /set up. Selfhosting can be a rewarding hobby. But also a lot of work depending what you want to host. Just take your time. And plan things out.
It took me a day or two to setup everything for my selfhosted lemmy juggling my day job hehe, I’m guessing it can take a none experienced person one weekend to deploy lemmy in a VPS with docker. After that I’ve just connected to it to upgrade from
0.17.3to0.17.4and I’ll have to update to0.18.0when it comes out.Be sure to set up properly your firewall and follow any security recommendations (they should mostly be one time configurations).
For troubleshooting, google is your friend (or similar search engine). You can also hop into any chat the project may have (matrix, discord). Or you can post in communities specific for the problem you know you’re having, or general ones like in here when you’re lost.
Please do add a tag to your post as stated on the sublemmy sidebar! Thank you. :)
