Futo (Louis Rossman) at it again with great content, this time a Guide to a Self Managed life. This 14hrs long guide comes in two video parts, aswell as a written guide for those who prefer. Both video and written quide comes with complete chapters and timestamps. This should be a great starting point for those who have the time and want to start learning from the very beginning.
Video Link to Part 1: Youtube - Invidious
Video Link to Part 2: Youtube - Invidious
Happy selfhosting in 2025 everyone ✨
Hey everyone in the comments complaining, this video is for me and other like me not for you. He took time to go through each step as if a complete beginner (aka me) was doing this. That means working through something as simple as downloading pfsense iso. Show me another complete guide that troubleshoots along with me and doesn’t assume everything works perfectly.
He clearly states at the beginning this is not the only way to do this. He also clearly states where things could be better (pf vs OPN) but why momentum has kept him from making a change.
I’m glad y’all are at where y’all are at but this video will help win so many more people over. Having a single tutorial that takes me from zero to a selfhost solution that replicates 80% of google’s everyday offering is HUGE. Is it perfect, probably not? Does it work, looks like it! And hopefully, finally getting something working will give me the confidence to implement improvements or try my own thing.
@Sips thanks for providing this as I might have missed it since it’s not Rossman’s channel. I was disappointed to come into the comments and see more complaints than appreciation. I’ve been thinking about this for a while and occasionally looking at tutorials and guides but everytime it felt like I had to piece meal all the parts to get the features I wanted. This meant troubleshooting each individual tutorial and then hoping it was completely interoperable with the next tutorial for the features/software I want. That kept me from even starting at all. Glad this exists now and knowing Rossman/Futo, it will only be improved as time goes on. Rant over.
Yep
Warning: This becomes a rabbit hole very quickly because there are so many items to cover. I’m not going to breadcrumb you. I want to provide you with everything, which means we have to start from the BEGINNING!
Thanks dude! Best of luck on your selfhosting adventures ✨
@Sunny@slrpnk.net There is absolutely no way any starter will see that page and not be intimidated. I am a well seasoned selfhoster and even I saw that and went “Wow that’s a lotta words and images on a single page.”
Even arch wiki has sensible ToC with pages divided into what the current topic is.
I’ve been self hosting for years, and am familiar with many of the topics here, but it’s still an interesting read for things like talking about breaking out the three part router yourself. I’m really glad he out this together because it means I can see what others do in detail, even if it’s NOT the 100% recommended way (OPNSense, wireguard, etc)
On one hand, I agree that having a small overview with links to make this non monolithic would go a long way to making this functional and less scary.
On the other hand some information is scattered fairly heavily. Take the switch discussion. He mentions a 15 dollar switch, and then the upper end 1000$ switch early on, to emphasize the range. It’s not until a much much later section he talks about the more practical 20$ switch or 400$ switch he’d use here. So it being monolithic aides Ctrl+F to find this segmented info.
He also mentions the capability/value of having a manged switch (the latter switch is managed) specifically with VLAN, and yet doesn’t to my mind ever state why/when I would do something with the switch management to that end. As far as I can tell, many newer switches will pass VLAN tags (even when unmanaged) from the router, which will enable you to offer a WAP with split SSIDs so you could use something like TP-link 8 port 2.5gb unmanged switch (which at 100$ seems like a meaningful bridge between the 15$ 4 port 1 GB switch, and $400 16 port 2.5gb, 8 port poe switch). He talks about PoE & speed merits but IMHO doesn’t really cover the significance of a managed switch other than saying it had features for vlan (even though the cheapie would pass VLAN tags)
What does the managed switch offer me for VLAN? Specifically just the capability to isolate certain ports so specific hard lines are mapped to a certain vlan?
That’s a possibility indeed, but at least he documented all the steps, it’s great to see that because it looks like a lot of work. But I agree at the first that big long page for sure can be intimidated (CTRL+F is your best friend here).
I think solely focusing on usability for “power-users” single page makes sense. Nevertheless, I think web design seems to prefer many pages though I don’t know if that’s driven by user-friendliness or driving up the “click-through” rate.
actually yeah, fair point. I think perhaps the videoes are probably what they aim to be more beginner friendly rather than the written one.
It’s so easy to self host! Just watch 14 hours of a talking head!
Fan of FUTO, but can’t recommend this to most people thinking of starting. Needs to be less “scary”.
If only there was a way to… freeze media playback so that one can… oh shoot, we need a word for that next step, too, maybe… ‘resume’ could work? Yeah, resume it at a later date.
Such a shame that this idea has never been possible.
Yeah, beginners are probably better served with Yunohost.
Agreed, that should be many tens of pages not one. Also the mobile layout isn’t very good. I think it’s important to remember that normies use their phones for almost everything.
I haven’t finished going through all of it yet, but it seems pretty extensive and inclusive. This is great!
@Sunny sadly in an ironic twist, they no longer seem to be maintaining their #selfhosted #peertube instance @futo_tech :(
So they do have a PeerTube instance, just chose not to upload anything to it?
@jeena they had been up until 1 mth ago, I assume it was mirrored until YouTube broken the auto syncing🤷♂️
@jeena Thankfully I just spotted a recent upload by #louisrossman on their instance, though it seems it only includes some short videos that he put up, it’s not entirely synced with their YT channel. Regarding #immich photo #peertube
damn, that is a shame.
This should be added to the Self Hosted community wiki
This guide is heavily opinionated and simply outdated. 2 examples:
- use of openvpn. Wireguard is by design way more secure (use of keys instead of passwords) and is way more performant.
- use of pfSense. Yes pfSense is ok but the company behind it has shown it hostility towards open source and foss multiple times. Why should a beginner use PFsense when OPNsense exists. OPNsense is not even mentioned.
And that are only 2 points i discovered while scrolling through. Louis is a great guy but as it looks like he should leave that topic to other people.
I completely agree that WireGuard and OPNsense are excellent choices, and I would have chosen them myself. However, I don’t think it’s fair to suggest that someone should “leave the topic to others” simply because they’ve made different choices. While WireGuard is indeed superior, OpenVPN is still a solid option and widely used today. Similarly, although OPNsense is better, pfSense remains a great piece of software - even though the company behind it isnt perfect.
People should still be able to use whatever software they like without being juged by it. Its better for people to at least start with something, rather than nothing: then its also more likely they will get more educated on topic and the different matters of opinions later on.
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OpenVPN is still a solid option and widely used today.
Absolutely, but Wireguard is simpler to setup and comes by default and by design with a more secure default config.
- Create keys on host and on clients
- Generate a config
- You now have a secure VPN Setup.
Now look at all those options you need to tune on OpenVPN.
even though the company behind it isnt perfect.
But then why recommending pfSense? OPNsense is the same with a much more FOSS friendly company behind it. Yes pfSense is at the moment ok but no reason to use it over OPNsense imho.
People should still be able to use whatever software they like without being juged by it.
Yes. And i never judged anyone running thr software, only ppl who recommend it.
Its better for people to at least start with something, rather than nothing
I am not sure about it. Personally, when i get into a new topic i like to have comparisons. They show me what is actually relevant and what i should look out for. But maybe it is just me.
I said multiple times “recommend” here, but that is actually my main problem, i would be much more ok when he simply said there is x and y also available but i use z because of 123…
Edir: i see this was already mentioned.
Not sure if you meant the video, or written guide, but for the written guide -
OPNsense is not even mentioned.
When we build a router using a standard computer, we can install router software like pfSense or OPNsense,
There’s a bit of a debate between pfSense and OPNsense. TL;DR, the developers of pfSense are not the nicest people sometimes. If this bothers you, consider checking out OPNsense. Since I’ve been using pfSense for a decade, I’ve built much of my infrastructure around it. I am well aware of its quirks and don’t feel like setting up my network from scratch, so I am using pfSense for this tutorial. Regardless of the developers, you are infinitely better off using pfSense on your own hardware than standard routers.
Also, you must have not read the wiki properly, because he does mention OPNsense.
This is correct, i missed that part. pfSense is mentioned 259 vs. OPNsense 3 times. But only the “not nice part” is mentioned and not the hostility towards FOSS. Here are some examples https://github.com/rapi3/pfsense-is-closed-source
I have not vetted every single claim but just alone that fact that they have this closed source model is enough for not using it. OPNsense is to my knowledge fully open source.
Looks like there are lots of ppl angry that i call out the software they use. And they seemingly also have not even any argument.
heavily opinionated
Is that of itself not an opinion…?
outdated
Tbf I haven’t looked at the source material but I don’t think two points make it “outdated”. It’s like calling Debian outdated.
Is that of itself not an opinion…?
Nope. It is objectively opinionated, since he only shows his solution and offers or shows no other solution.
Tbf I haven’t looked at the source material but I don’t think two points make it “outdated”. It’s like calling Debian outdated.
Debian is not outdated, also is the technology not outdated he used in the guide (as far as i can tell since i have not read through everything). But using those to get to the shown solution is outdated. When someone in this community asks for a VPN solution most ppl will recommend Wireguard and or tailscale and not OpenVPN.
OpenVPN has other benefits like better user management and more customizability but for this use case it is not the fit, since other solutions are easier to setup and harder to fuck up the security part for a beginner.
Edit: Those are only the 2 examples i picked. I have not looked through everything, but those 2 stood out to me by just looking at the ToC.
Quel suprise
Appreciate the written version, though the wiki formatting looks a little weird on mobile. The text on the table of contents is rather small.
So why are the videos not self hosted?
Probably because in the current state it would not reach many people. I like PeerTube as much a the next guy but FUTO has to keep things a bit pragmatic too I imagine.
They could always upload a copy to YouTube to reach the rest also.
Very true!
video for beginners
“why is this not available for my niche viewer? smh those beginners need to do some research on their own and hopefully find the same niche instance that I use so they can start calling themselves beginners. They are, uh… beta beginners? alpha? nightly beginners! posers!”
Viewership 101: go where your audience is.
How hard are the concept of uploading to more than one platform and dogfeeding selfhosting to understand.
Because YouTube pays Louis Rossmann, compared to selfhosting video which costs tremendous amounts of money through bandwidth.
Most of the views would be still in YouTube anyway, and those tremendous amounts are not that big because with PeerTube you share the bandwidth with other instances and even other clients (source: I’m running my own instance).
those tremendous amounts are not that big because with PeerTube you share the bandwidth with other instances
I have 8gbps, I’m perfectly willing to federate with Futo’s instance and take some of (if not all of) the load for this video. But I don’t think they peer with that many other people. At 15mbps that’s about 500 people watching simultaneously.
I agree I’d like to see it on peertube for sure.
The thing is people always talk about there being not enough content on peertube but then nobody uploads their videos to it even if they have an instance. And on top of it, there is a easy way to synchronize your YouTube and PeerTube channel too if you insist to keep using YouTube for uploading, just add your YouTube channel URL to your PeerTube channel and tell it to synchronize, that’s it, it will do it for you. But for some reason the self hosting YouTubers can’t be bothered with that?
there is a easy way to synchronize your YouTube and PeerTube channel
No there isn’t anymore. yt-dlp, what all those syncing tools rely one, is basically fucked at this point. Youtube has made it fucking impossible to grab content off their platform and it’s really damn annoying. Even for my private IP address, I’ve earned what seems to be a permanent ban from Youtube.
Every video shows either this…
Or I login, and it only shows me the first 60 seconds of content before it just buffer loops forever
But I wouldn’t want to sync the content from youtube anyway… Youtube compresses the shit out of everything.
I get your point. It’s not hard for them to make a second post of the same video content to another platform. Many just don’t see the value in it. I agree that at least FUTO should see the point of putting it up… Hell I’m even willing to share the load in the bandwidth (with my own instance that’s currently up and running). Is what it is.
I agree with a lot of LR’s opinions, especially around right to repair, but he has always been extremely long winded, and guilty of repeating himself a lot in his videos. Not to mention opinionated.
While it’s cool that some people are excited for this and will no doubt learn a ton from this, there is no way I would recommend this to anyone.
Why in recent years do YouTubers think insanely long videos equal good content? 14 hours is completely unnecessary. Also, not a big fan of him constantly saying in videos he’s not good and doesn’t know why people listen to him yap… much prefer raidowl or hardware haven
You underestimate how much knowledge it actually takes to do selfhosting stuff. To truly explain things. This stuff is clearly aimed at really low prerequisite knowledge people. It’s only with pre-req knowledge that you can skip out on a lot of content. This is the exact same complaint I got when I was teaching certain 100 level courses at a major university… 135 hours of coursework just to get students to a baseline competence on a number of introductory topics for IT… 14 hours for basic self-hosting knowledge is likely not enough to actually be sufficient either (which is likely why they specifically hamstring the options and go straight for using just one specific software)… But it takes time to explain all the items that goes into everything you need to know for self-hosting.
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He doesn’t look like someone who doesn’t know docker, there is a whole section on that wiki page where he describes what docker is and how it works in details.
He just decided to not dockerize his installation because:- he thinks VM in his case are more practical.
- docker didn’t even exist when he started to go self-hosting.
It’s funny because I view LXC’s the same. They’re more practical than both VMs and dockers to me. Outside of community-scripts though, it seems most people don’t like LXC’s nearly as much as I do…
The fact that you’re already aware of what Docker is means that this video and wiki were already a “miss” for you.
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Bonkers
