Learn how to properly backup your data in case you nuke something you shouldn’t

the patience to read lots of documentation.

If you want to program something, the closest you’re gonna get to programming is Ansible and Bash scripts.

You might want to get self hosting hardware like Synology or the like if you’re not ready to dig.

Otherwise here’s some things you need to know:

• Docker
  • Easy, consistent deployment of services in their own environments. Think a VM but with almost no overhead.
• Docker Compose
  • Run docker containers with consistent configuration in files.
  • Connect various containers to each other on the same or different networks.
  • Get multiple containers to start together and talk to each other.
• Systemd
  • Manage any service on Linux. If anything needs to start on boot, restart when crashed, start on timer, you want Systemd.
  • You can manage your docker compose containers lifecycle via Systemd.
• NGINX/Apache/Caddy
  • A web server for reverse proxy. You’d probably need one at some point, especially if you want HTTPS. Your services get hidden behind it.
• ZFS
  • Reliable redundant storage. You’ll need storage. Use ZFS with 2-disk redundancy.
  • Supports automatic snapshots for recovering from oopsies. E.g. deleted something or some software shat on your data.
  • Can use recertified disks from serverpartsdeals.
  • Can use USB disks or USB box with multiple disks. If you end up going the USB route, ask me for tested hardware.
• Backup system
  • Something to do backup. There are many options.
• Ansible
  • If you want to write code that describes your services and make them happen, you want Ansible. You write code (well YAML) and Ansible installs things, writes config files, sets up Systemd services, restarts things. It can be convenient especially if you have a lot of stuff and you want to be able to see all of your infrastructure in code in one place and be able to version it.
• Prometheus
  • Monitoring your stuff. Is my backup service running? If not send me an email.

Oh and use Debian or Ubuntu LTS.

Persistence and reading comprehension.

There’s no need to learn Python or any programming language to self host stuff, you just need to be able to follow blog posts and run some Docker commands.

I’m a software dev and haven’t touched a single line of code on my NAS. Everything is docker compose and other config files.

Lots of people have been talking about products and tools. It’s docker, tailscale, cloudflare proxmox etc. These are important, but will likely come and go on a long enough timescale.

In terms of actual skills, there’s two that will dramatically decrease your headaches. Documention and backup planning. The problem with developing those skills is, to my knowledge, they’ve only ever been obtained through suffering. Trying to remember how to rebuild something when you built it 6 months ago is futile. Trying to recover borked data is brutal. There’s no fail-safe that you haven’t created, and there’s no history that you haven’t written. Fortunately, these are also the most transferable skills.

My advice is, jump in. Don’t hesitate. The chops in docker/linux/networking will come with use and familiarity. If it looks cool, do it. Make mistakes. You will rapidly realise what the problems with your set up are. You will gain knowledge in leaps and bounds from breaking a thing vs learning by rote or lesson. Reframe the headaches as a feature, not a bug - they’re highlighting holes in your understanding. They signpost the way to being a better tech, and a more stable production environment.

The greatest bit about self hosting for me is planning the next great leap forward, making it better, cleaner, more robust. Growing the confidence in your abilities to create a system you can trust. Honing your skills and toolset is the entirety of the excercise, so jump in, and don’t focus on any one thing to master or practice before hand!

if you could start again in your self hosting journey, what would you do differently? :)

That’s an excellent question.

If I were to start over, the first thing that I would do is start by learning the basics of networking and set up a VPN! IMO exposing services to the public internet should be considered more of an advanced level task. When you don’t know what you don’t know, it’s risky and frankly unnecessary.

The lowest barrier to entry for a personal VPN, by far, is Tailscale. Automatic internal DNS and clients for nearly any device makes finding services on a dedicated machine really, really, easy. Look into putting a tailscale client right into the compose file so you automatically get an internal DNS records for a service rather than a whole machine.

From there, play around with more ownership (work) with regard to what can touch your network. Switch from Tailscale’s “trusted” login to hosting your own Headscale instance. Add a PiHole or AdGuard exit node and set up your own internal DNS records.

Maybe even scrap the magic (someone else’s logic that may or may not be doing things you need) and go for a plain-Jane Wireguard setup.

I self host many services without any coding languages under my belt. I use Unraid because I found it user friendly for a newb like me. The most important skills I needed were good data backup habits just in case I messed something up, a willingness to read and learn, and the persistence to try more than once.

Determination, patience, a willingness to learn anything you need to.

If you have those, in time, you will be able to get your lab up and running. I started mine with a minimal knowledge of Linux (I could install it from a USB and poke around). Now it’s the center of my families digital life.

You’ll get there in time.

Honestly, you just need to pick a video on follow along these days. There’s a load of YouTube videos out there that take you step by step.

Lewis rosman recently put out a 14-hour mega video of doing everything, well he might have made some controversial choices, The outcome is quite comprehensive.

I don’t know how to code, but I did a lot of internet searching on the commands to use (since I was also new to Linux). When I started to self host I was lucky the projects I wanted were popular enough that they had good documentation. Eventually after spinning up a lot of services I got the hang of the general structure of docker compose files and that’s the extent of any kind of new language I learned, haha

I would caution against self hosting email long term. It’s fine for the educational value but there’s a lot of annoying obstacles you can encounter repeatedly even after everything is established.

The ability to read, and maybe watch a video. And then persistence for some of the trial and error you will run in to. All skills you need can be picked up with the above.

I think if you have a mini PC or something you don’t mins installing server specific OS on, proxmox VE is pretty great. It can be a bit of a headache depending on what you want to do but it also makes expanding your self hosting super easy/fun.

Proxmox let’s you created virtual machines or containers and easily manage them.

Currently I run a mini PC.(Beelinks are great for this and pretty cheap with more power than a raspberry pi)

1. Proxmox VE as the operating system
2. Jellyfin as my media server

• looking to install home assistant and some others as well.

3. Tail scale to use as a VPN into my network privately from anywhere.

Simplest set up? No. But I also just started self hosting. You’re gonna hit some.headaches regardless but it’s also extremely rewarding and I’ve learned alot.

Edit: if you’re only wanting to run one thing (say jellyfin) . A raspberry pi with tail scale and jellyfin is how I started. Works just fine.

Working hands, ability to type characters into keyboard.

Documentation has been mentioned already, what I’d add to that is planning.

Start with a list of high-level objectives, as in “Need a way to save notes, ideas, documents, between multiple systems, including mobile devices”.

Then break that down to high-level requirements such as “Implement Joplin, and a sync solution”.

Those high-level requirements then spawn system requirements, such as Joplin needs X disk space, user accounts, etc.

Each of those branches out to technical requirements, which are single-line, single-task descriptions (you can skip this, it’s a nice-to-have):

“Create folder Joplin on server A”

“Set folder permissions XYZ on Joplin folder”

Think of it all as a tree, starting from your objectives. If you document it like this first, you won’t go doing something as you build that you won’t remember why you’re doing it, or make decisions on the fly that conflict with other objectives.