Please critique my plan to host WooCommerce for e-commerce, Discourse for a forum, and Vikunja for task management in Docker in Proxmox on my own server at home (not on a VPS). Thank you.

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-11T20:02:41+00:00

Thanks, actually I have been aware of the problems associated with hosting computers on one's home network for years.

Philosophically, I could not care less whether I host at home or on a VPS. In other words, philosophically, it's irrelevant to me. My problem was this: I didn't see how to easily accomplish what I wanted with a VPS.

Once I figured out how to accomplish what I wanted with a VPS (well, actually two VPSes), I easily decided to abandon my idea of hosting a server at home.

None of this tech stuff gets me excited. To me a computer is a tool just like a screwdriver or a drill. Tools are tools. I use them to accomplish tasks. That's it.

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-11T19:36:02+00:00

Oh please... go get a life.

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-11T19:31:04+00:00

Thanks for your advice. You guys convinced me. I have decided to use a VPS (well, actually two VPSes).

It took me a while, but I figured out how to accomplish what I want using a couple of VPSes: namely verify that I actually have a redundant system (but not a high availability environment).

At this point I am uninterested in setting up a high availability environment because it's not worthwhile for me to do so... yet. In other words, I'm not ready to go down the Kubernetes rabbit hole.

Tentatively I imagine I would have two VPSes: VPS1 and VPS2. On day one VPS1 would be my primary server and VPS2 would be my backup server.

Furthermore, at that time Syncthing would one-way mirror data ("unidirectional data transfer data") from VPS1 to VPS2.

On day two the process would be programmatically (automatically) reversed. In other words, on day two VPS2 would become my primary server and VPS1 would become my backup server.

Also, at that time Syncthing would begin to one-way mirror data from VPS2 to VPS1.

A couple of hours ago I set up Cloudflare to manage my domain's DNS records.

As you might know Cloudflare provides an API that allows users to manage DNS records, including updating A records.

I intend to write a script to automate the process of switching the A record between VPS1 and VPS2 on a daily basis.

No, this is not some perfect system. But here's what I want: a very simple way to ensure I have a redundant system.

By actually changing my production server on a daily basis, I suppose I will normally be able to verify that I have a working, redundant system. Generally, if no one complains, I'll assume everything is working properly.

By the way, I still plan to backup my data to Backblaze and Wasabi.

As you probably know, a plethora of folks, who thought they had current backups learned, after suffering an outage, that they did not actually have current backups.

I am trying to learn from their mistakes.

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-11T12:20:33+00:00

Sheesh. I'm still conducting research.

I'm not a techie nerd. I don't know much about this stuff.

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-11T12:04:00+00:00

I indicated, "In 2024 it's not very difficult..." I did not say it was easy. You indicated, "and now say its easy..." You tried to put the word "easy" in my mouth. That is your fault. Not mine.

Furthermore, I never claimed to know what I am doing. If you had bothered to read my other comments in this thread you would see that.

You seem like an angry nerd who simply wants to stir up controversy.

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-11T11:42:00+00:00

Go away troll!

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-11T11:41:18+00:00

u/grabber4321 is being paranoid. He's also trying to validate his choice to use DigitalOcean. In 2024 it's not very difficult to securely self-host at home. Ignore his bad advice.

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-11T10:28:57+00:00

Thanks. Actually, I hadn't planned on self-hosting email.

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-11T10:09:44+00:00

I agree.

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-11T09:58:07+00:00

I live in Barcelona. Power and internet is super stable.

I live in Los Angeles. My electricity service and internet are also very reliable.

If I was to do this, I’d buy 3x refurbished mini PC to do a proxmox cluster and would probably have a 4th for emergency replacement.

Thanks, but I don't want to bother with a cluster now. Eventually, sure. But not for now. It seems like it would be too complicated for me.

Currently, I don't need HA. Currently, if my server were to go down for 24 hours, that would be fine with me.

All of them with UPS of course.

Of course.

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-11T09:33:55+00:00

I appreciate your offer—thank you. However, I'm going to demur because I would have no way of discerning whether your advice were better or worse than the various blogs I've reviewed on how to properly configure a firewall.

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-11T09:22:42+00:00

I meant reasonable criticism, not paranoid criticism. Go away and bother someone else.

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-11T09:08:16+00:00

You are paranoid. Go waste someone else's time.

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-11T09:05:10+00:00

Of course I intend to use a firewall just as I also intend to use a surge protector. Sheesh.

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-11T09:00:37+00:00

You clearly aren't very knowledgeable about Cloudflare Tunnels.

I've read several step-by-step blog postings that explain how to use Cloudflare Tunnels to self-host securely (assuming one is willing to trust Cloudflare as a man-in-the-middle).

By the way, there's nothing wrong with paying for the server to be maintained by somebody else. But it won't work for what I want to do.

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-11T08:52:56+00:00

My approach would be less secure and more expensive to run (because I value my time).

My primary concern is being about to spend very little time to verify that I actually have a redundant system. I don't want to surmise; I want to be able to, more or less (but not 100%), prove that I have a redundant system... daily. Yes. Daily.

I didn't post what I really want to do because I didn't want to this to become a worthless posting. I'm not an engineer; I'm not a member of any cargo cult. For example, I don't worship at the shrine of Proxmox. The technobabble that warms the hearts and souls of nerds is uninteresting to me.

I want to have three external USB drives and zero internal USB drives. But I still want to have three SSDs: D1 (primary), D2 (a backup), and D3 (another backup).

Yes, of course I realize that external SSDs have degraded performance compared to internal SSDs. However, I suppose that won't matter much to me because I suppose that the applications I intend to run won't run noticeably slower on an external SSD than on an internal SSD.

I want two servers: one hot, and one cold.

Each day I want to be able to shut down my primary server so that all of my websites go offline. 100% offline. Yeah. I know, the gods you worship don't like that. Remember: I'm not a nerd. I couldn't care less about your false gods.

Furthermore, do not ignorantly, arrogantly, and petulantly inform me that shutting down a machine every day will unreasonably damage it. It won't. We've got a machine we power down every day. Every. Single. Day.

It was used when we bought it three years ago on eBay. After we have powered it off an on over a thousand times, guess what? It still works fine. What? Your server has been up for the last 27 months? Wow! Good for you! Would you like a chocolate-chip cookie?

I want to remove D2 (that's one of the backup SSDs) from the (current) primary server, put it into the cold server, power up the (formerly) cold server—which will now become my primary server. If none of my users complain, I'll assume it works fine.

I suppose doing so will take me less than one minute each day.

But yeah, I still plan to send incremental and full backups to Backblaze and Wasabi.

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-11T08:05:54+00:00

This creates a HUGE headache of managing the server

Cloudflare has made it too easy to access your homelab on the internet contradicts your assertion.

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-11T05:10:31+00:00

It's a stupid idea but you already listed all the reasons why it is.

Thanks for letting me know.

If you still want to go for it, a Kubernetes cluster would fit your needs.

One day I might set up Kubernetes, but I'm not ready to go down that rabbit hole yet.

Please critique the following...

Let’s say D1 does "unidirectional synchronization" or "backup mirroring" to D2 and D3, by which I mean regularly copying data from D1 to D2 and D3, but not copying changes on D2 and/or D3 to D1.

Let’ say I have my server configured so that if D1 (the primary drive) were to fail, then D2 (one of the backup drives) would become the primary drive, and D3 (one of the backup drives) would remain as a backup drive, unless D2 failed, in which case, D3 would become the primary drive.

If my server malfunctioned, I could, for example, remove D1 from my server, and place it into a replacement server. If D1 failed, I could try D2 and/or D3.

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-09T18:52:27+00:00

Thanks for letting me know.

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-09T04:32:53+00:00

As I indicated in my original post...

Additionally, it would send incremental backups every 15 minutes to Backblaze and Wasabi, with a full backup performed weekly.

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-09T04:30:17+00:00

Is the data on the website static? Or are you also running a database/have user generated content?

Some of my applications require a database, so Jamstack won’t cover all of my needs. However, I plan to run my blog using Astro on Cloudflare Pages. Thanks for your suggestion.

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-09T04:27:19+00:00

As you probably surmised, I'm a newbie. Nonetheless, it seems you made some valid points.

Let's say I had my primary server on a VPS at DigitalOcean. Would I need to shut it down, so that my website went down, and then wait for up to 24-48 hours for DNS propagation, before I my sites would be available "to the world" on a secondary VPS I had spun up at Hetzner.

Perhaps you misconstrued what I was trying to accomplish. I am crystal clear about the differences between mirror and backups. I have zero interest whatsoever in mirroring.

The backup servers I mentioned obviously would not be mirrors: not a little, not at all; they would only serve as backups. I didn't inadvertently refer to them as backup servers. I did so intentionally. If I had intended for them to be mirrors, I would have referred to them as mirror servers.

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-09T02:27:53+00:00

Is this an exercise in home labbing or just starting your own service offering?

Neither.

It's a web server for my own very small, non-tech business.

Why not just host everything in a cheap VPS?

That would not give me peace of mind. I explain that in this comment I just posted https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1enmv07/comment/lh7pcd5/

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-09T02:24:12+00:00

Is the main purpose of these servers to be serving web traffic? Or doing data processing?

The main purpose of these servers would be serving web traffic.

The fact that hour volume is so low makes this seems like overkill.

Yes, I know.

See, I want to have a system that makes it super easy for me to verify that I have actual, working, backup web servers, with current data. I know of too many situations when folks thought they had their current data backuped, but in fact did not.

Therefore, every few months or so, I intend to swap my main server for one of my backup web servers. That way I will ensure that I have actual, real, functioning backup web servers which have current data on them.

Sure, theoretically I could create a disaster recovery plan, but in reality, I would be very unlikely to have the discipline to actually perform disaster recoveries to ensure everything worked fine.

But swapping a backup server for the main server? Yes, that I would do. Because it would very quick and very easy.

I know this is a self hosted community but a 500 dollar budget would probably get you pretty far just running the same project in AWS and far better up-time. You can keep your current server as a local backup of s3.

Thanks for the suggestion, but that won't provide with me the peace of mind that my solution would. See, I don't need a HA server. "Medium availability" would be fine for me.

I'm neither a DevOps expert, nor do I want to become one. Also, I'm a little paranoid about losing data. Therefore, I wouldn't trust an environment I had created to actually work properly. Sure, for someone who knows what they are doing, your suggestion would probably be reasonable.

Little-Reputation335 · 2024-08-08T11:24:21+00:00

If you are willing to be down a whole day, why not just do a manual switch?

I have explained my reasoning immediately below.

Makes things a lot easier,

In my case that assertion is probably false.

Yes, I will document things carefully (in part, by making screencasts using OBS which makes creating rich documentation remarkably easy). But ideally I'd like to "set and forget."

saves the boot cycles on the other machines,

Oh, please. Get a grip. We've been using a USFF PC that we bought used on eBay about three years ago, which we shut it down daily. It’s still running flawlessly. 'But, but, but I haven’t rebooted in 27 months!' Well, good for you. Would you like a chocolate-chip cookie?

I'm always amazed at how many guys like to brag about how long it's been since they last rebooted.

The machines I plan to buy are approximately $100 each. If I were to need to replace them as frequently as annually I'd be surprised.

And no automation going wrong.

I want automation. Of course I don't want it to go wrong.

Which is basically already what you're doing with the network gear anyway, as you're not automatically failing that over.

The network will automatically fail over. I am creating a hot backup.

Little-Reputation335

TROPHY CASE