I’m trying to better understand hosting a Lemmy Instance. Lurking discussions it seems like some people are hosting from the Cloud or VPS. My understanding is that it’s better to futureproof by running your own home server so that you have the data and the top most control of hardware, software etc. My understanding is that by hosting an instance via Cloud or VPS you are offloading the data / information to a 3rd party.
Are people actually running their own actual self-hosted servers from home? Do you have any recommended guides on running a Lemmy Instance?
Agree with the VPS in this case. For sure you can create public-facing services in a home server or home lab, but to do so you need:
- Domain name hosting.
- an Internet Service Provider who will allow you expose port 80/443 web services and on a Static IP (most do not, or paid extra on business plans). OR use a Cloud proxy like CloudFlare which your home IP can be updated through a DynDNS service and served on private ports.
- Setup NAT/Port Forwarding on your modem to route incoming requests to internal services. First to a firewall or threat gateway like PFSense, a web proxy like Traefik/NGinX, and security harden and maintain your modem, router, network and served applications.
If you’re new to these things, Id start with something more mature for personal or family home use first. Like NextCloud, HomeAssistant or Jellyfin media server. Lots of YouTubers have covered how these can be set up as a reference.
Lemmy is still alpha, full of bugs and security vulnerabilities and needs regular hotfixes and babysitting. Permitting Joe Public into your home services is ripe for disaster unless you have the time and expertise.
Operating internet-facing services in the home, in my opinion, requires a layer-3 managed switch so that internet traffic is 100% separated from home traffic, w/attendant DMZ to bridge home<-> internet-facing services safely.
L3 managed is the simplest method to contain a penetration to just the internet-facing devices (which is still pretty bad). Cloud hosting is more manageable, but you must watch the spend.
The biggest issue is a DDoS attack on the home network, which could impact internet-facing services and home clients (streaming TV, gaming, email, etc.).
Agree. Best to have that dedicated hardware, and a degree in network engineering first! Hah :)
tech waffle...
You might achieve network isolation without dedicated managed switches by: using prosumer routers or OpenWRT, with a Hypervisor like Proxmox, which support VLAN tagging. But this wouldn’t save your home connection from a DDoS. To help with that, running public services behind CloudFlare seems to be one of the better choices, even our Lemmy hosts are using.
If you’re starting out, best keep internet facing home services private through a VPN, maybe ZeroTier or TailScale. Don’t advertise them publically at all.
