this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
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Why is starting with Self-hosting so daunting? (alien.top)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I’ve been a Software Engineering Student for 2 years now. I understand networks and whatnot at a theoretical level to some degree.

I’ve developed applications and hosted them through docker on Google Cloud for school projects.

I’ve tinkered with my router, port forwarded video game servers and hosted Discord bots for a few years (familiar with Websockets and IP/NAT/WAN and whatnot)

Yet I’ve been trying to improve my setup now that my old laptop has become my homelab and everything I try to do is so daunting.

Reverse proxy, VPN, Cloudfare bullshit, and so many more things get thrown around so much in this sub and other resources, yet I can barely find info on HOW to set up this things. Most blogs and articles I find are about what they are which I already know. And the few that actually explain how to set it up are just throwing so many more concepts at me that I can’t keep up.

Why is self-hosting so daunting? I feel like even though I understand how many of these things work I can’t get anything actually running!

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Because that means nothing?

"Why are computers hard"

"Why is car hard"

Maybe figure out what you're trying to do? "I can't figure out VPNs" is a pretty weird starting point considering you can just google VPN and click literally anything

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

While this post is a bit of a generic rant, I do know what I’m trying to do, and the issue is that as soon as you go into anything slightly more complex than setting up a VPN, you’ll be bombarded with a thousand words that barely mean anything, everyone and their mother has a different opinion on what’s optimal, minimal and desired and to top all of that, most resources out there focus on making you understand what things are rather than how to set it up.

My issue and what I was ranting is why is most shit on the internet so unhelpful, hoping to find someone who’s had a similar struggle and learn how to get better. And I’ve succeeded, many people have given me useful advice.

I never said anything remotely as vague as “computers are hard” I think my post clearly states my issue is with resources being unhelpful for complete beginners