m5l.eu is a Fediverse instance that uses the ActivityPub protocol. In other words, users at this host can communicate with people that use software like Mastodon, Pleroma, Friendica, etc. all around the world.
This server runs the snac software and there is no automatic sign-up process.
π¨ Alert if you use #NextPVR on Windows Two October Windows updates this week, KB5066835 and KB5065789, break #NextPVR's ability to communicate with digital tuners on Windows
The warning from NextPVR
https://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?tid=66617
π¨ Alert if you use #NextPVR on Windows Two October Windows updates this week, KB5066835 and KB5065789, break #NextPVR's ability to communicate with digital tuners on Windows
The warning from NextPVR
https://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?tid=66617
Me: I'm gonna self host a mail service on an old laptop, with my *very* residential and dynamic IP address. What could posibly go wrong?
Spamhaus: *checks ISP and IP range* You are not supposed to do that.
Outlook smtp server: "550 5.7.1 Get lost!"
Gmail: I don't like you. But it's only one mesage, and DMARC is good: You go to spam folder.
spambots: LOOKS LIKE MEAT'S BACK ON THE MENU, BOYS! πΉ
Besides some test mesasges, 100% of the traffic is spambots sending invalid commands trying to find a vulnerability, I assume.
In the linux world I feel confident with my monitoring tools, iptables and fail2ban. But in NetBSD everything is new to me. So I have to be extra careful.
ποΈ my adventures in #selfhosting: day 300 (new project edition) π‘
a blog post that discusses my next self-hosting project. a hint: it's not fediverse-related but is still very empowering.
My ISP was kind enough to give me a learning opportunity in how I can manage access to my homelab. While access to #selfhosting can't be in my place by definition, I can at least have it on a VPS from a local company to resist monopolies :)
Dear Fedi friends,
Thank you for adopting #GratefulForYou and filling up my feed with so many shout-outs to amazing Fediverse people.
Today my #GratefulForYou nod goes to @ilja and @shollyethan for encouraging me to start my #selfhosting journey.
ilja was the first person who ever mentioned @yunohost to me (SUPER GRATEFUL for them too!) and Ethan told me: "you learn by doing things" (so true).
This self-hosting journey is incredibly empowering. I feel like a new person, 9 months in β€οΈ π β¨
ποΈ my adventures in #selfhosting: day 275 (coping mechanisms edition) ββ
World events being what they are, authoritarianism, technofeudalism and other everyday horrors are pushing me to spin up another server on Hetzner with the excuse "well, I've gotten so many requests to show what's it's like to install YunoHost, this is the perfect opportunity."
Self-hosting is a pretty good distraction from the β (dumpster FIRES) going off everywhere. At least for me. Top 3 coping mechanism (top 1: playing with my child; top 2: aromatherapy).
I may do it next week πβ
I hope you're having a nice day. Chin up! Resist! Enjoy the little things πΈβπ΅βπβ
#SilverBullet is now available on @Pikapods! A great way to run SilverBullet without the usual hassles of #SelfHosting. Already starting from $1.45/month.
https://community.silverbullet.md/t/silverbullet-now-available-on-pikapods/3199
Erm, fellow Fediverse hackers: did I miss something?
I was just told that I should use SHA256
hashes, rather than SHA512
for MTA DANE (meaning: eg 3 1 1
rather than 3 1 2
).
Is this correct? I fail miserably at finding the corresponding RFCs.
Watching how to install some selfhosted-software to the my #NetBSD box:
Deployment methods:
- Docker
- Docker Compose
- Kubernetes
- Unraid
- Synology NAS
- Deploy to cloud service
- Build from Source
Looking inside:
- Please install npm and 256 NodeJS dependencies.
Lol, I already love #SelfHosting
Dear Fedi friends,
Happy Thursday from rainy northern Italy π§οΈ
In case you missed it: I've spent the past two weeks doing all kinds of #selfhosting explorations, as I strive to learn #Docker to move my Ghost site there (it's recommended for Ghost v6 and going forward).
Yesterday I shared a blog post about the peaches (highs) and pits (lows) in #MySoCalledSudoLife adventures.
I'm hoping my mistakes can be useful for fellow newbies π
π : https://news.elenarossini.com/my-so-called-sudo-life/my-so-called-sudo-life-month-8-peaches-pits/
New blog post: "My so-called sudo life: month 8: peaches & pits" in which I share the highs (peaches) and lows (pits) of my #selfhosting adventures for this month:
πβ: https://news.elenarossini.com/my-so-called-sudo-life/my-so-called-sudo-life-month-8-peaches-pits/
Dear sysadmins, trigger warning: this post contains mention of clueless/reckless behavior by a self-hosting newbie. You may shudder in horror πβ
On the upside, I hope that people who aspire to self-host can learn from my mistakes.
As I wrote in the post: I know very little about self-hosting, but I know more than I did yesterday (and I'm having a lot of fun in the process)
ποΈ my adventures in #selfhosting: day 249 (mind of a #newbie edition) π§
a blog post about what it's like for newbies to self-host... read till the end to find out what caused my OVH VPS fail (a facepalm moment for sure):
I'll probably take a break from self-hosting and reading about #Docker (my Everest) for the rest of the weekend... so I can come back to it on Monday with my batteries fully recharged π β
My future NetBSD server finally arrived MWA-HA-HA
!
Basically, it is just a part of POS terminal, so I can say that I run my services on the cash register.
But inside of it there is a fanless PC with a little motherboard and the top board with a 6 RS232 connectors, two USB connectors and a SATA for 2.5' hard drive.
4 Gb memory, Intel Atom N2800, 64 Gb SSD and free space for (another SSD?) WiFi card, integrated TWO (!) 1 Gbit Ethernet and much more USB, RS232 and VGA + HDMI connectors.
It works completely quiet, and just a slightly warming up when Window 7 is working.
After I change the CR2032 battery and find a M3x17 brass stand for PCB (one is missing ) β I'll install #NetBSD on it and will enjoy #selfhosting , finally
Dear Fedi friends,
Oh happy day!
My #Docker woes have gone away since I realized I can use Docker exclusively via CLI (and not GUI - I thought that was the default). When I couldnβt connect Docker Desktop to my VPS yesterday I was feeling so down. But yay Docker CLI here I come.
Special thanks to everyone who offered advice yesterday, ESPECIALLY @antoine_ali π
I have a feeling youβll get a laugh out of my next blog post detailing my #selfhosting attempts - because my perception of how Docker operates was all warped.
I must have exposed to the outside my current Docker instance with yesterdayβs inane tweaks to access the GUI, so I will uninstall and re-install Docker first thing todayβ¦ and up the challenge by attempting to do a fresh Ghost installation on it.
I truly know nothing! But I know more than yesterday, thatβs for sure. π€
Thank you for all your advice (and patience!) π
Running some initial tests, but for now the "httpd rocks" website is being served from a Raspberry Pi 400 in my basement (running #OpenBSD, of course)
We will see how things go...
Dear Fedi friends,
Sometimes it's good to know when you need to call it a day. Today I ended my #sudo exploits at 10:00am... I'm mentally exhausted already... but happy about the progress I made.
I started tinkering with my new VPS at 7:30am and managed the following tasks:
- installed #fail2ban
- installed #Docker and checked if it was running successfully with their "hello world" method (it does)
- enabled remote access changing the listening port
- secured the connection with TLS
I wasn't able to create a new Docker context on Docker Desktop to point to my VPS... I ran into error messages about having to include certificates (with the right path)... so I decided to call it a day.
I wanted to end my Day 1 of Docker explorations on a good note.
I plan on writing about this on my blog later today so I can refer back to the steps later... when I actually install Docker on my VPS running Ghost.
Onwards and upwards (it's very apt that "sudo" in Italian means "I sweat" LOOOOL)
ποΈ my adventures in #selfhosting: day 244 (Everest edition) β°οΈ
a blog post that details some of the highs and lows I have been experiencing lately in my self-hosting adventures. I have a major challenge ahead - learning #Docker - in order to take advantage of #Ghost x #ActivityPub federation. It's my new Everest π₯²
I know a lot of folks are #Selfhosting big storage here, so this is a question for you!
Also, I follow you @stefano and @gyptazy and know you have hands on experience with this, hence the tagging.
I plan to upgrade my #Proxmox storage with 4 12+TB disk (mostly for expendable data, don't really care if I lost lot data if a disk dies, but they will be in #zfs raidz-1).
So for my current budge I'm thinking about buying WD Red Pro 12TB or I also found Toshiba Enterprise MG Series 20TB (MG10ACA20TE).
Do you recommend any of this, or can you help me find better disks?
Thanks for your help!
#askingforhelp #selfhosting #proxmox #ownyourowndata #sysadin #storage
Found a good fanless, completely quiet PC with a LAN, WiFi, 2 COM ports, LPT, VGA and SSD inside β all that for the price of two good meals
It has 1 Gb RAM and Intel Atom N270 1.6 GHz (i686, 32-bit). So I have a question to #NetBSD folks β how well NetBSD supports 32-bit architectures?
I want to do some #selfhosting, so I need to install some things: sshd, rsyncd, lighweight HTTP server (nginx?), syncthing, ejabberd, some mail server, etc Any chances that these software still builded for i686 and exists in NetBSD repos?
I'm running Forgejo in a container now to isolate SSH access, but I also had it installed directly for some time.
This is what I use now, after #selfhosting Apache SVN, Perforce, Tuleap, RhodeCode, Phorge and Gitea so far.
β¨ new on #TheFutureIsFederated π
« In this age of #technofeudalism every writer who covers technology - especially resistance to #BigTech - should disclose their tech stack. Here's mine »
π : https://news.elenarossini.com/technofeudalism-disclosing-my-tech-stack/
Basically, a love letter to #FOSS and the #Fediverse⦠with room for improvement (especially on the hardware front)
#selfhosting #GoToSocial #Mastodon #NextCloud #Pixelfed #PeerTube #Signal #YunoHost #DeGoogle #LeaveSubstack #resist #resistance #broligarchy
ποΈ my adventures in #selfhosting: day 230 (disconnected edition) ποΈ
a micro blog post that celebrates the release of #Ghost v6 - and laments the fact I canβt upgrade to it at the moment (stranded in a remote place with spotty internet).
HUGE congratulations to @index @johnonolan and the whole Ghost team π₯³
Iβm starting a countdown and hope I can type βghost updateβ in Terminal in 12-13 days or so.
#MySoCalledSudoLife #MySoCalledSudoLifeInterrupted #selfhosted #ActivityPub
Thanks to SeaweedFS, I've set up two replicas of the BSD Cafe's media. One is on a backup server (for disaster recovery purposes only, also containing the hourly zfs-autobackup backups), and the other is on a Raspberry Pi 4 running FreeBSD, which is one of my home backup servers - just one meter away from my desk.
I've also configured Nginx in a jail, so when I'm at home, the BSD Cafe's media is served directly from the local replica.
The performance is lightning fast.
#BSDCafe #SeaweedFS #S3 #Mastodon #SelfHosting #Homelab #FreeBSD #RunBSD
Can anyone recommend a self-hosted video server? My wishlist ...
1. Open source.
2. Even minimally-functional Web upload interface so I can upload videos from my phone.
3. Private videos - just obfuscated filenames is ideal, no account required etc.
I could definitely cobble something together with a cron job, uuidgen, sftp, and Caddy configured to stream videos. But I'd rather not π€£
Installing Mastodon inside a FreeBSD jail: A Comprehensive Guide
Updated for Mastodon 4.4
https://it-notes.dragas.net/2022/11/23/installing-mastodon-on-a-freebsd-jail/
ποΈ my adventures in #selfhosting - day 212 (consolidating edition) π
If you followed my (mis)adventures yesterday and all the issues I had with caching and #CDN for my #Wordpress site, well, I found a solution.
π«β Something that had been in front of me the whole time
π«β ZERO additional costs
Ta-da: π»β
ποΈ my adventures in #selfhosting - day 210 (viva #FOSS edition) πβ
A "micro" blog post about how grateful I am for the ability to self-host essential digital services.
πβ: https://elenarossini.com/2025/07/my-adventures-in-self-hosting-day-210-viva-foss/
Live location is very sensitive data, but #selfhosting the server with TLS and basic authentication gives me more privacy than the big tech cloud. And it only needed reading a bit of MDN and making a basic #Docker image based on #NodeJS
#AskFedi do you know anyone with a federated Wordpress site who uses it extensively? Not just for publishing straight to the Fediverse, but also in a social way (aka as a fedi profile)?
I've run into a few roadblocks with mine and I could really use some inspiration πβ
Idea 6: hosting. Part of the goal here is decentralization, which means no company should run all of these forums. The obvious answer here is #selfhosting and #OpenSource It would be good to have a funding model built in, though. I think this system can be built in a light-weight multi-tenant way so that either people just run their own instance, or somehow commercially deploy to host at a low cost (perhaps making it easy for members to chip in). It should be easy spin up a small $5 VPS and host a few communities there for friends, family or the neighborhood.
ποΈ my adventures in #selfhosting - day 203 (am I doing POSSE right? edition) πβ
Experimenting with the #POSSE method by posting on my federated #Wordpress site first and then syndicating elsewhere.
π: https://elenarossini.com/2025/07/my-adventures-in-self-hosting-day-203/
Not sure if I'm doing things the right way but it feels empowering to have these posts on my site - it will be so much easier to organize them and find them in the future.
ποΈ my adventures in #selfhosting - day 198 (summer project edition) ποΈβ
Hello Fedi friends,
I hope you've been having a nice week so far.
I've been in childcare mode, thus the silence. I've been thinking about something and I would love to get your advice.
#AskFedi: is there a way to export one's #GoToSocial archive of posts (but not replies to other users)? Like something with command lines that doesn't require tedious copy and paste operations?
I wanted to gather up all the posts about the first 6 months of my self-hosting journey, to neatly organize them on my website (either in multiple blog posts or pages) so that they could be more easily searchable. It's not really ideal to go on an infinite scroll quest in reverse chronological order to see the evolution of my self-hosting journey.
Like, I'm curious to see what I was up to in January but going back in time loading old posts takes forever. And I cannot really search for keywords.
I'd like to keep things organized and easily searchable. And implement a POSSE system going forward... publishing on my site first and then syndicating elsewhere.
It's my summer of POSSE inspired by @molly0xfff π€
https://www.citationneeded.news/posse/
If you have any ideas about how I can easily export all my #GtS posts, I'm all ears.
If not, I suppose I will start copying and pasting everything and do monthly installments of my self-hosting journey (aka "month 1" etc.). After all I have 1125 posts (sigh).
Anyways, I hope this finds you well and that you're keeping cool in this scorching heat (especially fellow Europeans).
have a lovely morning/afternoon/evening wherever you are β€οΈβ
ποΈ my adventures in #selfhosting - day 188 (REAL self-hosting edition) π»β
Hello Fedi friends,
I hope you had a nice weekend.
I spent the vast majority of the past two months in full time filmmaking mode, for my Fedi promo video.
Now that the French (https://news.elenarossini.com/fedivers-video/) and the Italian (https://news.elenarossini.com/fediverso-video/) voice-over narrations are complete, I can finally resume my self-hosting adventures.
On the agenda for later this week: updating the version of my Ghost installation, which is something I am genuinely self-hosting, without the help of YunoHost...
I already did it once a couple of months ago, but now the stakes are higher because I'm getting hundreds of visits every day (since publishing the Fedi promo video).
Second item on my to do list: figuring out how to log onto #NextCloud from my mobile phone (the iOS app keeps spinning when I enter my server name).
I'm just really grateful to be able to do all this... A mere 6 months ago it would have seemed impossible.
Wishing everyone a great day! πβ
ποΈ my adventures in #selfhosting - day 186 (bandwidth edition)π¦
A moment of gratitude for #VarnishCache and how incredibly it has protected my self-hosted #Ghost blog from the so-called "Mastodon stampede" / "Mastodon hug of death":
Yesterday I published a page on my site with the French-language version of the Fediverse promo video https://news.elenarossini.com/fedivers-video/
Then I posted a message on my Mastodon account about it, asking people to boost it, so that people in the Francophone world could see it.
How many boosts did I get? 1300 so far (you people are amazing).
Well, my Ghost blog is still standing and super fast. Varnish is INCREDIBLE and I could not recommend it more.
Oh and my VPS with PeerTube is also still standing because I embedded the French version of the video on my Ghost site, so that hundreds of Mastodon servers attempted to fetch the cover image of the POST and not the cover image of the video.
Bandwidth consumption (for my VPS with GoToSocial and PeerTube) so far this month: 0.457 TB (my limit is 8 TB)
Bandwidth consumption for my VPS with Ghost: 0.06 TB (limit: 4 TB)
So far so good π β
This time it's #Debian with #Docker. I used to avoid containers, preferring to run services directly instead. But setting up backups made me appreciate the separation between the application data in image and persistent state in mounted volumes. The final piece that convinced me is the ability to self-host my own container registry with @forgejo@floss.social
I'm doing the initial setup through #Ansible (learned from @notthebee@tilde.zone), but specific applications are managed via dockge. The ambition to do every adjustment through playbooks burns out really fast when working with a single instance.