You may have noticed a few of my posts here, I am very interested in self-hosting and what advice can you give to a newbie? maybe some literature, video, I don’t know~
Learn how to use Docker containers
Came here to write exactly this. It’s a steep learning curve but well worthwhile. Although I’d specify and say: learn docker compose.
Edit: what I ment was learn docker cli tools (command line tools) and use Docker compose that way. It gives you a much better understanding of how Docker actually works behind the scene while still keeping it high level
Docker? Steep learning curve? You drunk mate?
When it comes to software the hype is currently setup a minimal Linux box (old computer, NAS, Raspberry Pi) and then install everything using Docker containers. I don’t like this Docker trend because it 1) leads you towards a dependence on property repositories and 2) robs you from the experience of learning Linux (more here) but I it does lower the bar to newcomers and let’s anyone setup something really fast.
In my opinion people should be very skeptical about everything that is “sold to the masses”, just go with a simple Debian system (command line only) SSH into it and install whatever is required / taking the time to actually learn Linux and whatnot.
Hmm I should maybe have added that I only ever touched docker cli tools and have never used a front end of any kind. I do know that they exists, but I like having my fingers in the mechanical room so to speak so it gave me a quite steep learning curve writing my own docker compose files from scratch and learning the syntax, environment variables and volumes working manually. I still to this day only use cli version of Docker because its the only thing I ever learned.
I’d like to point out this is a hot take.
Enterprise infrastructure has been moving to containers for years because of scale and redundancy. Spinning up new VMs for every app failover is bloat and wasteful if it is able to be put in a container.
To really use them well, like everything in IT, understanding the underlying tech can be essential.
This course might be an overkill for a home server, but here’s my recommendation: https://www.udemy.com/course/docker-kubernetes-the-practical-guide/?couponCode=ST15MT31224 - it covers stuff from basic manually typed commands to kubernetes and aws.
Kubernetes is more than overkill for home use. I would say there’s no point in ever touching it if you’re only in self hosting as a hobby.
