I want to get into self-hosting. I’ve done a bit of self-hosting before using a Raspberry Pi (pi-hole and Discord bots) but I really want to start self-hosting almost everything I can like I’ve seen many people here doing.
However, I’m not sure what kind of machine I should build which would be suitable for these purposes. I’ve never even built a PC before though my fiancee has and he will be able to help me…
Here are some services I’m thinking of self-hosting to start with:
- AdGuard
- OpenMediaVault
- Bitwarden
- Mastodon
- Matrix
Eventually I would also like to host PeerTube, Kbin, Plex, and many other things…
What are the most important things I’ll need to consider with a self-hosting machine, and what I will need to upgrade over time as I self-host more services? Ideally I’d like a machine which is as energy efficient as possible too.
Also, is it a good idea to host so many services, both publically-accessible websites as well as services only available on my home network, from the same machine? What are the security considerations when self-hosting?
Any links/articles for me to read would be appreciated too!
The first consideration is always your internet speed. If you’re building a pc then you’re self hosting from house. In many countries the internet is ADSL meaning the upload is very slow but the download is fast. However for hosting you need fast upload. You’ll need a fibre connection to stream video from home.
I rent a server in the cloud to do self-hosting due to the subtle difference in my definition of hosting, being that I control the services and data they hold, not that they are literal hosted at home.
Beyond that consideration I’d say everything else is trial and error and you should experiment.
The very first consideration should be power consumption.