AbsurdityAcceleratorShould I host my own instance if I don't intend to run a community?
MattI think it's a matter of personal preference.
I've been running my own Mastodon instance for several months now, and I've enjoyed it. I don't have to rely on someone else, either, which is nice. I'm in control of everything on that instance.
As for Lemmy, I just started my own instance today, and am currently writing you from it. What made me decide to setup my own instance was some performance issues I was seeing with Lemmy.world, although that might have been an UI problem. Anyway, I enjoy doing this stuff, so I'm running my own instance for the sake of doing it.
On the flip side, it's more expensive and time consuming, and I'm the one who has to worry about backing up data, etc. Like I said, though, I enjoy doing it, so it's no big deal.
Can you tell me a bit about the process you went through to create your own instance? I'd like to make one myself.
You're talking about Lemmy, right?
I provisioned an Ubuntu 22.02 server at Linode. I chose their 2 GB Shared CPU instance type. Once I configured the server to my liking, I ran through the Lemmy-Ansible instructions. (They have other methods, so check the documentation.)
Essentially, you install Ansible on your workstation. I'm on macOS and installed it via Homebrew. You then download their git repository, create the necessary configuration files, and then have Ansible configure the server. It was fairly simple.
I may go that route. I was wanting to host my own server but I feel like it would be easier to just use a cloud server
It's personal preference, but I find it easier, for sure.
I would assume it would be more secure as well
Yeah, you generally wouldn't want to run a public Internet server on the same network as your personal systems.
With cloudflare tunnel it is ok
mmm. thats debateable.
If theres vulnerabilities in the software, like RCE's or SQL Injections that can lead to access...Cloudflare wont do much for you. For example Kbin has already have PRs for SQL injections and even XSS vulns.
These will get flushed out with time and more people maintaining them of course. But I dont know if I would want that on my personal network even if on a DMZ. If for no other reason than if your instance starts spamming outbound traffic and you get flagged by your ISP.
Heck I had one of my domains flagged by my works Cisco Umbrella instance and the dang thing wasnt even in prod yet.
Wow, I had no idea.
Thanks for your input.
Sure, it would keep the origin from being publicly accessible on the Internet, but you would want to put that server on its own network, anyway.