@moderation Question for mods & admins out there - does anyone host their own <whatever> as a sandbox/playground, and what's your architecture for doing this? I want few and invitation-only collaborators to multiple AP-social web applications that we can experiment with as mods/admins as we design and refine community proposals.

Primary needs are:
- Accessible outside the walls of my living room/relatively stable (eg, doesn't go out if the power does, OTOH, I'm making no uptime promises .. 1/?

@moderation

- data residency in Canada if not directly in my control
- service providers I deal with preferred to be in Canada, or at least in EU, not US.
- cheap as possible and predictable monthly cost

Things I know right now I want to play with:
1. Fediwall
2. Hollo
3. Bonfire of some sort
4. maaaaybe a friends-and-fam Pixelfed or Vernissage.

Considering YunoHost but I'd have to host Yunohost somehow?

@johannab @moderation

I use masto.host. They can stand up a Mastodon instance as soon as you have a domain name, for like $8 a month. Hosted in France.

@BlueDot Thanks - but already eliminated that level of hosting. The only in-Canada option is, like masto.host, offering fully hosted applications and only specific ones.

I want one level down, so I can muck around on something like YunoHost and stand up whatever activity pub experiment I want to and mess around with the admin myself.

Short of building on my own metal in the living room. Or if I do, I want reliable static connection to the outside world.

@johannab @moderation the only affordable cloud hosting in Canada that isn't operated by a US company that I've found is OVH, which is what I use for my live servers and test setups.

For very short term tests you can pay by the minute for their public cloud servers, for longer term you can switch to monthly, or if you need more power you can look at their VPS and then Eco Dedicated options.

Bandwidth is unmetered, so you're just paying time based or monthly for the server.

@brook @moderation

Thanks! Appreciate all the new options. I know of OVH - I'm trying for now just to play at "how local can we go" to do a prototype community server for pitches/proposals to someone who might want to run a real one.

If/when we build one that's meant to be more persistent and out of my hands after that, the more stable providers are definitely of interest.

@johannab @moderation

Servarica is based in Montreal and they have affordable server plans.

@[email protected] @johannab

When you say "sandbox/playground", I am thinking of a testing instance.

I don't think a testing environment would need to federate. It probably wouldn't even need to be accessible outside my LAN. If I want to test connection to outside world, I would use VPN to temporarily expose the local instance on my laptop to WWW, that is Tailscale + VPS + NAT firewall rules. My base would be Docker, or an Ubuntu server in a VM.

Main (production) instance,
this, is powered by Misskey, and is located in Edmonton AB. CDN is in Ontario. But that isn't for testing.
Edmontonian Social

ᐊᒥᐢᑲᐧᒋᐋᐧᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ (Amiskwaciwâskahikan), also known as Edmonton, is the land of gathering and trade. Edmontonian Social is a social media platform inspired by the land it is named after, and seeks to be the virtual place of gathering and discussion of local events, news, issues, and solutions.

Edmontonian Social

@johannab

There used to be a number of webhosts in datacentres located in Waterloo Region. Some have consolidated, some have shut down, but there are at least a couple left, used by @kwlug, one for their webhost and one for their BigBlueButton server.

Since you want to do F/LOSS hosting anyway, you could join the KWLUG mailing list ask the question there. They're a pretty knowledgeable crowd.

Edit to add https://kwlug.org/

#WaterlooRegion #FLOSS #WebHosting

@moderation

Upcoming Meetings | KWLUG - Kitchener-Waterloo Linux User Group

@bobjonkman @kwlug

Oh, very cool, thank you - I've been aware of @kwlug forever, just ... haven't had bandwidth! There are so many connections to make and manage in this ecosystem. 😆

@johannab

If you find some bandwidth today, there's a @kwlug meeting tonight at 7:00pm, in DC 1568 at Davis Centre Library at the University of Waterloo. Also online at https://webconference.kwlug.org/room/kwlug Everybody, everywhere is invited!

Details for tonight's meeting is at https://kwlug.org/node/1422

#LinuxUserGroup #LUG #KWLUG #WaterlooRegion

KWLUG Meeting

You have been invited to join KWLUG Meeting using BigBlueButton. To join, click the link above and enter your name.

@bobjonkman @kwlug

Cool, TY! I don't know if I can make it but that's certainly right in my neighbourhood/on the transit line.

@bobjonkman @kwlug looks like I freed up my evening, pending anything else falling out of the sky on me. Hope to see you tonight - I'll be the confused-looking woman with slightly blueish-greying fluffy hair.
@johannab @bobjonkman Sorry to have missed you. (I hope it wasn't the difficulty in finding the room that stopped you from attending?) You are certainly welcome at future KWLUG events, or to participate in our other communities.

@kwlug @bobjonkman

Hi! Sorry, no, it was home life being a bit off the rails and interrupting school and extracurricular life.

I've pencilled in the december meeting, we'll see!

KWLUG Meeting: Monday, December 1 2025, 7pm | KWLUG - Kitchener-Waterloo Linux User Group

@bobjonkman

Argh, nope, won't be out after all tonight.

wasn't planning on Anaconda Navigator blowing its own brains out just when I needed to get another course module submitted. 😵‍💫

@johannab

I had fully planned on being at the @kwlug meeting tonight, but @radiowaterloo.ca is having its Fall Fundraiser, and some bright spark had the idea of doing an On-Air Fundraiser Special tonight, so I'll be at the studio at 8pm making a pitch for donations and playing some local #KWcontent music.

#CommunityRadio #Fundraising #WaterlooRegion