Selfhosted

40173 readers

1100 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.
No spam posting.
Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.
Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.
Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).
No trolling.

Resources:

selfh.st Newsletter and index of selfhosted software and apps
awesome-selfhosted software
awesome-sysadmin resources
Self-Hosted Podcast from Jupiter Broadcasting

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

I'm new to networking and self-hosting and have no idea where to start. (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

7 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've been slowly working my way though a list of skills to learn, both to put on my resume and as personal growth. Networking is the next thing on this list. I am not sure what I am looking for, but I want to start another project. I have built many a personal computer, but the world of networking is a pretty foreign concept to me.

I have experience with building computers and a minor glance at the network-side of things. I've set up a Pi-Hole or two and set a basic CUPS server up on a RPi0w, but beyond that, I have no idea what I'm doing, or even what the possibilities are. I just see posts like this and think that it's a pretty cool hardware project.

Is there any resources you recommend to start learning, maybe what the hardware does? From my outsider's perspective, I see a lot of people's racks have at least a router, switch, and firewall, along with various other machines.

E: thank you all for the suggestions! I'll have to take some time to figure out what to do first

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Not necessarily in this order:

Learn the OSI and TCP/IP layer models.
Learn the fundamentals of IPv4 and IPv6. (Absolutely learn to count bits for IPv4)
Learn and understand the use-cases for routers, switches, and firewalls.
Learn about DNS. (Domain Name System)
Learn about DHCP. (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)
Learn important Port Numbers for important Services. (SSH is Port 22, for example. The range of port numbers from 1024 to 49151 are "registered ports" that are generally always the same)
Learn about address classes. (A, B, C are the main ones)
Learn about hardware addresses (MAC address) and how to use ARP to find them.

And more! This is just off the top of my head. Until you've studied a lot more, please, for your own sake, don't open your selfhosted ervices to the wider internet and just keep them local.

And just for fun, a poem:

The inventor of the spanning tree protocol, Radia Perlman, wrote a poem to describe how it works. When reading the poem it helps to know that in math terms, a network can be represented as a type of graph called a mesh, and that the goal of the spanning tree protocol is to turn any given network mesh into a tree structure with no loops that spans the entire set of network segments.

I think that I shall never see

A graph more lovely than a tree.

A tree whose crucial property

Is loop-free connectivity.

A tree that must be sure to span

So packets can reach every LAN.

First, the root must be selected.

By ID, it is elected.

Least cost paths from root are traced.

In the tree, these paths are placed.

A mesh is made by folks like me,

Then bridges find a spanning tree.

— Radia Perlman Algorhyme