kevincox

joined 3 years ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The concern is that it would be nice if the UNIX users and LDAP is automatically in sync and managed from a version controlled source. I guess the answer is just build up a static LDAP database from my existing configs. It would be nice to have one authoritative system on the server but I guess as long as they are both built from one source of truth it shouldn't be an issue.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Yes, LDAP is a general tool. But many applications that I am interested in using it for user information. That is what I want to use it for. I'm not really interested in storing other data.

I think you are sort of missing the goal of the question. I have a bunch of self-hosted services like Jellyfin, qBittorrent, PhotoPrism, Metabase ... I want to avoid having to configure users in each one individually. I am considering LDAP because it is supported by many of these services. I'm not concerned about synchronizing UNIX users, I already have that solved. (If I need to move those to LDAP as well that can be considered, but isn't a goal).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (5 children)

I do use a reverse proxy but for various reasons you can't just block off some apps. For example if you want to play Jellyfin on a Chromecast or similar, or PhotoPrism if you want to use sharing links. Unfortunately these systems are designed around the built-in auth and you can't just slap a proxy in front.

I do use nginx with basic with in front of services where I can. I trust nginx much more than 10 different services with varying quality levels. But unfortunately not all services play well.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (7 children)

How are you configuring this? I checked for Jellyfin and their are third-party plugins which don't look too mature, but none of them seem to work with apps. qBittorrent doesn't support much (actually I may be able to put reverse-proxy auth in front... I'll look into that) and Metabase locks SSO behind a premium subscription.

IDK why but it does seem that LDAP is much more widely supported. Or am I missing some method to make it work

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (9 children)

But the problem is that most self-hosted apps don't integrate well with these. For example qBittorrent, Jellyfin, Metabase and many other common self-hosted apps.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

NixOS makes it very easy to declaratively configure servers. For example the users config to manage UNIX users: https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/options#opt-users.users

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Yet another service to maintain. If the server is crashing you can't log in, so you need backup UNIX users anyways.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I mean it is always better to have more open source. But the point of the multi-hop system is that you don't need to trust the server. Even if the server was open source:

  1. You wouldn't know that we are running an unmodified version.
  2. If you need to trust the server then someone could compel us to tap it or monitor it.

The open source client is enough to verify this and the security of the whole scheme.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Because these buckets probably don't exist (citation needed on all of these, I don't have access to data from a large online store).

I suspect that this is actually a "good" recommendation in the face of many other facts.

  1. Any recommendation has a very low risk of success. Outside of searching contexts (where there is clear intent) I suspect that the chance of a recommendation leading to a purchase is <1%.
  2. You usually make more money from bigger sales. So showing a 1% expected $1k GPU is better than showing a 20% expected purchase $20 pair of sunglasses (and I doubt any recommendation has 20% purchase rate outside of clear sources intent).
  3. People return things. Return rate is much higher than 1% on many platforms and some good chunk of these will want a similar product to replace the defective/bad/unsuitable one.
    • For Amazon this maybe isn't a good excuse because they should be able to incorporate return information into the recommendations. But even then, lots of people may prefer to order a second one before going through with the return. Maybe they want to do a comparison to be sure that they like the new one more before sending the first back.
  4. People do have uses for multiple even for things that wouldn't seem that way at first glance. If I just bought a GPU and am happy with it maybe my partner needs an upgrade (or gets a little jealous). Maybe I will see a similar or identical product recommended and get it for her. Maybe I like my new fridge and also want to replace my second basement fridge with it, or maybe the quietness of the new one made me realize how loud the other one is and I want to get a similar model to replace it.
  5. People recommend things to each other. Maybe I just bought a GPU and my buddy is asking if I like it. The next day I see a recommendation for a GPU that I think is a good open for them, I send the link.

Yes, all of these scenarios are unlikely, but I suspect that is actually significantly higher than the baseline, and for the big items that people usually complain about much more profitable. I suspect you see these ads because they work. Not as in they are often right, but that they have higher expected value than other available ads.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Mullvad is one of the best options if you care about privacy. They take privacy seriously, both on their side and pushing users towards private options. They also support fully anonymous payments. Their price is also incredibly reasonable.

I'm actually working on a VPN product as well. It is a multi-hop system so that we can't track you. But it isn't publicly available yet, so in the meantime I happily recommend Mullvad.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 months ago

This is basically admitting that consumers don't actually value their subscription service for the cost. If users were buying used bikes and signing up for subscriptions Peloton would be thrilled, they would do everything that they could to encourage that like free trials. But it must be that most people who buy used bikes don't find the subscription worth it and cancel within a few months. Adding this fee both extracts more money and creates a sunk cost fallacy that will cause them to go longer before cancelling.

If the product sold itself they would just let people pay them subscriptions, its basically free money.

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