How much maintenance do you find your self-hosting involves?

I recognize this will vary depending on how much you self-host, so I'm curious about the range of experiences from the few self-hosted things to the many self-hosted things.

Also how might you compare it to other maintenance of your other online systems (e.g. personal computer/phone/etc.)?

eluminx ,
@eluminx@lemmy.world avatar

Maybe 1-2 hours a week for ~23 docker containers, 3 LXCs and proxmox, so not much. Most of that time is spend SSH-ing doing minor updates. Running Debian on everything has been amazing. Stability is just phenomenal.

sramder ,
@sramder@lemmy.world avatar

That must be why it stopped working ;-)

Does 48 hours not getting a reverse proxy working count?

It’s FreeNAS and I don’t really hoast anything but the plex server… so 48 hours.

If deleting files counts 10 days a year, if not 1 day a year.

crony , (edited )
@crony@lemmy.cronyakatsuki.xyz avatar

Minimal, I have to force myself to check the servers for updates atleast once a week.

Main problem for me is I automated podman and docker updates with their respective autoupdate mechanisms and use ntfy for push notifications so I know if a service stops working and I had an update recently on it that it's an update issue.

Also have uptime monitor wih uptime kuma to monitor state of my services to catch them not working before I do, also ntfy for push notifications.

Also have grafana+prometheus seted up on my biggest server for monitoring and alerting with alertmanager+mail to get notifications on even more errors.

So in general I only have to worry about occasional once every few months error and updates of the host system (debian).

bluegandalf ,

30 docker stacks

5mins a day involving updates and checking github for release notes

15 minutes a day "acquiring" stuff for the server

chrundle ,
@chrundle@lemmy.world avatar

My mini-pc with Debian runs RunTipi 24/7 with Navidrome, Jellyfin and Tailscale. Once every 2-3 weeks I plug in the monitor to run updates and add/remove some media.

NENathaniel ,
@NENathaniel@lemmy.ca avatar

As a complete noob trying to make A TrueNAS server, none and then suddenly lots when idk how to fix something that broke

Opisek ,

As others said, the initial setup may consume some time, but once it's running, it just works. I dockerize almost everything and have automatic backups set up.

dlundh ,

A lot less since I started using docker instead of running separate vms for everything. Less systems to update is bliss.

Mikelius ,
@Mikelius@lemmy.ml avatar

Not much for myself, like many others. But my backups are manual. I have an external drive I backup to and unplug as I intentionally want to keep it completely isolated from the network in case of a breach. Because of that, maybe 10 minutes a week? Running gentoo with tons of scripts and docker containers that I have automatically updating. The only time I need to intervene the updates is when my script sends me a push notification of an eselect news item (like a major upcoming update) or kernel update.

I also use a custom monitoring software I wrote that ties into a MySQL db that's connected to with grafana for general software, network alerts (new devices connecting to network, suspicious DNS requests, suspicious ports, suspicious countries being reached out to like china, etc) or hardware failures (like a raid drive failing).... So yeah, automate if you know how to script or program, and you'll be pretty much worry free most of the time.

thirdBreakfast ,

I run two local physical servers, one production and one dev (and a third prod2 kept in case of a prod1 failure), and two remote production/backup servers all running Proxmox, and two VPSs. Most apps are dockerised inside LXC containers (on Proxmox) or just docker on Ubuntu (VPSs). Each of the three locations runs a Synology NAS in addition to the server.

Backups run automatically, and I manually run apt updates on everything each weekend with a single ansible playbook. Every host runs a little golang program that exposes the memory and disk use percent as a JSON endpoint, and I use two instances of Uptime Kuma (one local, and one on fly.io) to monitor all of those with keywords.

So -

  • weekly: 10 minutes to run the update playbook, and I usually ssh into the VPS's, have a look at the Fail2Ban stats and reboot them if needed. I also look at each of the Proxmox GUIs to check the backs have been working as expected.
  • Monthly: stop the local prod machine and switch to the prod2 machine (from backups) for a few days. Probably 30 minutes each way, most of it waiting for backups.
  • From time to time (if I hear of a security update), but generally every three months: Look through my container versions and see if I want to update them. They're on docker compose so the steps are just backup the LXC, docker down, pull, up - probs 5 minutes per container.
  • Yearly: consider if I need to do operating systems - eg to Proxmox 8, or a new Debian or Ubuntu LTS
  • Yearly: visit the remotes and have a proper check/clean up/updates
cole ,
@cole@lemdro.id avatar

love fly.io

fun fact, lemdro.id is hosted entirely on fly.io

CatTrickery ,

Since scrapping systemd, a hell of a lot less but it can occasionally be a bit of messing about when my dynamic ip gets reassigned.

Deckweiss ,

After my Nextcloud server just killed itself from an update and I ditched that junk software, nearly zero maintenance.

I have

  • autoupdates on.
  • daily borgbackups to hetzner storage box.
  • auto snapshots of the servers and hetzer.
  • cloud-init scripts ready for any of the servers.
  • Xpipe for management
  • keepass as a backup for all the ssh keys and password

And I have never used any of those ... it just runs and keeps running.

I am selfhosting

  • a website
  • a booking service for me
  • caldav server
  • forgejo
  • opengist
  • jitsi

I need to setup some file sharing thing (Nextcloud replacement) but I am not sure what. My usecase is mainly 1) Archiving junk 2) syncing files between three devices 3) streaming my music collection

Lem453 ,

I moved form next cloud to seafile. The file sync is so much better than next cloud and own cloud.

It has a normal windows client and also a mount type client (seadrive) which is also amazing for large libraries.

I have mine setup with oAuth via Authentik and it works super well.

Deckweiss ,

I actually moved from seafile to nextcloud, because when I have two PCs running simultaneously it would constantly have sync errors and required manually resolving them all the time. Sadly nextcloud wasn't really better. But I am now looking for solutions that can avoid file conflicts with two simultaneous clients.

Lem453 ,

Are you changing the same files at the same time?

I have multiple computers syncing into the same library all the time without issue.

Deckweiss ,

Are you changing the same files at the same time?

Rarely.
But there is some offline laptop use compounded with slow sync times. (I was running it on a raspi with external usb hdd enclosure)

Either way, I'd like something less fragile. I'll test seafile again sometime, thanks.

metaStatic ,

sometimes I remember I'm self hosting things

BigMikeInAustin ,

As long as you remember before you turn off the computer!

grue ,

I don't understand. "Turn... off?"

Opisek ,

neofetch proudly displaying 5 months of uptime

metaStatic ,

my main PC hosts nothing, everything else is always on

seaQueue ,
@seaQueue@lemmy.world avatar

+1 automate your backup rolling, setup your monitoring and alerting and then ignore everything until something actually goes wrong. I touch my lab a handful of times a year when it's time for major updates, otherwise it basically runs itself.

hperrin ,

If you set it up really well, you’ll probably only need to invest maybe an hour or so every week or two. But it also depends on what kind of maintenance you mean. I spend a lot of time downloading things and putting them in the right place so that my TV is properly entertaining. Is that maintenance? As for updating things, I’ve set up most of that to be automatic. The stuff that’s not automatic, like pulling new docker images, I do every couple weeks. Sometimes that involves running update scripts or changing configs. Usually it’s just a couple commands.

ALostInquirer OP ,

Yeah, to clarify I don't mean organizing/arranging files as a part of maintenance, moreso handling different installs/configs/updating. Sometimes since more folks come around to ask for help it can appear as if it's all much more involved to maintain than it may otherwise be (with a mix of the right setups and knowledge to deal with any hiccups).

CarbonatedPastaSauce ,

It's bursty; I tend to do a lot of work on stuff when I do a hardware upgrade, but otherwise it's set it and forget it for the most part. The only servers I pay any significant attention to in terms of frequent maintenance and security checks are the MTAs in the DMZ for my email. Nothing else is exposed to the internet for inbound traffic except a game server VM that's segregated (credential-wise and network-wise) from everything else, so if it does get compromised it would be a very minimal danger to the rest of my network. Everything either has automated updates, or for servers I want more control over I manually update them when the mood strikes me or a big vulnerability that affects my software hits the news.

TL;DR If you averaged it over a year, I maybe spend 30-60 minutes a week on self hosting maintenance tasks for 4 physical servers and about 20 VM's.

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