Anyone else just sick of trying to follow guides that cover 95% of the process, or maybe slightly miss a step and then spend hours troubleshooting setups just to get it to work?
I think I just have too much going in my “lab” the point that when something breaks (and my wife and/or kids complain) it’s more of a hassle to try and remember how to fix or troubleshoot stuff. I lightly document myself cuz I feel like I can remember well enough. But then it’s a style to find the time to fix, or stuff is tested and 80%completed but never fully used because life is busy and I don’t have loads of free time to pour into this stuff anymore. I hate giving all that data to big tech, but I also hate trying to manage 15 different containers or VMs, or other services. Some stuff is fine/easy or requires little effort, but others just don’t seem worth it.
I miss GUIs with stuff where I could fumble through settings to fix it as is easier for me to look through all that vs read a bunch of commands.
Idk, do you get lab burnout? Maybe cuz I do IT for work too it just feels like it’s never ending…
🤮 I hate gui config! Way too much hassle. Give me cli and a config file anyday! I love being able to just ssh into my server anytime from anywhere and fix, modify or install and setup something.
The key to not being overwhelmed is manageable deployment. Only setup one service at a time, get it working, safe and reliable before switching to actually using full time, then once certain it’s solid, implement the next tool or deployment.
My servers have almost no breakages or issues. They run 24/7/365 and are solid and reliable. Only time anything breaks is either an update or new service deployment, but they are just user error by me and not the servers fault.
Although I don’t work in IT so maybe the small bits of maintenance I actually do feel less to me?
I have 26 containers running, plus a fair few bare metal services. Plus I do a bit of software dev as a hobby.
I love cli and config files, so I can write some scripts to automate it all.
It documents itself.
Whenever I have to do GUI stuff I always forget a step or do things out of order or something.
I don’t run a service unless it has reasonably good documentation. I’ll go through it first and make sure I understand how it’s supposed to run, what port(s) are used, and if I have an actual, practical use case for it.
You’re absolutely correct in that sometimes the documentation glosses over or completely omits important details. One such service is Radicale. The documentation for running a Docker container is severely lacking.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters Git Popular version control system, primarily for code IP Internet Protocol IoT Internet of Things for device controllers LAMP Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP stack for webhosting LXC Linux Containers Plex Brand of media server package RPi Raspberry Pi brand of SBC SBC Single-Board Computer SMB Server Message Block protocol for file and printer sharing; Windows-native SSO Single Sign-On VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)
10 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 4 acronyms.
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Yes, I get lab burnout. I do not want to be fiddling with stuff after my day job. You should give yourself a break and do something else after hours, my dude.
BUT
I do not miss GUIs. Containers are a massive win in terms because they are declarative, reproducible, and can be version controlled.
Yeah, since Christmas, I more it sounds silly, but I’ve been playing a ton of video games with my kids lol. But not like CoD, more like Grounded 2, Gang Beasts, and Stumble Guys lmao
You’re doing i right. Playing cool games with your kids sounds like a blast and some great memories :)
Check out the YUNOhost repos. If everything you need is there (or equivalents thereof), you could start using that. After running the installation script you can do everything graphically via a web UI. Mine runs for months at a time with no intervention whatsoever. To be on the safe side I make a backup before I update or make any changes, and if there is a problem just restore with a couple of clicks via my hosting control panel.
I got into it because it’s designed for noobs but I think it would be great for anyone who just want to relax. Highly recommend.
Apparently I’m more than noob level 😅 every time I try to get to Traccar, I get my gateway’s landing page.
Regular Traccar uses port 8082 for the web and 5055 for app. I cannot get that either through domain (gateway) or lan IP (yunohost)
Normally I’d go 1.2.3.4:8082 (not my real lan IP) but Yuno seems to ignore that.
I’ll do some more digging when I get home, I’m at work with broken concentration
You should take notes about how you set up each app. I have a directory for each self hosted app, and I include a README.md that includes stuff like links to repos and tutorials, lists of nuances of the setup, itemized lists of things that I’d like to do with it in the future, and any shortcomings it has for my purposes. Of course I also include build scripts so I can just “make bounce” and the software starts up without me having to remember all the app-specific commands and configs.
If a tutorial gets you 95% of the way, and you manage to get the other 5% on your own, write down that info. Future you will be thankful. If not, write a section called “up next” that details where you’re running into challenges and need to make improvements.
I started a blog specifically to make me document these things in a digestable manner. I doubt anyone will ever see it, but it’s for me. It’s a historical record of my projects and the steps and problems experienced when setting them up.
I’m using 11ty so I can just write markdown notes and publish static HTML using a very simple 11ty template. That takes all the hassle out of wrangling a website and all I have to do is markdown.
If someone stumbles across it in the slop ridden searchscape, I hope it helps them, but I know it will help me and that’s the goal.
Would love to see the blog
I appreciates that but unfortunately it is under a different identity and I don’t want to cross the two.
Understandable. Stay safe out there, thanks anyways :)
If a project doesn’t make it dead simple to manage via docker compose and environment variables, just don’t use it.
I run close to 100 services all using docker compose and it’s an incredibly simple, repeatable, self documenting process. Spinning up some new things is effortless and takes minutes to have it set up, accessible from the internet, and connected to my SSO.
Sometimes you see a program and it starts with “Clone this repo” and it has a docker compose file, six env files, some extra fig files, and consists of a front end container, back end container. Database container, message queueing container, etc… just close that web page and don’t bother with that project lol.
That being said, I think there’s a bigger issue at play here. If you “work in IT” and are burnt out from “15 containers and a lack of a gui” I’m afraid to say you’re in the wrong field of work and you’re trying to jam a square peg in a round hole
I reject a lot of apps that require a docker compose that contains a database and caching infrastructure etc. All I need is the process and they ought to use SQLite by default because my needs are not going to exceed its capabilities. A lot of these self hosted apps are being overbuilt and coming without defaults or poor defaults and causing a lot of extra work to deploy them.
Databases.
I ran PaperlessNGX for a while, everything is fine. Suddenly I realize its version of Postgresql is not supported anymore so the container won’t start.
Following some guides, trying to log into the container by itself, and then use a bunch of commands to attempt to migrate said database have not really worked.
This is one of those things that feels like a HUGE gotcha to somebody that doesn’t work with databases.
So the container’s kinda just sitting there, disabled. I’m considering just starting it all fresh with the same data volume and redoing all that information, or giving this thing another go…
…But yeah I’ve kinda learned to hate things that rely on database containers that can’t update themselves or have automated migration scripts.
I’m glad I didn’t rely on that service TOO much.
Its a big problem. I also dump projects that don’t automatically migrate their own SQLite scehema’s requiring manual intervention. That is a terrible way to treat the customer, just update the file. Separate databases always run into versioning issues at some point and require manual intervention and data migration and its a massive waste of the users time.
My biggest problem is every docker image thinks they’re a unique snowflake and how would anyone else be using such a unique port number like 80?
I know I can change, believe me I know I have to change it, but I wish guides would acknowledge it and emphasize choosing a unique port.
Containers are ment to be used with docker networks making it a non-issue, most of the time you want your services to forward 80/443 since thats the default port your reverse proxy is going to call
Most put it on port 80 with the perfectly valid assumption that the user is sticking a reverse proxy in front of it. Container should expose 80 not port forward 80.
There are no valid assumptions for port 80 imo. Unless your software is literally a pure http server, you should assume something else has already bound to port 80.
Why do I have vague memories of Skype wanting to use port 80 for something and me having issues with that some 15 years ago?
Edit: I just realized this might be for containerized applications… I’m still used to running it on bare metal. Still though… 80 seems sacrilege.
