Out of curiosity I'm currently considering to self-host a Lemmy and a Mastodon instance. Just for me (and maybe 2-3 close friends) privately. The proposition of having full control over my social media sounds appealing to me.
However, I'm not a software developer and I have next to no experience in self-hosting anything. Also, I don't plan to make self-hosting a hobby of mine.
Given these circumstances - how much time investment do you think is needed to keep everything running smoothly. I wouldn't mind spending 1-2 hours a week, but if it's more like 1-2 hours a day, I would stay clear.
Also, are there resources for troubleshooting available? I found the installations guides and some seem to be quite good for a layperson, giving step-by-step advice, however where to go if it doesn't work?
I'm trying to make up my mind if it would be worthwhile to try or if I set myself up with wasting a lot of time :) So, any advise is welcome.
Usually, maintaining a server doesn't take much time once set-up. I personally use NixOS to manage my server, but it's very complicated, and I would not recommend it to a non-developer. However, there is tools/OS called YUNoHost, that is able automatically set up a bunch of services including lemmy and mastodon.
They also provide a free third level domain name (or can use your own, but do it before installing Mastodon or Lemmy, as it'll break federatio.), but you'll need to provide a server. You can rent one (I use an OVH VPS), but you may also just use a spare computer at home, or buy a cheap one (Everything that isn't a slow HDD should work well). I'm unsure about what capacity you need to plan for storage thought.
You should also probably make sure your ISP provide a static IP (that may disabled by default) and that they allow to configure port forwarding (can be found in the router settings usually).
Also, don't forget to set up an automatic backup system. YUNoHost probably recommend something in that matter.
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