Why You Should Self-Host Everything
Why You Should Self-Host Everything
In today's digital age, it seems like everything is subscription-based. If you're not paying for a...
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It really bugs me in general how often the term “home lab” is conflated with a “home server”, but in the context of what this article is trying to communicate, it’s only going to turn the more casually technical people it’s trying to appeal to off.
For many people, their home lab can also function as a server for self hosting things that aren’t meant to be permanent, but that’s not what a home lab is or is for. A home lab is a collection of hardware for experimenting and prototyping different processes and technologies. It’s not meant to be a permanent home for services and data. If the server in your house can’t be shut down and wiped at any given time without any disruption to or loss of data that’s important to you, then you don’t have a home lab.
Based on what I've seen, I'd also say a homelab is often needlessly complex compared to what I'd consider a sane approach to self hosting. You'll throw all sorts of complexity to imitate the complexity of things you are asked to do professionally, that are either actually bad, but have hype/marketing, or may bring value, but only at scales beyond a household's hosting needs and far simpler setups will suffice that are nearly 0 touch day to day.
Oh yeah like that’s part of it. If this article is supposed to be a call to action, somebody who starts looking into “homelabs” is going to get confused, they’ll get some sticker shock, and they won’t understand how they apply to what’s said in the article. They’ll see a mix of information from small home servers to hyperconverged infrastructure, banks of Cisco routers and switches, etc. my first home lab was a stack of old Cisco gear I used to study for my network engineering degree. If you stumbled upon an old post of mine talking about my setup and all you’re looking for is a Plex box you’ll be like “What the fuck is all this shit, I’m not trying to deal with all that”
“Self hosting”, and “home server” are just more accurate keywords to look into and actually see things more closely related to what you want.
Yep, and I see evidence of that over complication in some 'getting started' questions where people are asking about really convoluted design points and then people reinforcing that by doubling down or sometimes mentioning other weird exotic stuff, when they might be served by a checkbox in a 'dumbed down' self-hosting distribution on a single server, or maybe installing a package and just having it run, or maybe having to run a podman or docker command for some. But if they are struggling with complicated networking and scaling across a set of systems, then they are going way beyond what makes sense for a self host scenario.
i mean, technically a home lab is just something you mess with. So if you're setting up a home server to get into learning about this shit.
It would technically be a homelab.
Only if nothing on it is permanent. You can have a home lab where the things you’re testing are self hosted apps. But if the server in question is meant to be permanent, like if you're backing up the data on it, or you’ve got it on a UPS you make sure it stays available, or you would be upset if somebody came by and accidentally unplugged it during the day, it’s not a home lab.
A home lab is an unimportant, transient environment meant for tinkering, prototyping, and breaking.
A box that’s a solution to something, that’s hosting anything you can’t get rid of at a moments notice, is just a home server.
I still use the label 'homelab' for everything in my house, including the production services. It's just a convenient term and not something I've seen anyone split hairs about until now.
if nothing on it is permanent. You can have a home lab where the things you’re testing are self hosted apps. But if the server in question is meant to be permanent, like if you’re backing up the data on it, or you’ve got it on a UPS you make sure it stays available, or you would be upset if somebody came by and accidentally unplugged it during the day, it’s not a home lab.
A home lab is an unimportant, transient environment me
i don't know if i really like that definition. Going by the definition of a laboratory, it doesn't really make much sense. I mean sure they're a sterile environment, but it's incredibly unlikely that a lab is wiped clean and built from scratch, unless you get millions of dollars, and a lot of free time, i guess.
A lab is merely a place to do work with regard to studying, learning, or improving something.
People often refer to their "homelab" as an entire server rack, you want me to believe that people are willing to wheel out their entire server rack and discard the entire fucking thing? I doubt it. A homelab is just a collection of gear, (usually commercial networking gear) intended for providing an environment for you to mess around with things and learn about stuff.
In some capacity a homelab has to be semi permanent, if not for anything other than actually testing reliability and functionality of services and hardware, for the actual services themselves, because a part of the lab, is the service itself.
That’s what the definition is, nobody said you have to like it. Home labs have been a thing for a long time now. Long before laymen starting confusing the term with something it’s not, muddying up its meaning.
I mean sure they're a sterile environment, but it's incredibly unlikely that a lab is wiped clean and built from scratch, unless you get millions of dollars, and a lot of free time, i guess.
What the? No you doughnut, the data is wiped. As in you can erase all the data off the drives, install a different OS, spin up a new cluster on some different hypervisor. It’s not a lab as in “physically sterile” it’s a lab as in a place meant for experimentation.
People often refer to their "homelab" as an entire server rack, you want me to believe that people are willing to wheel out their entire server rack and discard the entire fucking thing?
What are you talking about guy? You don’t wheel anything out. You don’t discard the hardware. You ‘d discard any and all data or services on it. It’s for experimenting with things. Often for configuring things from scratch. Thats what you’re experimenting with and studying. Your home lab is the entire rack. Everything that’s running on it is what is ephemeral.
In some capacity a homelab has to be semi permanent,
The opposite. The purpose of a home lab is impermanence. The only permanent part of the home lab is the hardware itself. You can test service reliability over a long period of time on your home lab if that’s what you’re experimenting with, but you wouldn’t do so with all your live, precious data. If you’re putting things into it that are meant to stay there permanently, it’s no longer a home lab. A home lab is for testing things out, experimenting, ripping it all out, setting it all back up, in an environment outside of production. It’s the non-business version of “pre-production” or a testing environment.
That’s what the definition is, nobody said you have to like it. Home labs have been a thing for a long time now. Long before laymen starting confusing the term with something it’s not, muddying up its meaning.
i'm just going by the commonly used term, at least how i've seen it. You seem rather defensive over this.
going by the reddit homelab sub details, "The answer is easy: to learn. IT professionals, amateurs, and people who just really like computers use homelabs to experiment in. It's a sandbox environment where if you break it, you fix it, and more importantly it isn't costing money while it's down." it's somewhat fast and loose.
What the? No you doughnut, the data is wiped. As in you can erase all the data off the drives, install a different OS, spin up a new cluster on some different hypervisor. It’s not a lab as in “physically sterile” it’s a lab as in a place meant for experimentation.
baffling concept for your 2 iq brain, i wasn't talking about a homelab, as evidenced by the fact that i said the most broad, least specific form of lab, laboratory.
"A laboratory is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific or technological research, experiments, and measurement may be performed." The definition, for your reading comprehension abilities. This is what i was referring to there.
What are you talking about guy? You don’t wheel anything out. You don’t discard the hardware. You ‘d discard any and all data or services on it. It’s for experimenting with things. Often for configuring things from scratch. Thats what you’re experimenting with and studying. Your home lab is the entire rack. Everything that’s running on it is what is ephemeral.
yeah, that's my point, i was playing by your rules of the definition, which are very explicitly strict.
in an environment outside of production. It’s the non-business version of “pre-production” or a testing environment.
I.E. literally anything you don't have strong attachment to, because unlike the corpo world, you can simply do whatever the fuck you want with your hardware, you don't even have to test shit in a testing environment if you want to.
You can run it explicitly inside of a homelab if you please, nothing is going to stop you.
use homelabs to experiment in. It's a sandbox environment where if you break it, you fix it, and more importantly it isn't costing money while it's down.
Pretty in line with what I’ve said. It’s for experimentation and is meant for it to be ok to break. You’re trying really very hard to ascribe meaning that isn’t there. I don’t really know why you’re trying so very hard just to be wrong. another hint you’ll notice here is how r/homelab is its own subreddit apart from r/selfhosted
i wasn't talking about a homelab, as evidenced by the fact that i said the most broad, least specific form of lab, laboratory.
So you were just talking nonsense about something unrelated, got it. You tried to compare a homeland to the only definition of a laboratory that doesn’t apply to a technical environment. Very big brain move there.
yeah, that's my point, i was playing by your rules of the definition, which are very explicitly strict.
No, you’re just confusing technical terms and phrases for their literal equivalents. Making arguments about things that were never said. Whatever drugs you are on must be some good shit because the world as you seem to see it is all Willy Wonka.
I.E. literally anything you don't have strong attachment to, because unlike the corpo world, you can simply do whatever the fuck you want with your hardware, you don't even have to test shit in a testing environment if you want to.
No not at all. By that logic, I know some pretty big global companies with production environments that can be considered “home labs” in your eyes. The defining characteristic is the purpose and intent for the environment.
It’s very simple, not nearly as complicated or vague as you’re trying to make it out to be. If your purpose for the environment is to experiment, and nothing on that environment is of any importance to you, I.E. you could wipe the whole thing clean in a moments notice and lose nothing of value, you have a home lab.
If on the other hand you have a Nextcloud instance running on it with files you expect to be there, and would be distraught if they were gone, you do not have a home lab.
Very simple. Nothing complex or vague or overly explicit about it.