I have used FreeBSD back in 1999 to provide hosting services for a company that I have worked. Web server, DNS, POP/SMTP, FTP and squid cache proxy .it was used also internally for DHCP and NAT routing (since we had only one public IP). Just configured it like an appliance and never had a problem, even uptime was counted in months (exception was package and kernel upgrades).

Web rings on HN content. That was a 20 min nostalgia trip. Thank you

I feel like these "self-host and free yourself" articles would be better served giving us an estimate on the amount of time they spent on the process. That might help sell people more if I know it will take me 3 hours to setup a Bastille VPS w/jails for Caddy website, syncthing, Cal/Card/WebDAV, etc.

Then I can put 1.5 hours of effort into it one day setting up and getting used to Bastille and another 1.5 hours another day installing my software. Maybe my request is silly but most people say "I don't have the time or patience to self host" but what does "dont have the time" mean? Sure it's variable from person to person. It might increase interest in self hosting if people have a better idea of what they would be getting into.

This would pair well with encouraging a system like Bastille that just wants to get out of your way (two contextual views of time-savings).

The lack of full rust support has kept me from developing on FreeBSD. I prefer it as a file server.

Don't forget to set up toor user password! /thin foil hat on It's deliberate! /thin foil hat off

Love seeing BSD still getting real use, old school tech with true hacker vibes!

what about docker/containerd compatibility? is now possible to run on freebsd?

Why choose Free/OpenBSD instead of Debian, CentOS, or any other distro?

All of this person's problems seem to stem from a practice of implementing business style setups at home. The truth is you don't need any containerization/VMs for a home server setup. You don't need all the nines for uptime either, it's perfectly okay to be offline for a week or whatever. It's your stuff! No one else has a say. The idea that everything has to be running on a separate OS from the one you use is a killer.

You don't need to start over in a new OS for this. Just don't cargo cult. Linux can do all this fine natively without containers and without risk in very straightforward ways if you ignore all the "deployal" memes or ideas of fallbacks. Just install nginx from your repos on your desktop, throw in some .html files to a directory and play.

Its fine to have fun with self-hosting.

The problem is when self-hosting amateur stuff leaks into professional life.

And then you have a expert beginner pushing their homelab/Self-hosting