Its so fun to run your own server

I wrote a long post recently about trying out a virtual private server (VPS) hosting plan in which one is allocated a virtual machine in the cloud.

This is fundamentally different than the shared hosting plans, such as the one this site is running on, which I’ve been using for the past several years and have, quite sadly, consisted of most of the extent of my access to and use of Linux.

But after having a horrible experience with a VPS provider and a plan that sounded too good to be true and truly was, I decided to put Debian on an old laptop and use my home network.

Its upsetting that consumer broadband plans deliberately provide extremely limited upload bandwidth. Its a ripoff I think and I think that its planned to be this way to keep the major content providers in power.

Because otherwise it would not be necessary to have a hosting plan at all. Everyone already pays for broadband. Everyone should really have enough upload bandwidth to handle a moderate load of Internet traffic to their own server(s), running their own service(s).

Now that I’ve been running my little server for a while I’m loving it. I have everything configured on it exactly the way I want. Today I’ve been working on final touches on a web-monitoring system and hardened the mail server. I’m running my own CalDav/CardDav server. I keep reading about everyone upset with the big companies providing their “free” services like mail, contacts, and calendaring but it seems stupid to me because I’m running all these things on my own.

No one can pry into my information. It cannot be accessed and stored via covert dragnets. No marketing parasites ripoff my data and try to sell useless hyped-up shit with it. It is my data which I have control over.

Its interesting too. Because not long after my little server was set up and connected to the Internet I saw deliberate, concerted attacks against it. I saw extensive attempts at intrusion which I had to take steps to deal with.

While there’s freedom there is also an unbelievable amount of hostility. It was necessary to lock some things down and harden the system from intrusion attempts. I don’t have an expensive enterprise firewall on my little network here. I just have a consumer router/modem and then my little server. But that little server is strong and powerful and can do a lot.