I self-host my own e-mail servers for ~25 years now. Just finished he migration to a new system today.

- OS: FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE
- MTA: Postfix 3.10
- IMAP: Dovecot 2.3
- Filter: Rspamd 3.14

I used Imapsync to migrate the content of my Mailboxes from the old to the new system. Worked absolutely fine.

Having the E-Mail Jail and the mailbox data on an encrypted ZFS dataset (AES256) that's manually unlocked with my passphrase after rebooting the system. Backups are done via ZFS send/recv to by backup server (-w for raw send to ensure, data is encrypted at rest)

- SPF: ✅
- DKIM Signing: ✅
- DMARC Reporting: ✅
- E-Mail delivery to major providers: ✅
- IPv6 working and actually being used: ✅

All working perfectly well. In about a week, I'll decomission the old Debian based system, that I used since 2017!

#linux #freebsd #sysadmin #selfhosting #email #postfix

Alt...

Console output, showing FreeBSD Jails, running E-Mail related services.

New blogpost:

"Testing Radicale, a self-hosted FOSS CalDAV and CardDAV Server"

Setting it up was easy.

Importing my calendar appointments history was not.

It doesn't have calendar sharing, and I'm on the fence as to whether this will be a deal breaker.

https://neilzone.co.uk/2026/01/testing-radicale-a-self-hosted-foss-caldav-and-carddav-server/

#FOSS #selfhosting #Linux #Radicale

I've been wondering about Bluesky's decentralization again. I can't think of any reason why I'd want to self-host Bluesky in its current form. I cannot 100% self host "my own Bluesky".

Their main selling points for building their own protocol were easier migration and better discoverability, but right now there's no simple way to migrate my Bluesky account to my own instance. And hosting the centralized parts yourself isn't really possible, or if it were, not affordable, they haven't made that feasible, by design, it seems.

Even if you self-host a PDS, Bluesky's Relay only indexes up to 10 accounts from it. You can run more, but they won't federate, the central infrastructure decides what gets seen. They control this (source: https://docs.bsky.app/blog/self-host-federation#:~:text=For%20a%20smooth%20transition%20into,for%20everyone%20in%20the%20ecosystem.). You can self-host a PDS (Personal Data Server), but you still depend on Bluesky's centralized Relay and AppView. There's no production-ready alternative infrastructure from what I gather.

It feels like I'd be renting a room in a hotel that someone else is running anyway, when I want my own hotel.

If Mastodon gGmbH vanishes tomorrow, my instance keeps running and federating with everyone else. If Bluesky PBC vanishes, the ecosystem would need to scramble to stand up replacement infrastructure that doesn't really exist yet.

ATProto keeps getting evaluated on its promises while other systems get evaluated on their merits. The "portability" selling point depends on infrastructure that isn't mature enough to actually catch you if Bluesky falls.

I trust W3C, the builders and fathers of the World Wide Web, ActivityPub and the Fediverse.

#Decentralization #SelfHosting #SelfHosted #Mastodon #Fediverse #Bluesky #Servers

@eff That's encouragement to get into self-hosting if anyone needed the bump.

#selfhosting

New post:

"A newbie's guide to self-hosting with YunoHost. Part 3: Let’s install NextCloud"

🔗 : https://blog.elenarossini.com/a-newbies-guide-to-self-hosting-with-yunohost-part-3-lets-install-nextcloud/

And sorry for repeating myself, but the path to digital independence and empowerment is easier than you thought.

My self-hosted #NextCloud has fully replaced WeTransfer, Google Drive and Dropbox for me... and it's only the tip of the iceberg.

I hope this visual guide will help fellow newbies.

#SelfHosting #YunoHost #MySoCalledSudoLife #FOSS #blog #resist

Running Mastodon on FreeBSD? Stop using wrapper scripts that break service status.

I've refactored the init scripts for Sidekiq, Puma, and Streaming to be fully production-grade:

- Clean privilege dropping (no su wrappers)
- Native signal handling for log rotation
- Correct PID tracking & status reporting.

I published the scripts and the reasoning behind them in my Codeberg gists:

https://codeberg.org/Larvitz/gists/src/branch/main/2026/20250115-FreeBSD_Mastodon_rc.d.md

I use those to run a Mastodon instance and they're working great so far!

❤️ 🦣

#FreeBSD #Mastodon #SelfHosting #mastoadmin #runbsd #OpenSource

Alt...

Screenshot showing the service status of several Mastodon services on FreeBSD

Jeff Bezos is saying the quiet part out loud. They want to kill local computing.

You will own nothing and be happy. You will rent your computing power from the cloud. You pay a subscription for the privilege of using a computer.

AI demand is artificially spiking DRAM prices and Big Tech is pushing "AI PCs," the squeeze is on to force us into a rental model.

Reject this future.

Keep your hardware local.

Run #Linux.

Own your data.

The "cloud" is just a landlord for your data.

#NoAi #FOSS #OpenSource #Privacy #SelfHost #SelfHosting #BigTech #RightToRepair #RAM #Amazon #EatTheRich

https://www.windowscentral.com/artificial-intelligence/jeff-bezos-says-the-quiet-part-out-loud-bezos-envisions-that-youll-give-up-your-pc-for-an-ai-cloud-version

Now pondering: email feudalism

#SelfHosting #EMail #lang_en

I'm getting back into #selfhosting after 20-odd years off. I keep looking at containers and kubernetes and cloud-init and feeling like they don't offer a whole lot over just writing a couple of bash scripts to provision a server (just one with everything on it) from scratch. Does anyone have anything lightweight they like for hosting a web app?

#devops

Finally (2), I have some good enough DHCP server!

Tried kea from ISC — it works but requires some additional actions to be launched under #NetBSD. It has very strange default paths for file with leases, PIDs and logs:
- /usr/pkg/var/lib/kea/
- /usr/pkg/var/lib/run/kea
- /usr/pkg/var/log/kea

BTW, it could be changed via playing with some environment variables.

Also, the default startup script uses keactrl to launch DHCP server and keactrl requires some configuration for it. So, to use "service kea start" there are two configuration files are necessary:
- /usr/pkg/etc/keactrl.conf — the main configuration file for server.
- /usr/pkg/etc/kea/keactrl.con — the configuration file for keactrl.

Then, I tried the dhcpsd — the new promising successor of ISC dhcpd, which could be configured with configuration file in Lua and conforms Unix FHS — all necessary files lies in the right places: /var/run, /var/log, etc. Sadly, it doesn't work: server starts but there are no leases for clients and no any errors in the log :-(

Then, I found cmu-dhcpd in the repos — there is a dhcpd from Carnegie Mellon University with some patches from Princeton. And, finally it works! And it also conforms Unix FHS: main configuration in the /etc/dhcpd.conf, PID-file in the /var/run/dhcpd.pid and logs in the /var/log/messages

#selfhosting #dhcp #DHCPv4 #dhcpd

Alt...

Screenshot of xterm with vi opened in it. In the vi there is a /etc/dhcpd.conf opened with some simple configuration for plain home network.

Speaking of #JDLL, some of you may remember that I had the honor of speaking at the 2025 edition, invited by the awesome @yunohost team to share my experiences self-hosting with them.

I asked my husband to tag along and bring our daughter so she could see me speaking on stage... and see that mamma does cool stuff outside the house too.

Well, my daughter brought up Lyon and the conference on the way to school the other morning. I asked her: "did you have a good time?" and her immediate response was: "I didn't understand anything you said!"

Me: "Well, it's normal, I talked about grown up stuff."

Child (4 then, 5 soon): "But what did you say?"

And then I proceeded to try to explain the concept of #selfhosting and #digitalsovereignty and how empowering it is to use a tech stack independent of #BigTech platforms... in an accessible way that she would understand.

It was SO DIFFICULT.

I probably failed spectacularly and she still doesn't understand. But it made me think that it'd be worth trying to explain this to older kids... like pre-adolescents or in their early teens? Maybe a project for another time.

Edit/add-on: my daughter asked me to speak about the Pink Panther or Bluey next time so she could understand 😂

#MySoCalledSudoLife #resist #parenting

#introduction ― I decided to create an alt account here to allow me
to connect more easily with SDF community.

My primary focus will be on tech-related things I like:
#pkgsrc on #netbsd #illumos and #slackware
#unix #sdf #gopher #smolnet #usenet #dos #c #lisp
#selfhosting #homeserver #permacomputing #lowtech
#hamradio #progrock #progmetal #ambient #postrock
#90s #scifi #cyberpunk #novels #seinen #manga

Quick question for the ZFS experts: I'm planning to install FreeBSD on my home server and want to use raidz2 with four disks. One thing is not clear to me from the manual.

I'd like to install FreeBSD on "hard disk 1" and leave the other drives untouched until I've configured the system (so I can still boot into the current OS on let's say "hard disk 2"). After having configured the system, I'd like to add "hard disk 2 - 4" to the existing zpool which has "hard disk 1", so that I end up with a raidz2 setup.

Reading https://openzfs.github.io/openzfs-docs/man/master/8/zpool-attach.8.html I'm not sure how I should go about this. Should I configure the initial zpool (with one hdd) already as raidz2 (is that possible?), or is it converted automatically once I add the extra drives? The way I read the man page, the result after `zpool attach` will be a mirror instead of raidz2.

As you can tell, I'm quite new to this and still figuring things out. Any advice, links or boosts are greatly appreciated.

#zfs #raid #FreeBSD #BSD #SelfHosting #homelab

Glad to share the details for our Q1 2026 live training series, including that of Cloudbreak, a new course in #selfhosting geared toward those with no prior relevant skills.

As with 2025, seats are limited to ensure quality coaching with great outcomes for participants.

https://courses.nikau.io/currently-available-courses

Alt...

A screenshot of the referenced website.

Commitin programming crimes }:->

Few weeks ago I seriously looked to the mine OpenHAB installation and asked a question for myself: "Am I really need it?" Look, I have a few ZigBee devices, which are connected to the my server with the help of ZigBee2MQTT. Thusly, all necessary values and knobs are accessible through the MQTT topics.

And I'm using the OpenHAB (big Java application which eats ton's of RAM and constantly swapping) just to:
1) Read values from MQTT topic
2) Read weather forecast from Open-Meteo through simple REST API endpoints
3) Store all the data to the PostgreSQL DB.
4) Display these data in the nice Web page which works only in browsers with JS engine.

So, basically, I trade tons of RAM and processing power just for a nice web-page with few indicators. While retrieving data from my ZigBee devices processed by the another service.

After that thought, I started to think about replacing this monster with small hand-written program, which will not eat 700 MB of RAM. Just Nginx, small FastCGI script on C, which will read values from DB and display them on the simple HTML page. And another small daemon (also written in C) which will take data from MQTT topic (and from REST API of Open-Meteo) and will write them to the DB. And possibly some PGSQL procedures to analyze these data.

At least I'll have fun

#programming #C #smarthome #selfhosting

Alt...

Emacs buffer with some C code, which spews out the string with HTML, with substituted values for temperature and humidity.

Today's #FreeSoftwareAdvent is paperless-ngx, a key part of keeping us, well, paperless.

It is a document management tool, but I use it in a very basic way: it is hooked up to our scanner, and anything we scan gets automatically converted to PDF and OCRd. We then shred the paper. I try to scan, and shred, everything on the day that it arrives.

It is particularly useful around tax return time, as it means I can easily get the information I need from stuff which people have posted to us.

https://github.com/paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx

#FOSS #SelfHosting #Paperless

If you’re interested in sharing the Tailscale message with me and my team I’m hiring! #tailscale #selfhosting

https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/tailscale/jobs/4641614005

🎄 Advent of Donations - Day 16 🎄

On day 16 we have another pic from the tool stack I use in my home lab: Restic the free and open source backup solution. I use it to create incremental backup and store them in my self-hosted minIO instances. It's again one of those tool that just does its job without getting in your way.

Learn more about Advent of Donations and Restic in my latest blog update: https://britter.dev/blog/2025/12/01/advent-of-donations/#day-16---restic

#AdventOfDonations #restic #backup #HomeLab #SelfHosting

RE: https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@Larvitz/115678438984350657

FreeBSD 15.0-p1 fixed the bhyve regression, I've had 🙂 Home-server now running stable on the new release

YAY!

root@voyager:~ # freebsd-version -kru
15.0-RELEASE
15.0-RELEASE
15.0-RELEASE-p1

root@voyager:~ # uptime
10:14PM up 58 mins, 2 users, load averages: 1.27, 1.44, 1.22

#freebsd #freebsd15 #selfhosting

New post:

"A newbie's guide to self-hosting with #YunoHost. Part 2: installation & setup"

🔗 : https://blog.elenarossini.com/a-newbies-guide-to-self-hosting-with-yunohost-part-2-installation-setup/

with a special shout-out to @shollyethan and @ilja who, a year ago, encouraged me to try self-hosting. And of course immense gratitude to the @yunohost team for making all this possible ❤️

I hope this guide may inspire others to try it, too. The path to digital independence and empowerment is easier than you thought...

#selfhosting #FOSS #empowerment

My way of rebelling against techbros and autocrats:

December 2024: quit all Big Tech platforms and start #selfhosting essential services

December 2025: write guides for newbies about how to self-host

I'm also in discussion with a blogger I admire to start a podcast about tech... where we'll focus on solutions (instead of problems)... aiming to inspire others to join in...

It's been a really heavy year but these little acts of rebellion give me hope ✨

Self-hosting does not make your data safe.

If you don't put in place, review, *and test* backup and recovery plans,,and security measures appropriate to the risk, your data are not "safe".

Your data might be less affected by the whims of third parties, which can be valuable for sure, but don't confuse that with your data being "safe".

And I say this as someone who loves self-hosting.

Any "beginners' guide to self-hosting" which doesn't lead with, or at least focus on, security and resiliency, is getting it wrong, IMHO.

#SelfHosting

BookLore: A self-hosted, multi-user digital library with smart shelves, auto metadata, Kobo & KOReader sync, BookDrop imports, OPDS support, and a built-in reader for EPUB, PDF, and comics.

https://github.com/booklore-app/booklore

#Books #Reading #FOSS #SelfHosting #BookLore #Software

Good morning Fedi friends!

This week I will publish a first post in my mini series for total newbies about how to self-host with #YunoHost.

The very first article will simply cover the basics of what is needed... then part 2 will be the step-by-step installation and connecting a domain + creating a subdomain... and then part 3 will cover installing an app (NextCloud) and setting up a backup system.

I'm hoping to get all this done before Christmas, in time for my one year anniversary of self-hosting with YunoHost (thank you again @ilja for setting all this in motion last year).

As I type this, I'm currently backing up my YunoHost and these days my backup files are about 13GB in size, broken down as follows (in descending order):

• #GoToSocial: 5.3 GB
• #PeerTube: 4 GB
• #NextCloud: 2.3 GB
• #Pixelfed: 1.4 GB
• #LinkStack: 91 MB

Wishing you all a great day & week!

#MySoCalledSudoLife #SelfHosting

Just published: how I migrated the Mastodon instance burningboard.net to a multi‑jail FreeBSD setup with BastilleBSD. Central PF firewall, real dual‑stack, and clean service separation.

https://blog.hofstede.it/migrating-burningboardnet-mastodon-instance-to-a-multi-jail-freebsd-setup/

#FreeBSD #BastilleBSD #Mastodon #SelfHosting #IPv6

🎄 Advent of Donations - Day 2 🎄

Today's donation of $50 go to Daniel García, maintainer of the Vaultwarden project.

Read more about Vaultwarden and why I'm sponsoring it in my blog: https://britter.dev/blog/2025/12/01/advent-of-donations/

#opensource #selfhosting #vaultwarden #bitwarden #donation #AdventOfDonations

In the past few days I’ve seen talk about RAM prices shooting up due to demand from big datacenters.

Today I read that a historic brand like Crucial - I own plenty of their hardware, including SSDs - is dropping consumer products to focus on gear for those same datacenters.
The result (or maybe the intention?) is to push people away from self hosting, undermine the OwnYourData idea and make everyone depend on huge datacenters for life.

So much for owning your data.
So much for decentralisation.

Because taking down one giant datacenter is far easier than taking down thousands or millions of individual nodes.

Friends and colleagues, don’t trade your freedom for a bit of convenience. Once you give it away, getting it back is very hard.

Always Own Your Data.

#OwnYourData #SelfHosting

:; jq -r '.id' < $(ag -l 'six thirty twelve meters' ~/sites/schmonz.com/snac/data/user/schmonz/public)
https://schmonz.com/snac/schmonz/p/1743383179.235112

Let's see how this setup pans out: https://schmonz.com/2025/04/15/sensible-basic-minecraft-hosting/

#SelfHosting #s6 #ProcessSupervision