Hey, folks!
So, the card linked to my hetzner account expired, and while I updated it everywhere else, the hetzner info fell through the cracks. They deleted my storageshare server, and erased everything, because I'm a fool, and didn't have their emails going to an account I ever check. I've spent the last several days feeling like I'd had a digital housefire. Things kept popping into my head, photos I had taken 10 years ago, or early drafts of the novel I'm writing... It's been pretty fucking depressing.
But, tonight, I fired up a laptop I haven't used in a while to find that most of what was in nextcloud was backed up on it. It's not everything, but it's the bulk of it.
I'd like for this to never happen again. I'm wondering if there's a complete idiot's guide to self hosting nextcloud? When I say I know nothing about this, please believe me. We're talking starting from scratch. I've never self hosted anything, and I have no idea where to begin. I'm on fedora silverblue, but just because I'm using linux doesn't mean I know anything. It just means I'm cheap. Haha. All I know is that I never want to go through that feeling of complete loss again. I'll make sure that whatever I do, it'll be backed up in two locations at least. I was paying for the family plan, and my brother, his wife, my mom, and a friend lost access to their stuff, too. So far as I know, there isn't a back up of their stuff. I really messed up here.
Any help is really appreciated, thanks in advance!
Check if you're behind CGNAT
The allocated address block for CGNAT is 100.64.0.0/10, i.e. IP addresses from 100.64.0.0 to 100.127.255.255. If your routers WAN IP is one of those then selfhosting stuff accessible from outside requires a lot more work. Ask your ISP if you can have a public IP address and what the cost is or go into the rabbit hole of bypassing cgnat with a vps.
If you're gonna host data, especially other peoples data*, learn and use the 3-2-1 backup strategy
For proxmox which I talk about more further down you can look into their own Proxmox backup server solution.
Data redundancy, either through BIOS/UEFI RAID1 (for two disks) or RAID10 (for four disks) or by running ZFS
This isn't a backup, this is about being able to replace a faulty drive without downtime and having an easier rebuild process compared to restoring from backup.
Virtualization, for a beginner that already runs linux I would recommend Proxmox
This makes it more complicated to get started but easier to maintain the installation and easier to migrate it to new hardware.
It also allows you more room to learn by doing, that's the bonus of the easier restore, cloning and snapshotting of virtual machines compared to bare metal.
*If you're new to selfhosting then begin with yourself and having only local in-house access. As a step 2 learn how to setup a vpn for access from the outside. Step 3 would be learning how to use a reverse proxy, lets-encrypt and so on for SSL access without vpn.
I'm behind CGNAT and my ISP uses addresses in the 10.x.x.x range. Don't assume you're not behind CGNAT if you're outside of the 100.64.0.0 range.
Instead, check the WAN IP on your router and go online and type "what's my IP." If they match, then you need to test ports to see of your ISP allows it. To do that:
You can skip the port checking if you like, but it'll be inconclusive if the last step doesn't work (e.g. could be a firewall on your PC or something).
Like https://canyouseeme.org/
Very good advices!