this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2025
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Selfhosted

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Risks of self-hosting a public-facing forum? (lemmy.radio)
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by early_riser@lemmy.radio to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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I've wanted to do this for a long time. My current ADHD hyperfixation is NodeBB, but I think my questions fit most anything that you want to be available to the general public and not just yourself and your friends.

Basically, I want to host a NodeBB instance intended for the general public out of my house. What are the risks of doing this? In particular, what are the risks of doling out a web address that points to my personal IP address? Is this even a good idea? Or should I just rent a VPS? This is 80% me wanting to improve my sysadmin skills, and 20% me wanting to create a community.

I have a DMZ in place. Hosts in the DMZ cannot reach the LAN, but LAN hosts can reach the DMZ. If necessary, I can make sure DMZ hosts can't communicate with each other.

I have synchronous 1 Gb fiber internet. Based on the user traffic of similar forums, I don't anticipate a crush of people.

I know the basics of how to set up a NodeBB instance, and I've successfully backed up and restored an instance on another machine.

I'm not 100% on things like HTTPS certs. I can paste a certbot command from a tutorial, that's it.

Anything else I should know? Thanks!

EDIT:

I also have a domain, a couple of them, actually. They're like potato chips; you can't stop at just one.

I don't plan on self-hosting email used for forum registration and announcements. I'm not a masochist.

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[–] EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 22 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If you are based in America, you will want to keep a close eye on the semi-regular attempts from congress to repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

If it’s ever successfully repealed, you’d become liable for anything posted to your forum.

[–] nsrxn@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If it’s ever successfully repealed, you’d become liable for anything posted to your forum

unless you refuse to moderate it. then you are only criminally liable in the circumstances that have been codified, which usually has a takedown grace period.

[–] ChapulinColorado@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

By then you would have racked up thousands of dollars in legal fees. Not to mention if anyone posts anything negative about the current administration you could be used as an example.

We already have students on visas being kidnapped off the streets, let’s stop pretending the law actually matters for the people in power.

[–] nsrxn@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

it's settled law that you are absolved of responsibility if you don't moderate.

[–] elbarto777@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You chose to ignore OP's point.

let’s stop pretending the law actually matters for the people in power.

[–] nsrxn@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago

i mean... we're talking about civil torts here, not constitutional law. i think you can still count on a court to throw this out even with a pro se defense.