Hello everyone!
I did it. I reached a point where I got everything exactly how I wanted and now… Now I am dissatisfied as I look over my home lab’s chaotic mess of a setup. This was my first time selfhosting things, and I learned a ton of stuff. I’ll probably want to tear it down and start anew in the near future, being much tidier and mindful of what goes where.
Does anyone have any tips they want to impart to someone who’s not an entire newbie but still learning stuff? Kind of a “If I could tell myself this before I set everything up, I would say…”
Be at peace with the mess. All the software you’re using have beend developed on their own, each has a different setup, maintenance work, they don’t fit with each other they just kinda not bother each other. Unless you’re using all the software included in a bsd or 9front base install, where everything is made to carefully fit, it’ll be crappy to look at.
Be at peace with the mess, which also means be at peace with burning some/all of it and starting fresh when something new comes up or you want to “simplify” a part.
The selfhosting, much like art, isn’t so much in the output: it’s in the process of trying, failing, succedding with a crappy solution, and then goind on with the learning. If you wanted a robust beautiful stack you’d be paying professionals to do that :)