Introducing: "my so-called sudo life"
a new #blog series tracking my journey towards greater digital sovereignty.
"Instead of wallowing in this grief and anger, I have resolved to make this time – these 4 years – matter. It makes me feel better and more empowered to set some high goals, so that by January 2029 I could look back and think to myself: I have grown and helped others during these tumultuous 4 years. I made good use of that time."
https://elenarossini.com/2024/12/introducing-my-so-called-sudo-life/
follow the blog: @ele
It’s happening!!! I signed up for a #VPS and I’m about to install #YunoHost. Exciteeeeeeed (and slightly scared).
I’m so early in my #Linux journey but I was emboldened after watching a video walkthrough of YunoHost, with the narrator repeating time and time again « it’s so easy a child could do it ».
Let’s see if « it’s so easy a Linux newbie could do it».
Wish me luck! 
Update: yes, it was SO EASY a child (or a #Linux newbie) could do it.
I now have #YunoHost installed on my #VPS! 
I wish I had timed how long it took - it was less than 5 minutes! This update comes 2 hours later because I've been dealing with other work stuff in the meantime.
All this to say: a HUGE thank you to the @yunohost team for creating such a phenomenal resource. Donation-as-thank-you coming soon 
: 
Good morning Fedi Friends! It’s 6:53am in Paris and I am taking advantage of my child being asleep to continue my #YunoHost setup and tweak DNS records.
A bit risky since I’ve only had one coffee but here we go.
Wishing you all a lovely day!
To add an extra layer of difficulty to my #selfhosting journey, there is the issue of scarce free time.
Now I have 20 minutes before I need to cook for my child and then go pick her up from nursery school. Editing DNS records with the clock ticking is not for the faint of heart
If struggling with DNS is a #selfhost rite of passage, I am ready to jump over this hurdle and get to the next!
Jokes aside, I'm super grateful for #YunoHost's crystal clear instructions.
My NEW idea of living dangerously: adding (or tweaking?) a PTR record for my VPS setup – because the last warnings I have on #YunoHost have to deal with reverse DNS.
Just yesterday I had no idea what this all meant, LOL
BTW if you find all these messages annoying, I recommend you mute my hashtag #mySoCalledSudoLife 
And HUGE thanks to all the people who have provided brilliant tips so far!
Now REALLY wish me luck
Good morning from Italy!
Taking advantage of the fact my parents are giving breakfast to my 3-year-old to do more #YunoHost tweaking.
I just ran the diagnostics and my jaw is ON THE FLOOR. I see GREEN ALL OVER - including "Email" (my nemesis) !!!
Wishing you all a lovely weekend!
Good morning Fedi friends!
Now that my VPS is set up correctly with #YunoHost, all I have to do is select the first app to install.
I was certain I would go with #Sharkey (as I'm totally smitten with it) but I'm now having a case of cold feet and wondering if I should pick #Friendica instead.
Do I select something beautiful and fun to use... or the most advanced software (with an old UX/UI)?
I'm currently the embodiment of the hard choice meme
Update: we now have a new candidate in the running: #GoToSocial. Thank you to everyone who suggested it to me.
I've been looking at its documentation and I find it really impressive. Its "reply controls" are an amazing feature: https://docs.gotosocial.org/en/latest/#reply-controls (amongst many others)
Will read up about it and seriously consider it
@_elena @ele this post speaks to me! May I suggest learning Python as your new language? Or in addition to the other goals. It will feel really good, and snap together with Linux like a bullet in the chamber. Unless I am confused and you are already a Pythonista in which case I apologize and submit my resignation.
I love this. I’ve been tinkering with a homelab on an old computer. Hosting my own Nextcloud instance and other little things.
Your article has inspired me to push forward more with this.
Thanks and best of luck in your journey.
@_elena I love this! I’ve started my own journey down the same path.
It's a server operating system aimed for personal self-hosting. It comes out of the box with a webinterface where you can create users, add domains, install applications etc. I 100% recommend it bc its graphical interface makes it super easy. like one of the devs once told me; the aim is basically to do for personal servers what graphical desktops did for personal computers.
They also have several fedi server softwares packaged, so you can litterally instal and host them without even touching the command line (well, unless things go wrong that is, but generally things Just Work. And you may need some command line magic to install ynh, but not more than you did to get the raspi installed). Disclaimer though; fedi servers do write a lot, so an SBC with an SD card may not be the most future proof setup, but it can be a start and it's how i started.
Now the biggest help I got with starting with this, is that there's a project called "La brique Internet", https://labriqueinter.net/ The idea is that some people install this for you, and also add a VPN connection they control, set up in such a way that the internet can reach you through a fixed IP address, regardless from where you plug it in. Getting an open line from the internet to your own self-hosted SBC at home can be a big challenge depending on how friendly your internet provider is to self hosting. I live in Belgium, so I had Neutrinet do this for me. But they are part of a bigger network of service providers who support things like free software, net neutrality, self-hosting etc. And most of the other members, some who also provide this, are in France, see https://www.ffdn.org/fr/membres
It may be interesting to see if you can meet up with any of these people and see if they can maybe help you get started, or just to find techy like-minded people offline.
to get the first version of goal nr 2 easily:
https://tokipona.org/
can be "done" in one week. ;)
I understand that you speak french. If so, you might find interesting Framasoft’s DéGooglisation campaing (https://degooglisons-internet.org/fr/).
I am on a similar liberation from the algorithm journey. I find interesting your non-tech recommandations, talking to friends, reading books and so on.
Your stuff speaks to me.
@_elena Yu got this!
@_elena nice challenge! I would suggest to install it as a docker container.
The installation docs appear to be broken somehow
@_elena how do you like it? I installed @yunohost a few months ago and I'm still surprised how little maintenance it requires! Big thank you 
#selfhosting
filippodb ⁂ 
@_elena svegliarsi un'ora prima per sistemare yunohost prima che i bimbi si sveglino, che dejavù
@_elena That looks nice! Are you going to run your own Mastodon instance, or is it just for stuff like DNS?
@_elena why are you self-hosting?
@_elena now introducing: challenge selfhosting. tasks with time limits. speedrunning the setup. only one will win. now airing, on your local plex server (only after you set it up first)
@_elena my advice as also self hoster and also parent is to cram as much house keeping in those 20m and use after-bedtime time for self hosting. That's assuming that your kids sleep way more than you do (mine sleep some 11h, I try to do 8h). Alternatively, doing it in the very early morning, but that's not for me. Good luck!
Guys, you cannot imagine how much I can relate!
DNS are quite fundamental to the Internet, @_elena@mastodon.social so unfortunately a proper configuration is a sort of rite of passage, just like learning that it might take a couple of days for any update to propagate, so getting them right in the first place is just as wise as tricky.
Fortunately you are not going to face the burden #Google's #GMail imposed to all of us by self-hosting your email server, that is way worse than a website or a fediverse node!
Consider self-hosting your email server like the last level big-boss in your favourite adventure game.
Anyway, if in the future you'll want to try a simpler (and likely cheeper) alternative Fediverse software, I just published a short tutorial on snac here: https://encrypted.tesio.it/2024/12/18/how-to-run-your-own-social-network.html
It also discuss some of the vulnerabilities of the #fediverse that you might not be aware yet (but that can all be mitigated by #selfhosting your instances, so you are on the good track anyway
)
@_elena DNS setup is not actually difficult but it can be hella confusing when you start or if you pick up someone else's config. it is very precise though, so when things don't work: make sure of all the details (typos, case, ...) and then give it some time, and then make sure to use different browsers with all history wiped for testing. https://dnschecker.org and the CLI tool 'drill' are also very useful here
@_elena I work on Webmin, an OSS web-based systems management UI, which makes configuring/managing DNS (among many other things) easier for some folks, without interfering with the ability to edit config files manually when you want. Or, depending on how much automation you want, there's also Virtualmin, which is an OSS alternative to something like cPanel or Plesk. But, learning how it all works on the command line is also valuable and satisfying. https://www.webmin.com
@_elena or, if choosing Virtualmin, it's best to start with the automated installer and let it install/configure Webmin and all the services for you. https://www.virtualmin.com
@_elena
I don't know how Yunohost works, but if possible I'd host my DNS somewhere separate from my web hosting.
I love not putting all my eggs in one basket. For example, you may find a reason to move away from Yunohost at some point. Having your DNS hosted there would mean having to set it all up somewhere else again. Hosting it independently avoids this.
I use deSEC, a DNS provider that runs on 100% open source software, with full support for DNSSEC. They have a friendly support community too, if you need help with anything. The UI is modelled on Google's Material design, so easy to understand. They also provide a dynamic DNS service, although only on custom domains.
It's donation supported, so effectively pay what you want.
Regardless of who you use for DNS hosting, you need to pay attention to the syntax, as this can wildly differ per provider. This may trip you up when following online tutorials! For example, some require a . at the end of a domain name, others may not.
@_elena i like to use that one for example. you can observe how the new info spreads around the planet. https://dnschecker.org/
@_elena Huge respect to you attacking mail server configuration. I self host 10's of services to *try* and de-Google myself as much as possible but the one thing I won't touch is email. For a self hosted instance the configuration method looks unchanged since the 1970s and may as well be written in sanskrit 
I'm sure you have this!
@_elena pro tip: change all your DNS TTLs to 300 seconds. That way any future changes propagate in 5 minutes.
@_elena good luck from a fellow self hosted who happens to be an idiot.
@_elena what's PTR record? I guess I'm newbie :P
@_elena I absolutely do not find these annoying even if I’ve been doing this stuff for a very long time. I’ve been on that side and had zero clues of what I’m doing. When I started out my information source was a friend I met from time to time at a subway station and I could ask my questions.
It’s for one a nice reminder of my starting times and also it’s a source of interesting projects. I’ve already discovered two projects I had no idea about.
(plz hire me) @_elena congrats! email is the worst
@_elena that's a good way to start the day!
@_elena wow very brave, I gave up on emails
You have time to set up or tweaking YunoHost. The time to be with your parents is little and the most precious.
@_elena Congratulations! What services are you planning to start self hosting with?
@_elena The best to self-host, especially because it is very light and optimized for single-person instances, is definitely @gotosocial.
I tested it on my YunoHost server while it was still in alpha, and it worked wonderfully already.
Software like #Friendica and #Sharkey work at their best for communities of friends, in my opinion.
@_elena
Oh that looks like a nice thing to play with! Thanks for mentioning it
@_elena reminds me, that i wanted to update mine. just running on a pi at home.