What does it mean to run your own servers?

I used to be a member of social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Flickr, etc. But I felt guilty because I didn't run my own servers. OK, I could host content with them. But I had a severely limited way of curating what I saw and how much I could customise what people saw of me.

So I signed up to a cloud provider and installed Mastodon and Pixelfed. Neat! But I didn't really run that server. Sure, I could install software - but I didn't have root. It was all managed by someone else.

Next, I got a dedicated machine in a rack somewhere. Great! I had root and was able to mess around with the system as much as I liked. I mean, I could always roll back. Wait… I did set up backups, right? But it was never really my server. If I wanted to install more RAM or a bigger disk, I had to ask a technician to do that for me. And those technicians were able to power off my machine at any moment without warning.

Fine! I bought a dedicated fibre connection at home with a static IP address. I bought a couple of servers, a load balancer, and a hardware firewall - then set up a domain name to point to it all. I also bought a UPS to deal with power cuts. Then I installed a security system to prevent burglars or spies coming in to mess with it.

Of course, I want to make sure I know exactly what's running on my machine; not your code, not your server. That means I make sure to read all the diffs to the source before I run apt upgrade. But reading that many changes to Linux, Apache, and WordPress is complicated.

So I've not been able to post much on social since I started studying for a Phd in Computer Science.

Heavily inspired by this masterpiece:

I thought using loops was cheating, so I programmed my own using samples. I then thought using samples was cheating, so I recorded real drums. I then thought that programming it was cheating, so I learned to play drums for real. I then thought using bought drums was cheating, so I learned to make my own. I then thought using premade skins was cheating, so I killed a goat and skinned it. I then thought that that was cheating too, so I grew my own goat from a baby goat. I also think that is cheating, but I'm not sure where to go from here. I haven't made any music lately, what with the goat farming and all.
MagpieIndustries - 2010-09-03