+++
title = "I most definetelly should (self-host)!"
author = ["Michał Sapka"]
date = 2024-09-12T22:55:00+02:00
categories = ["blog"]
draft = false
weight = 2001
image_dir = "blog/images"
image_max_width = 600
abstract = "Time to self host"
+++

A few days ago, I asked myself if I should self-host my site.
The answer is a clear **yes**!

Firstly, say hello to my server's homepage under [crys.site](https://crys.site/) (bonus points if you get the reference).

I have repurposed an old Raspberry Pi 4b, which I had lying around.
There, I've installed FreeBSD 14.
Damn, I really love FreeBSD.
I fell much comfier there than on OpenBSD or any Linux I've ever tried.

Anyway, there are two jails there:

-   the first, which works as reverse proxy.
    It has nginx(8), certbot(1) (for ssl) and DDClient (for keeping my IP up to date in the DNS).
    It proxies all requests to the second one
-   the second has nginx(8) which serves statically build sites.

The jails and static data is not stored in SD card of the RPi, but on a thumb drive with ZFS.
The thumb drive is faster than my upload (which is 40 MB/sec).
It may wear out, but then I'll either connect and m2 drive via USB, or upgrade to an X86 thin client as the server machine.

I tried to do deployment using zfs-send(8) and zfs-receive(8).
The initial sync is great, but I can't send updates.
The way my jails are configured is that they don't access the ZFS mount points directly.
Instead, I mount them as _nullfs_ in `fstab`.
This means that zfs-receive(8) can't unmount the ZFS mount because it's busy from the fstab mount.
Hell.
Instead, for now, I returned to old, trusty rsync(1).

I have migrated [User Friendly Archive](https://uf.crys.site/) first, and the rest of the sites will follow.
They are **very** coupled together as under the hood, they are a singe Hugo site.
I will need to think of a nice way to make it work.

All this and all I got was a huge grim on my face.
Love it!

I had a lot of help on mastodon, especially from [Stefano](https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@stefano).
Thank you!

_Btw, I write Emacs running on a FreeBSD system and I then send my writings to my self-hosted site_.