SelfHostBlocks
NixOS based server management for self-hosting
It is obvious by now that a deep dependency on proprietary service providers - "the cloud" - is a significant liability. One aspect often talked about is privacy which is inherently not guaranteed when using a proprietary service and is a valid concern. A more punishing issue is having your account closed or locked without prior warning. When that happens, you get an instantaneous sinking feeling in your stomach at the realization you lost access to your data, possibly without recourse.
Hosting services yourself is the obvious alternative to alleviate those concerns but it tends to require a lot of technical skills and time. SelfHostBlocks (together with its sibling project Skarabox) aims to lower the bar to self-hosting, and provides an opinionated server management system based on NixOS modules embedding best practices. Contrary to other server management projects, its main focus is ease of long term maintenance before ease of installation. To achieve this, it provides building blocks to setup services. Some are already provided out of the box, and customising or adding additional ones is done easily.
The building blocks fit nicely together thanks to contracts which SelfHostBlocks sets out to introduce into nixpkgs. This will increase modularity, code reuse and empower end users to assemble components that fit together to build their server.
- The project's own website: https://github.com/ibizaman/selfhostblocks
This project was funded through the NGI0 Core Fund, a fund established by NLnet with financial support from the European Commission's Next Generation Internet programme, under the aegis of DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology under grant agreement No 101092990.
