I have several years of Linux experience and I know how to fix my own problems, and I have experience self-hosting using Docker and Docker Compose, but I really feel that I don’t know how to self-host and that I just copy and paste commands without understanding it, I would really like to learn how to self-host by myself but I don’t know how I can start or with what resources for newbies I can start with.
I am interested in self-hosting several services, but the one I am currently most interested in is changedetection.io, as there are multiple such services but they all require a membership fee, and I prefer to self-host on my own.
Just jump in tbh. Choose one service you want to try, get it up and running, and play with it
Few bits of advice I have is to plan that you will tear it down a few times. Couple of reasons. One, that way you don’t have to plan to have it perfect the first time. Play with spinning up a VM/container, installing stuff, getting something working, without the stress of needing it to be perfect. Second, because it’s good to know how you did something and know you can repeat it.
Write everything down as you go. For me, I made a huge readme to keep track of things I did, again this helps with if you fuck up you can always redo it. Trust me, this will save you. Readme in git, Google docs, something you can reference when everything is down.
Finally, DO NOT choose something your first time that is open to the public. Start small. Something private like Plex/jellyfin, or tandoor, something just for you. Public services are a can of worms. Maybe you want to start with Lemmy, but work up to it. For more obvious reasons like you have an expectation of uptime and you need monitoring, which will require knowledge of all of that, but also more nuanced reasons, like, we’ll do you know how to register csam? Because I didn’t know the process until I started hosting services for the public. Just don’t for now. Hold off until later.
Anyway, hope that helps! Have fun, and don’t be afraid to fail. Remember, we can’t ever plan not to fail, but if we must fail, fail fast