sugar_in_your_tea

Apparently US bandwidth was reduced to 1TB for their base plan, though they have 20TB for the same plan in Europe. I don't use much bandwidth right now, but I could need more in the future depending on how I do backups and whatnot.

So I'm shopping around in case I need to make a switch. Here's what I use it for:

• VPN to get around CGNAT - so all traffic for my internal services goes through it
• HAProxy - forwards traffic to my various services
• small test servers - very low requirements, basically just STUN servers
• low traffic blog

Hard requirements:

• custom ISO, or at least openSUSE support
• inexpensive - shooting for ~$5/month, I don't need much
• decent bandwidth (bare minimum 50mbps, ideally 1gbps+), with high-ish caps - I won't use much data most of the time (handful of GB), but occasionally might use 2-5TB

Nice to have:

• unmetered/generous bandwidth - would like to run a Tor relay
• inexpensive storage - need to put my offsite backups somewhere
• API - I'm a nerd and like automating things :)
• location near me - I'm in the US, so anywhere in NA works

Not needed:

• fast processors
• lots of RAM
• loose policies around torrenting and processing (no crypto or piracy here)
• support features, recipes, etc - I can figure stuff out on my own

I'll probably stick with Hetzner for now because:

• pricing is still fair (transfer is in line with competitors)
• can probably move my server to Germany w/o major issues for more bandwidth
• they hit all of the other requirements, nice to haves, and many unneeded features

Anyway, thoughts? The bandwidth change pisses me off, so let me know if there's a better alternative.

I found the graph at 10:55 to be especially interesting because it shows how someone with around the median income ($65k) can make it to the lower upper class by retirement through some discipline (10% saved per year).

As a quick TL;DW, here are the median incomes, net worth, and percent of population for each class:

• lower - $34k income, $3.4k net worth (many are negative) - 25%
• middle
  • lower - $44k income, $71k net worth - 20%
  • middle - $81k income, $159k net worth - 20%
  • upper - $117k income, $307k net worth - 20%
• upper
  • lower - $189k income, $747k net worth - 10%
  • upper - $378k income, $2.5M net worth - 5%

Some questions to spark discussion:

• Do you agree with his breakdown of the economic classes? Why or why not?
• What strategies do you think someone in each category should take to improve their situation?
• If you don't mind sharing, what class do you think you're in, and does the breakdown match your experience?

Here's what I currently have:

• Ryzen 1700 w/ 16GB RAM
• GTX 750 ti
• 1x SATA SSD - 120GB, currently use <50GB
• 2x 8TB SATA HDD
• runs openSUSE Leap, considering switch to microOS

And main services I run (total disk usage for OS+services - data is :

• NextCloud - possibly switch to ownCloud infinite scale
• Jellyfin - transcoding is nice to have, but not required
• samba
• various small services (Unifi Controller, vaultwarden, etc)

And services I plan to run:

• CI/CD for Rust projects - infrequent builds
• HomeAssistant
• maybe speech to text? I'm looking to build an Alexa replacement
• Minecraft server - small scale, only like 2-3 players, very few mods

HW wishlist:

• 16GB RAM - 8GB may be a little low longer term
• 4x SATA - may add 2 more HDDs
• m.2 - replace my SATA SSD; ideally 2x for RAID, but I can do backups; performance isn't the concern here (1x sata + PCIe would work)
• dual NIC - not required, but would simplify router config for private network; could use USB to Eth dongle, this is just for security cameras and whatnot
• very small - mini-ITX at the largest; I want to shove this under my bed
• very quiet
• very low power - my Ryzen 1700 is overkill, this is mostly for the "quiet" req, but also paying less is nice

I've heard good things about N100 devices, but I haven't seen anything w/ 4x SATA or an accessible PCIe for a SATA adapter.

The closest I've seen is a ZimaBlade, but I'm worried about:

• performance, especially as a CI server
• power supply - why couldn't they just do regular USB-C?
• access to extra USB ports - its hidden in the case

I don't need x86 for anything, ARM would be fine, but I'm having trouble finding anything with >8GB RAM and SATA/PCIe options are a bit... limited.

Anyway, thoughts?

Horse styles of the ’50s

For crying out loud, Jonah! Three days late, covered with slime, and smelling like fish! … And what story have I got to swallow this time?

You know what I’m sayin’? … Me, for example. I couldn’t work in some stuffy little office. … The outdoors just calls to me.

Look! Look, gentlemen! Purple mountains! Spacious skies! Fruited plains! … Is someone writing this down?

Sure, I’m a creature—and I can accept that … but lately it seems I’ve been turning into a miserable creature.

It has been a while since the last one. So...

Tell us what game you are currently, or recently played, greater than 6+ months old.

If the game happens to be on sale, a link would be a plus.

The link goes to a related post on another community so I don't have to duplicate it here.

Basically, I'd like to discuss tech options for a Reddit/Lemmy alternative. Here's what I've found:

• Iroh - early days alternative to IPFS promising improved performance and application control
• Appleseed - old-ish proposal for a distributed trust system - I'm thinking of using it for moderation (i.e. if you block/report similarly to someone else, that will get automated; you could also explicitly trust someone else [e.g. a CP-detector bot])
• TrustNet - builds on Appleseed - still reading through the paper to know what it adds over Appleseed, if anything

Goals:

• distributed storage - worried the fediverse will scale poorly (become too expensive)
• distributed moderation - power-hungry mods suck
• local-first - cache/host stuff you care about, reserve some space for preservation

Non-goals:

• make money - it's a hobby for now, everything would be FOSS
• image/video hosting - legal issues if you get random CP or something
• preserve all data - I'd rather sacrifice older/less popular content than lose users - community can run caching servers
• fediverse compat - P2P makes that difficult, but a bridge should be feasible

Thoughts? What am I missing?

Also, would anyone like me to post updates? It'll mostly be stuff from my research, if I post code, it won't be for a while (I have limited time).

I'm going to be overhauling my network over the next few months as I get ready for my new municipal fiber installation. I have a general idea of how to set things up, but I'm not an expert and would appreciate a few extra pairs of eyes in case I'm missing something obvious.

Hardware available:

• Microtik Routerboard - 5 ports
• Ubiquiti AP - AC-Lite; plan to add U6+ or U6 Lite once I get faster service
• some dumb switches

Devices (by logical category; VLANs?):

• main - computers and phones (Wi-Fi for now, I plan to run cable)
• media - TVs, gaming consoles, etc
• DMZ - wired security cameras, Wi-Fi printer (2.4GHz wireless g only)
• guest - guests, kids computers

Goals:

• main - outgoing traffic goes through a VPN
• media - outgoing traffic limited to certain trusted sites; probably no VPN
• untrusted - cannot access internet, can be accessed from main
• guest - can only access internet, potentially through a separate VPN from main

Special devices:

• NAS (Linux box) - can access main, media, and DMZ
• printer - accessible from main, rest of devices on untrusted don't need to be (I can tunnel through the NAS if needed); can potentially configure a CUPS server on the NAS to route print jobs if needed

Plan:

Router ports:

1. Internet
2. WiFi APs
3. main VLAN
4. untrusted (VLAN)
5. unused (or maybe media VLAN)

WiFi SSIDs (currently have a 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz SSIDs):

1. main VLAN
2. guest VLAN
3. untrusted - hidden SSID (mostly for printer) - 2.4GHz only

If the VPN causes issues, I would like the ability to move individual MACs to another VLAN (say, to media, or a separate, usually unused backup VLAN). Not required, just a backup plan in case the VPN causes issues.

This is my first time configuring VLANs, so I'm not really sure what my options are. Also, I'm not super familiar with Mikrotik routers (I'm not a sysadmin or anything, just a hobbyist), I just got fed up with crappy consumer hardware and wanted something a bit more reliable.

Does that sound like a reasonable plan? Is there something I could improve or suggestions you have?

Edit: DMZ is the wrong term, so I replaced it with "untrusted". By that I meant a local-only network, so no Internet access. Ideally I could access these devices from my main network, but they can't initiate connections outside their VLAN. However, that's not necessary, since I can tunnel through my NAS if needed.