Link: https://blog.elenarossini.com/a-newbies-guide-to-self-hosting-with-yunohost-part-4-backups/

The fourth article in my series about "self-hosting for newbies" explaining how I take care of backups for my YunoHost server.

In part one, I explained why I’m passionate about self-hosting and I discussed what you need to get started on this journey (a VPS and a domain name)

You didn't need either of those things. This reads like an ad for yunohost.

No, it's legit. Elena has been tooting and peertubing about the fedi and her self hosting journey for over a year.

You are right, you don't need yunohost, but it makes selfhosting pretty easy.

send from my piefed instance hosted by yunohost ^^

It still reads like an ad for yunohost...

I think one of the mistakes many newb self hosters make is thinking of systems in their entirety rather than as components.

"How to install pihole on a raspberry pi" and "how to setup nextcloud on yunohost" are examples. All using very specific tools and very specific steps.

I'm noticing this more and more with documentation for apps where they tell me to use their specific docker-compose file and have instructions to use let's encrypt in a specific way rather than referring you to let's encrypt as an option and pointing you at their docs.

People aren't learning how to use each of these tools and how to be flexible in their implementation.

Depends highly on the people. I learned that way, to get started with recipes enabled me to get early successes which in turn motivated me.

Down the road I needed different things from my setup, which could not be found in a simple recipe anymore, so I needed to learn the parts of the machine.

How can something be an ad when there is nothing to sell?

Exactly. Both newbies and experienced admins aren't always looking for a general summary on how to build something. Sometimes we need a direct, easy guide to build the tool we've already decided to implement. Let them read the documentation so I don't have to.

reads about the correct pronunciation

couple paragraphs below, still pronounces YunoHost the same wrong way

dammit

selfhosting

yunohost

pick one.

It still reads like an ad for yunohost...

An ad for what, exactly? Yunohost doesn't have anything to sell you...

Sometimes people are just passionate about things. Like digital sovereignty.

People aren't learning how to use each of these tools and how to be flexible in their implementation.

Who gives a shit? I don't know how to write apps for my phone either, I just click the install button and away I go. I don't have time for a new career. If it weren't for YNH I wouldn't be hosting at all. And it's not for lack of trying. Shit is complicated.

I am too, which is why your comments are so surprising.

I have used (and loved) Yunohost for a long time, and I host it at home. A few years back, I did set up a vps to proxy the traffic (over wireguard) so that I could actually get a letsencrypt cert. Some apps really don't like self-signed certs.

You do not need a VPS, proxy, or wireguard for letsencrypt.

Let them read the documentation so I don't have to.

Exactly why the article promotes stupidity. Why in the world would you put those words down proudly?

Who gives a shit? I don’t know how to write apps for my phone either, I just click the install button and away I go.

Yeah - I'm the one wallowing in ignorance.

Yes, you're the one ignorant of the fact that people want (and should have) digital sovereignty without needing a software engineering degree.

"Reads like an ad" - see also "simile".

Er... I'm not - I'm deriding that fact. Do you know what "ignorant" means?

Was that supposed to be English?

I don't remember exactly why, but I couldn't get it to work any other way. First problem was incoming port 80 blocked by my ISP.

Really grasping now aren't ya?

I'm really not.

In germany when we say, sounds like, looks like or reads like, we mean it is. Sorry when i misunderstood.

That's fair - I'll keep that in mind in the future to be more clear.

Tough crowd. I used Yunohost back in the day. I thought it was pretty good. Great for someone who is just starting out. It has evolved, and I think the newest version boasts the largest app catalog in it's class.

I usr it every day its great.

I don't understand, how is yunohost not selfhosting ?

this is going to sound like gatekeeping, because it is.

yunohost allows anyone that couldn't find the difference between /dev/null and their asshole the ability to deploy services on hardware. be it locally or remote VPC.

everything about that goes against the tenants that created the selfhost movement.

it also causes problems when those same ignorant "hosters" reach out to the community for help and again, can't comprehend the technical nature of the issue at hand. they are akin to a plant that requires too much water and too much sun in the garden, and I generally pluck them out and toss them into the mulch pile.

that said, I'm sure there's plenty of people who use yuno that have a technical background but lack the time/effort to DIY. my issue isn't with them.

You’re right in that you don’t NEED them but it sure makes things a lot easier.

Not even using yunohost… just Debian and docker.

Don't let 'em give you shit about your ponytail bro.

I don't get the resentment for yuno. In the end it is a hobby. You can have fun building everything from scratch. And you can have fun, using pre configured services.

What counts is that you get away from big corp.

Can't say much about your tutorial though. Didn't read it. I'm sorry. ;)

It sure makes things easy to host!

I think you could take this arbitrarily far.

This can be said about literally anything. And it's a "slippery slope fallacy" to use as an argument.

There are "appropriate levels of understanding" I'm advocating for. I'm not even saying "don't use yunohost" - just understand what the components you're using do and how they interoperate.

Some people get into self hosting because they want their data to be their data. They don’t care about the particulars, they just want that peace of mind.

These people are the worst. What they want is fine - but the idea that you don't need to worry about the particulars is ridiculous.

As someone who has never done any serious coding work or collaboration, hadn't touched Linux in 18+ years and am really only fluent in windows and Mac, and with limited time to get up to speed, I fucking love opinionated guides.

Tell me exactly what to do to get it up and running.
Let me learn along the way, but don't expect me to be able to read and understand the pros and cons of lets encrypt vs other solutions.

I simply do not have the requisite base knowledge to make informed decisions on this.

If you wanna leave it up to me how to do a golden gate assembly, quick change reaction, or a gibson assembly, I can handle that.

Understanding the nuance of docker networking, reverse DNS,maintaining SSL, and just generally how to make it so I can use a hostname and not an IP address to access my services locally is something I want to learn. Eventually.

It's not that your critiques of guides are invalid, but they may just not be structured for general learning. And their target audience is temporarily ignorant fools like myself.

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

[Thread #103 for this comm, first seen 18th Feb 2026, 19:21]
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