Of the many useful things I could do with my spare time instead I’m setting up a Lemmy instance because why not. The scope of this is definitely greater than any self-hosting I’ve ever attempted, so please feel free to tell me just how much trouble I’m in. I’m just giving the broad strokes to see if I’ve made any crucial errors (other than deciding to do this at all).
And if this is a completely wrong place for a post like this or I’m missing data I’m supposed to include I apologize, I probably need a sanity check, in more ways than one.
First limitation, I’ll be hosting it on an existing Linux Mint box acting as a file share mostly and occasional gaming PC/movie streaming box. Its hardware is overkill for this, I do not anticipate issues when it is in use. It receives regular updates and weekly reboots, instance will be set to automatically restart. NVMe with loads of space for local storage, RAID SSDs for data offload/backup.
Second limitation, I hate Cloudfare and Oracle. I do not want to use either of them.
Third limitation, money. Cheaper is better. I have a URL picked out and a registrar which will give me the cheapest long term option, in case I actually keep this thing going.
Last limitation, I’m already in over my head so I’ll be relying on a lot of googling and probably some chat bots to figure things out as I go through the actual deployment process. What could go wrong?
So, Lemmy hosted on Linux Mint box using Docker containers. ISP is a good one for this I’m told, no CGNAT, largely stable public IP but I’ll have a script running in case it does change. Confirmed ports 80/443 are open. Using Caddy for the HTTPS. Closed registration to start, if by some miracle I make it to actually wanting to allow additional users it will not be fully open, and I’ll use Brevo for the email SMTP. Security wise I know I’m making it harder for myself by exposing my IP, I’m going to have UFW running and Crowdsec to help keep incoming bad traffic out.
Down the line I’ll get Lemmy updates, backups, retention rules in place/automated, and make decisions on federation, etc. Thoughts?
You will learn a ton. Also, you will spend a lot of money hosting an activitypub instance. I run a server for fun, and it’s about $40/month to handle the absolute firehose of assets I receive 24/7.
I keep considering the same thing, except only letting myself register so that I can have my own stupid instance name.
oh very interesting. i’ve been wanting to get into the details of how federation actually works, and i wanted to figure out why mastodon<->lemmy federation does often not seem to work. but i guess that’s a deep rabbit hole too!
It does work! To an extent. It’s just not popular to do this… Because of the extent. No votes, easy to find threads, etc.
Yes. Do PieFed.
Also, don’t do cloudflare. If you must use something, make sure it’s self hosted.
Do it. You’ll learn something new. Maybe you’ll even contribute to the code.
Maybe. Do it anyway?
You’re an idiot of you don’t use PieFed instead 😃
Probably, yes, but I still love you
You sound like my wife.
Plot twist. You are not married…
Sure I am, but depending on how much of my free time goes into this we’ll see if it stays that way…
Just in general or because you’re setting up a Lemmy instance?
Well in general I know I’m an idiot, so for the moment I’ll just stick with Lemmy instance feedback cause that’s at least easier for me to address without expensive therapy.
allow additional users it will not be fully open
Just for trusted friends or randos? If randos, have you ever been a mod? Never set up a Lemmy instance, but I have been a mod of quite a few Reddit subs. It’s a headache I will never engage in again.
Not complete randos, but yeah it’ll likely be a very minimal group of people if at all. And I’m not looking forward to modding so I doubt I’ll go the route if having a lot of comms in my instance, but we’ll see what happens.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters CGNAT Carrier-Grade NAT DNS Domain Name Service/System ISP Internet Service Provider NAT Network Address Translation TLS Transport Layer Security, supersedes SSL VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting) nginx Popular HTTP server
[Thread #76 for this comm, first seen 11th Aug 2026, 19:20] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
We need more of this across all Platoforms for discovery and learning. Thank you!
Best of luck on your new hobby!
I didn’t see anything in your post that set off alarm bells
If you’re looking to save some cash and your ISP gives you a stable public address you could utilize a Dynamic DNS provider (ala duckdns) instead of registering a domain
Good point, that was purely a vanity issue: I have a specific name I want for my instance, and I wanted it to be as short a URL as possible so I was willing to spring for the domain. I’m not saying I’m doing all this just for the pun I have in mind, but I did spend far too long on that step of my deployment plan.
Yes, you are, but aren’t we all?
My instance has been online for about a month, the supplied docker-compose.yaml was quite straightforward, had a little headache with Nginx but nothing overly complicated.
The long-con so to speak is federation, you have to subscribe to each community manually to begin federating with them, i have noticed timing issues with other instances such as Lemmy.world and have not been able to resolve them.
I’ll write a script you can use to seed with top communities. I already have most the work done.
Interesting. And yeah I’m aware of the federation issue, I was gonna use that to my advantage in terms of my plans to slow roll who to federate to to keep my bandwidth and storage allowances under control. I also know there is a script you can set up which will handle the initial contact to federate automatically.
I also know there is a script you can set up which will handle the initial contact to federate automatically.
I tried finding such a script but had no luck. I was able to export my subscription list from sh.itjust.works and imported it on my instance.
I had to unsubscribe and resubscribe to the communities I follow as I was experiencing the ‘Subscribe Pending’ issue but after a little while things seemed to start evening out and becoming a bit more stable.
Update with a link to your instance when you’ve done it so we can show some love and support
Not lemmy, but piefed. The easy way, try yunohost.
