this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2026
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I need a new hobby, I'm going to set up my own Lemmy instance. Am I an idiot? (lemmy.world)
submitted 6 days ago by AngryishHumanoid@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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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?

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[–] Jimbabwe@lemmy.world 94 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Probably, yes, but I still love you

[–] AngryishHumanoid@lemmy.world 40 points 6 days ago (1 children)

You sound like my wife.

[–] Marthirial@lemmy.world 15 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Plot twist. You are not married...

[–] AngryishHumanoid@lemmy.world 33 points 6 days ago

Sure I am, but depending on how much of my free time goes into this we'll see if it stays that way....

[–] biotin7@sopuli.xyz 1 points 3 days ago

Honestly I could help you. If I had the time.

[–] DeadDigger@lemmy.zip 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The problem is not the setup but the administration

[–] AngryishHumanoid@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

So I'm discovering, heh. I got the instance up in a relatively short period of time, I'm spending far more time on email, domain, logging, backups, decisions, etc. I know I could just be a barebones "who cares about any of that" instance since it's largely gonna be my own personal playground, but where's the fun of that?

[–] PabloSexcrowbar@piefed.social 12 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I would NOT host a Lemmy instance at home unless you're going to obfuscate your IP address. If you make it public, you're inviting any whackjob that sees your username to find your physical location. Additionally, I wouldn't host it on a PC that you actually intend to use for day to day stuff, just in case the instance gets hacked and someone manages to escape the container it's in. If you wanted to do this, I would put it on its own box with Cloudflare in front of it, otherwise you're inviting trouble where there doesn't need to be any.

[–] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I keep seeing "escape the container" mentioned like it's a very common occurance. Is it really? I've looked up escape CVE's and they seem to be few and far apart, they're usually tricky to pull off, and when one comes out it's a big deal and they get fixed right away (obv).

Actually my issue isn't "do escape CVE's exist", it's more like, should I really waste my time planning for it? It's like planning for file permissions not to work, or logins to be bypassed.

I get that shit happens and why defense in depth is a thing but how do you defend from something so fundamental? If you operate under the assumption that containerization can be by bypassed, and virtualization can be bypassed, where do you draw the line and what do you do, run each app on a standalone physical box?

[–] PabloSexcrowbar@piefed.social 1 points 4 days ago

I would say that finding that balance is up to the individual admin and application, really, which is where the defense in depth comes in. Yeah, it's rare, and if those exploits are being used it means you've got the attention of someone you probably can't really stop, but it's something to take into consideration. Bad configs can cause data leakage across container boundaries, too, so without knowing the admin's skill level, I tend to recommend against sharing that hardware with something that might have something valuable on it. AI has made it easier for script kiddies to find zero-days and exploit APT-level vulnerabilities, too.

[–] ianhclark510@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 6 days ago (1 children)

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

[–] AngryishHumanoid@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago

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.

[–] Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyz 19 points 6 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

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
CSAM Child Sexual Abuse Material
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]

[–] OhVenus_Baby@lemmy.ml 6 points 6 days ago

We need more of this across all Platoforms for discovery and learning. Thank you!

[–] shadshack@feddit.online 8 points 6 days ago (2 children)

The only thing I'd say is look into whatever tooling and scripts people have made for removing CSAM from your instance. I messed around with a Lemmy instance for a bit, but when I heard about how hard it was to deal with the pedos, I got a little scared about inadvertently hosting CSAM and decided to shut it down. Since then I think I remember hearing about some better automated tooling for that kind of thing though so hopefully you can set that up.

[–] Uncut_Lemon@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

If it's your own instance, with closed sign ups, shouldnt it only sync the content you subscribe too?

[–] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 3 points 5 days ago

I mean, anybody can post anything anywhere, and it will get synced. Many communities aren't even modded. But removing vile stuff is a burden to put on people to begin with, and I think most Lemmy instances are poorly equipped to deal with this automatically.

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[–] ranslite@pie.dasneuland.de 13 points 6 days ago

Not lemmy, but piefed. The easy way, try yunohost.

[–] irmadlad@lemmy.world 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Just in general or because you're setting up a Lemmy instance?

[–] AngryishHumanoid@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] irmadlad@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] Steve@startrek.website 8 points 6 days ago

Maybe. Do it anyway?

[–] Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu 8 points 6 days ago

Cool man... I did the same last year, best decision ever.

Pretty easy too

[–] moldy_rice@piefed.keyboardvagabond.com 5 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Yes. Do PieFed.

Also, don't do cloudflare. If you must use something, make sure it's self hosted.

[–] fartographer@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

I keep considering the same thing, except only letting myself register so that I can have my own stupid instance name.

[–] BlueEther@no.lastname.nz 5 points 6 days ago (5 children)

Yes you are mad, I know as I did that over 3 years ago. Went from at home => a cheep VPS => paid for Oracle VPS.

If you go down the lemmy route (vs piefed) then I would deply with Lemmy-Easy-Deploy by @ubergeek77. this makes setting Caddy and mail simple

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[–] spirinolas@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

Yes, you are, but aren't we all?

[–] schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I would not do that without first looking into applicable laws regarding legal liability for content and requirements to remove things. Depending on where in the world you are, this can be a minefield.

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[–] BuckFutter@timeyak.com 5 points 6 days ago (6 children)

Best of luck to you!!! I just went through this last week and wow it was a challenge. I went the docker route not using ansible…and yah by far the worst install I ever went through of all the self-hosting projects I have setup…but my setup was largely complicated by the fact I had an Apache reverse proxy setup in front of the nginx proxy that has an example config provided…finally figured it all out, but yah fun times 😂 happy to help if you get stuck.

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[–] valar@lemmy.ca 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Thought about doing something very similar, I'll be curious to hear the feedback and your experience

[–] AngryishHumanoid@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

If at some point in the near future you step outside and hear a weird screaming sound echoing around the globe, that's me.

[–] dil@piefed.zip 1 points 5 days ago

its really easy to setup with yunohost if you're lazy, idr if it was too bad to host lemmy, think having friendica and others was my issue that cause my 160gb to fill up in a few months, didn't want to deal with it anymore lol

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Why not host a PieFed instance instead? Similar but more features and easier to maintain. Does have some scraper countermeasures built in, so maybe you don't even need Cloudflare. Also as a next project after that, you could learn Python and contribute to the project.

[–] AngryishHumanoid@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Good question, mostly just cause I use Lemmy so wanted to stick with what I know more of at this point.

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[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 3 points 6 days ago

Do it. You'll learn something new. Maybe you'll even contribute to the code.

[–] ohshit604@lemmy.halstead.host 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] joker54@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 6 days ago

I'll write a script you can use to seed with top communities. I already have most the work done.

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[–] FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

Update with a link to your instance when you've done it so we can show some love and support

[–] Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Lemmy eventually plans on having an invite system, you could maybe use that when it comes out

https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/issues/4128

(You can also do this manually with the application questionnaire field and a spreadsheet)

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