Community Servers

Recently, I created a new server for my small online community of friends: a small file storage server, only meant to server temporary files over SSH. During the installation, I really got to tailor the setup to the needs of the community; putting user restrictions in, building tooling good for future developments, and doing some development for exact needs. While the systems I have been creating for this community have been growing over time, I am starting to reach the size where I would like the full infrastructure I am used to. Version control, monitoring and logging, centralised user management, automated deployments and infrastructure as code, to name what immediately springs to mind, are some of the tools of the trade I would I like to have in place for comfortable management. But these things take time to build up, money to maintain, and ultimately I would end up with more work long-term.

It is a difficult thing to balance, the “feature-creep” wish list of things I would like and the effort I am willing invest on mates. There are ways to fund, monetise, and more fully utilise what I have and would have built, but it is unclear if that would benefit the project in any meaningful way. Keep it simple, stupid. For the limited number of users I support, there’s no real reason to go further than I have, but I am ready and rearing to go on at the drop of a hat. I have my own personal tooling, made for local labs, that could be repurposed up, and any chance to do some more learning would not go amiss, but until that time, things shall stay simple.

For anyone reading who is part of my small communutiy, come to me with suggestions when you have them. For anyone else who has ideas or requests, I am happy to entertain them. Contact information is available on the site. Cheers