Homelabs and Self-Hosting [HackUMBC Preview]
AKA: "Electricity companies hate him"
Friday, October 29, 2021 · 4 - 6 PM
Hi all,
Tomorrow (Saturday 30th) from 9:00 to 10:00 PM, we will be giving a HackUMBC presentation on getting started with homelabs and self-hosting. Today's 4PM meeting will be a bit of a sneak preview and practice run of that; it should again be pretty casual.
What is a "homelab"? It's a pretty vaguely defined term, but effectively it boils down to running servers, NAS machines, network appliances, and other IT equipment in your home. They can be used for a variety of purposes, the most fundamental of which is just educational - they're a great way to build up your IT skills, either for professional reasons or just because it's fun!
That also leads us to self-hosting, the other major purpose of a home lab / home server. Self-hosting is pretty simple: it just means running various services from your own machine. Websites are the classic example, but you can also self-host email, game servers, chats, file shares, and so on. (Teaser: In the next few weeks, expect a joint meeting with UMBC LUG about how you can set up Nextcloud to do a lot of this stuff in one fell swoop!)
Roughly 40% of this presentation will be dedicated to the hardware side of things - a crash course on enterprise server hardware, typical hobbyist hardware, and how you can acquire it for cheap.
Roughly 60% will be dedicated to the software side of things - typical home lab software, easy things to get you started with self-hosting, and a brief mention of networking.
The meeting will, as always, be hybrid, meaning you can either attend in-person or virtually. If you're comfortable with
in-person, come to ILSB237 at 4PM. If you prefer to meet virtually, join the Jitsi room at 4PM: https://meet.jit.si/SADClubFall2021Hybrid
If you have any questions at all, feel free to email nbura1@umbc.edu or put a message in the Discord. Hope to see you all there!