Futo (Louis Rossman) at it again with great content, this time a Guide to a Self Managed life. This 14hrs long guide comes in two video parts, aswell as a written guide for those who prefer. Both video and written quide comes with complete chapters and timestamps. This should be a great starting point for those who have the time and want to start learning from the very beginning.
Video Link to Part 1: Youtube - Invidious
Video Link to Part 2: Youtube - Invidious
Happy selfhosting in 2025 everyone ✨
Hey everyone in the comments complaining, this video is for me and other like me not for you. He took time to go through each step as if a complete beginner (aka me) was doing this. That means working through something as simple as downloading pfsense iso. Show me another complete guide that troubleshoots along with me and doesn’t assume everything works perfectly.
He clearly states at the beginning this is not the only way to do this. He also clearly states where things could be better (pf vs OPN) but why momentum has kept him from making a change.
I’m glad y’all are at where y’all are at but this video will help win so many more people over. Having a single tutorial that takes me from zero to a selfhost solution that replicates 80% of google’s everyday offering is HUGE. Is it perfect, probably not? Does it work, looks like it! And hopefully, finally getting something working will give me the confidence to implement improvements or try my own thing.
@Sips thanks for providing this as I might have missed it since it’s not Rossman’s channel. I was disappointed to come into the comments and see more complaints than appreciation. I’ve been thinking about this for a while and occasionally looking at tutorials and guides but everytime it felt like I had to piece meal all the parts to get the features I wanted. This meant troubleshooting each individual tutorial and then hoping it was completely interoperable with the next tutorial for the features/software I want. That kept me from even starting at all. Glad this exists now and knowing Rossman/Futo, it will only be improved as time goes on. Rant over.
Thanks dude! Best of luck on your selfhosting adventures ✨
That wiki has some pretty wild quotes:
Unlike professional hosting services with static IPs, residential plans assign dynamic IP addresses that change as often as the relationship partners of people with borderline personality disorder.
I get how momentum keeps you on a path, and he admits that he’d rather use OPNsense in the wiki, but dammit, now he’s got a bunch of other people going down the same pfSense road to the rugpull. And man, Wireguard is so much less confusing and difficult than OpenVPN, but because of the drama the pfSense weirdos made with Donnenfeld over the kernel patches for WG, there’s precious little support for WG in the pfSense environment. Wireguard is definitely more noob friendly.
And if you’re watching this because you need this level of help to selfhost, you definitely should not be hosting email yourself. Love Mailcow, used it for years, but I’m a veteran of the spam wars from way back and know how to deal with the current landscape. He is too, so he should know better.
Rule one of self hosting. Do not self host your own email. Only pain will you find.
You of course can, but there are so many additional hoops you have to jump through. I use my main domain for my email, but proton is one of the few subscriptions I happily pay for
I selfhost my own mail server (my primary mail in fact).
My LE certs expired on Christmas eve, when I was also getting sick. I didn’t realize my mail server was down for a week until about NYE. Luckily Postfix queued all my emails and there was nothing important lost, but I am reevaluating self hosting my mail server. That being said, this was also the worst issue I’ve faced in over a year of self hosting mail. And it only arose because my dumbass still hasn’t automated my certificate rotation.
If you’re using let’s encrypt, it’s worth automating the cert renewals. Even for systems where the automation is difficult and not supported.
It’s also worth running some kind of monitoring system. You can check certificates with OpenSSL really easily. Fire off a message to NTFY.
Why in recent years do YouTubers think insanely long videos equal good content? 14 hours is completely unnecessary. Also, not a big fan of him constantly saying in videos he’s not good and doesn’t know why people listen to him yap… much prefer raidowl or hardware haven
So don’t watch it. Problem solved lol
If you think he made it long because that “equals good content” you are either unfamiliar with Rossmann, not the target audience, or simply delusional
