“Self hosting” a relay on a $5 box from LNVPS or Hetzner or some other provider is NOT SELF HOSTING!
All you did was put some software on someone else’s server, and they control the servers.
Your hosting provider can still censor you, see your IP, tamper with your data on your relay and more.
Either run on your own hardware with Umbrel or similar (or like nostr:npub1qdjn8j4gwgmkj3k5un775nq6q3q7mguv5tvajstmkdsqdja2havq03fqm7) or save yourself the hassle and use https://nostr.land.
For relay hosting I am planning on rolling out a service on nostr.land soon, but you can also use nostr:npub10npj3gydmv40m70ehemmal6vsdyfl7tewgvz043g54p0x23y0s8qzztl5h's nostr1.com.
Unfortunately I still use cloud services for L4 to hide my IP, load balancing, failover, and basic dos mitigations. But L7 and ssl termination happens on prem :)
You already rely on your ISP for IP transit anyway… so no issue there. Hardware and SSL termination/app layer is where it matters
100%
Even just data residency and path. I would not want customer data or sensitive business data to be stored on cloud servers whenever possible.
That's exactly how I see it! However I'm thinking about setting up some edge caching for content, such as if I decide to start hosting media or assets for customers. That would take a lot of load of my uplink, and cut back latency and allow for some better locality.
It depends on your use case. Self hosting *everything* and by that I mean literally everything is a bad idea and a waste of time.
Where do you draw the line tho? Your isp can also do a lot to you at home
Own the hardware stack for the relay and SSL termination.
A cloud host can mostly transparently interfere with your VM or just straight up ban you, just like any relay.
What about renting dedicated servers? While i get that everyone having a datacenter at home would be ideal (i sure want it) I feel like we're getting a bit too holy with everything. Is it better? Yes from many stand points.
But saying either run your own datacenter or use my service is not exactly the best message imho.
Those are better. Though in the end you are still reliant on the hosting provider which can be strict.
The benefit there mostly is running your own custom software, which is good if you are a relay dev or want to customize it heavily, but not if you are a normal user.
Many users do not benefit from this and would be much better off self hosting a relay on their Umbrel and making it accessible from Tor, and using commercial services for relays which have economies of scale.
"I'm running my own node" no your not, you are paying a monthly subscription for someone else to runs and maintain it.
I can deploy my own relay anywhere in under a minute. It’s strange to limit yourself to expensive hardware that’ll be confiscated the moment there’s a raid. Relays are people, not machines. We just rely on each other — that’s it.
