I run this server myself, as an educational experience; I expect that a fair number of posts on this blog will relate to things I’ve learned while working on it. I’ll file these posts in this “Meta” category: blogging about blogging, as well as the other server stuff underneath it.

For now, here’s a list of the mechanisms on this server, many of which will soon be described in more detail in other posts:

  • This blog, of course, but also a few other folks’ sites, including Gina’s foodie book club
  • My webcam, and the image-processing stuff around it
  • A backup mechanism that copies everything to my file server, as well as an offsite location, every night
  • A setup mechanism that allows me to rebuild the server from scratch in about an hour, with no interaction
  • A mail server, running Postfix, SpamAssassin, ClamAV, etc
  • My MythTV backend, which will eventually replace my TiVo
  • A Subversion repository (eventually I’ll set up external access to share more of what I’ve made)
  • Various other web applications that I’ll describe later (buzzwords: Django & Trac)

The server runs Ubuntu Linux (currently, the Breezy Badger version); it’s a Dell SC-420 Pentium 4 box with 1G RAM and about 300GB storage.

Update, July 21, 2016: None of the foregoing is true anymore:

  • Though I do still have a home server, this blog is built by Jekyll and produces static files served by GitHub Pages. (Also, there’s no longer a “Meta” category, as I’ve ditched categories!)
  • The webcam went away after our fantastic view went away
  • There is still a backup mechanism that backs up databases to Amazon S3 every night, and I still use a custom automated setup mechanism (that now provisions Docker containers for all the pieces)
  • I got tired of running my own mail server; I just use Gmail now.
  • Likewise, TiVo won out over hand-managing mythtv
  • Heh, it’s all git now - haven’t Subversioned in forever.
  • My server at home hosts Festival Fanatic (still Ruby & Rails), and a few internal sites (some Ruby, but a growing number are built with Elixir and Phoenix).
  • It’s still a Dell, but it’s a now-old XPS Studio MT-435 with 12G RAM & a 256G SSD; it still runs Ubuntu, but it’s the Vivid Vervet now - wow, they’ve come a long way!