The Cybrecluster project aims at linking my different websites in a manner akin to a webring. It was imagined during the summer of 2020.

Sites

• _{https://brainshit.fr/}
• https://tilde.town/~lucidiot/
• https://envs.net/~lucidiot/
• _{https://breadpunk.club/~lucitoast/}

Goals

• Increase the visibility of all of my projects
• Lighten the load on mountain by trusting other tildes
• Increase my involvement in tildes
• Encourage both a visitor and me to browse all of my websites
• Reduce my fear of abandoning a particular website

My computers are my tools

When I designed this project, my French blog was hosted at home on carthage, an Intel NUC, using Ubuntu Server, Docker, systemd, Apache, PHP, MySQL, and the server was also providing other services such as Nextcloud, HedgeDoc, TinyTinyRSS, a NuGet package server, and a LAN-only WebDAV server, all behind a nginx reverse proxy with a separate container to handle Let’s Encrypt certificate renewal. All of those containers were managed using Docker Compose.

Handling this structure was pretty complex, as I get very quickly frustrated when it comes to most modern deployment tech. I realized over time that this is not what I want to do. I do not want the “Cloud”. If I am going to self-host, then it should be by my rule, by how I think computers should run. Feeling constantly annoyed at my own server’s setup, feeling unable to make any process on a project that relates to this server because of its state, just means I need to change the way I run my server.

I like the tilde culture, in which we turn random, “soulless” computers in the cloud into cozy places. Into safe places where I feel like I can grow, I can thrive. So I wanted to have a server that gets closer to that.

I still want to self-host; I like being able to see my equipment just by turning my head, having access to it even when my internet connection is down, or hearing a very quiet fan noise at night. But I also want to get involved in tildes, and I have an account on three tildes already; I want to publish everywhere and not look dead. I was putting some stress on myself because I really wanted to do something, I do not want those accounts to be a waste. The last thing I want to do to any tilde is to make it waste resources.

I solved that dilemma, and started seeing my server in a better light, by imagining the cybrecluster.

Rules

After getting a little further into this idea, making it clearer in my mind, I defined a set of rules.

• Be simple.
  • Start small
  • Plan often, but plan small
  • Remove unneeded abstractions
• Be resilient.
  • Backups
  • Write documentation for my projects
  • Reuse existing systems, formats and protocols
  • Archive things
  • Monitor my server, sites, services
• Be active.
  • Learn what I need, not just for the sake of learning
  • Create what I want, what I enjoy
  • Publish what I can

This sounds rather close to an integrity report.

Actions taken

• Stopped the NuGet package server as the projects that relied on it went stale
• Migrated to envs.net’s TinyTinyRSS instance
• Stopped my TinyTinyRSS instance
• Stopped the PostgreSQL database that powered the TinyTinyRSS instance
• Migrated my files from Nextcloud to Syncthing
• Migrated my calendar and contacts to Framagenda
• Stopped my Nextcloud instance
• Migrated my HedgeDoc files to some .md files in a Syncthing folder, using envs.net’s HedgeDoc instance when I need multiplayer text editing
• Stopped my HedgeDoc instance
• Set up Alpine Linux, nginx, certbot, MariaDB, PHP 7, Munin and Syncthing on Mountain
• Migrated my WebDAV server to Mountain
• Migrated my French blog to PHP 7
• Migrated my French blog to Mountain
• Stopped all Docker services on Carthage
• Migrated all my Syncthing folders to Mountain
• Sold Carthage to a friend at a fair price
• Added a Cybrecluster banner to all of my websites
• Started posting about my tilde projects on my self-hosted French blog
• Created this wiki
• Added a Gopher version of this wiki

Actions to take

This blog article introduces the cybrecluster to my French audience and describes the actions to take regarding Brainshit.

• Create a “decentralized monitoring”: each server (mine, or a tilde) checks on the others, and reports their status on a status page
  • Could have an RSS feed with mod_servicestatus
  • Could have a cool diagram (source):
    
• Maybe self-host a DAViCal instance, as Framagenda’s operator, Framasoft, encourages moving away from its platform into smaller, more decentralized hosts
• Make my French blog into a static site
• Remove PHP 7 and MariaDB from Mountain
• Convert the tilde.town site to a static site generator
• Add a Gopher version of my french blog
• Add a Gopher version of my town site
• Add a Gopher version of my breadsite