systemd VS yunohost

Retrieve the archive containing the JBoss Web Server from the Red Hat Customer Portal and install the files on the system. Configure the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) operating system including the users, groups, and the required setup files to enable JBoss Web Server as a systemd service. Ensure the required Java Virtual Machine is installed Fine-tune the configuration of the JBoss Web Server server, such as binding it to the appropriate interface and port. Deploy web applications along with enabling and starting the JBoss Web Server as a [systemd](https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/) service. Perform a health check to ensure that the deployed application is accessible.

A systemd-free fork from Debian Linux+GNU

Devuan is a fork of Debian GNU+Linux without systemd.

This post shows how to install and run Docker on Devuan, a systemd-free fork of Debian.

I built the dev env on Devuan GNU+Linux, a fork of Debian without systemd. It resembles my past trial on Artix Linux.

Devuan GNU+Linux is a fork of Debian without systemd and hence Snaps (Snapd). Even on it, it's easy to install Android Studio and start to develop Android mobile apps.

[root@rocky-8-lxc ~]# rpm -qf /etc/rc.d/rc.local systemd-239-68.el8_7.4.x86_64 [root@rocky-8-lxc ~]# rpm -qi systemd Name : systemd Version : 239 Release : 68.el8_7.4 Architecture: x86_64 Install Date: Fri 07 Apr 2023 02:11:42 AM UTC Group : Unspecified Size : 11306123 License : LGPLv2+ and MIT and GPLv2+ Signature : RSA/SHA256, Tue 21 Feb 2023 05:04:34 PM UTC, Key ID 15af5dac6d745a60 Source RPM : systemd-239-68.el8_7.4.src.rpm Build Date : Tue 21 Feb 2023 04:52:49 PM UTC Build Host : ord1-prod-x86build004.svc.aws.rockylinux.org Relocations : (not relocatable) Packager : [email protected] Vendor : Rocky URL : http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd Summary : System and Service Manager Description : systemd is a system and service manager that runs as PID 1 and starts the rest of the system. It provides aggressive parallelization capabilities, uses socket and D-Bus activation for starting services, offers on-demand starting of daemons, keeps track of processes using Linux control groups, maintains mount and automount points, and implements an elaborate transactional dependency-based service control logic. systemd supports SysV and LSB init scripts and works as a replacement for sysvinit. Other parts of this package are a logging daemon, utilities to control basic system configuration like the hostname, date, locale, maintain a list of logged-in users, system accounts, runtime directories and settings, and daemons to manage simple network configuration, network time synchronization, log forwarding, and name resolution.

Pull that old laptop from the closet, the one with the broken screen and keyboard which made you so sad to put it to pasture since it did have plenty of memory and CPU to keep up. Install Debian on the thing followed by Proxmox Virtual Environment (PVE) [1]. Since you have 16GB of RAM in that laptop (or 8 but 16 is nicer) you should be able to run a number of containers [2].

Here's an idea, more or less based on a number of servers I configured for friends and family, based on 8GB Raspberry Pi 4 hardware with 2/4TB USB SSD. Your laptop will offer better performance.

- Create 4 or 5 containers and name them 'auth', 'serve´, 'base', 'backup' and 'mail' (if you want to run your own mail that is, otherwise skip that one). Their functions are:

> auth runs LDAP, Kerberos (if you want that), a central letsencrypt instance which takes care of all your certificate needs and anything else related to authentication and authorisation

> base runs databases, that means Postgresql, Mysql/Mariadb, Redis, RabbitMQ and whatnot - all depending on what you need.

> serve runs services, that means nginx or another web server which is used as a reverse proxy for the other web-related things you want to run: 'cloud' services like Nextcloud with everything that comes with it (e.g. Collaboraoffice or Onlyoffice to replace whatever web-based office things you currently use), communications services like XMPP, application-specific proxies like Invidious/Nitter/Libreddit, media services like Peertube/Airsonic/Ampache, a Wiki like Bookstack, search services like SearxNG, etc. - the size of your server is the limit.

> backup runs Proxmox Backup Server and is used to backup everything to some external drive and to some outside repository.

> mail runs mail services, only if you want to run those. I always say 'do it' but many people have an irrational fear of running their own mail services. That fear is not grounded in truth, running mail is not hard and offers many advantages over hosted solutions.

While it is possible to separate all the mentioned services out into their own containers I think this adds needless complexity for little to no gain. Separating out database services makes sense since those can end up quite taxing and as such might well be moved to their own hardware in some (possibly not too distant) future. Separating out authentication services makes sense since that lowers the attack surface compared to running them together with externally available services. The same goes for mail services which is why I put those in their own container.

Once you've got this up and running you can create a few more containers to play around with. If you just want to try out services something like Yunohost [3] or Caprover [4] can come in handy but I do not see these as viable alternatives to installing and running services which you intend to keep around for a long time.

Of course you can do most of this on a VPS as well but I prefer to keep thing in-house - the fewer dependencies, the better.

[1] https://proxmox.com/en/

[2] containers perform better and take less memory than VMs but if VMs are your thing that is possible as well

[3] https://yunohost.org

[4] https://caprover.com/

Yunohost is one of those mature projects, that's fully open source.

YunoHost, although not Docker-based, is still nice and quite mature.

If you want something like that, then CasaOS is pretty great and i can recommend it, especially for a beginner. There is also Cosmos and Tipi. Yunuhost too but a bit different approach. Oh and Umbrel is a thing...

However you quickly reach the limits of what Umbrel can do, its very basic in its abilities. Of course it depends all on what you (or anyone else) wants to do with it. There is also CasaOS which is very similar to Umbrel but last i compared, Casa offered a bit more features like for example adding your own docker projects easily. There is also Tipi which i must admit i havent taken a closer look at yet. And there is Yunohost which i guess aims at a similar audience but achieves these things differently, still worth mentioning tho.

This looks exciting and definitely something to look out for as an option fkr self-hosting.

Similiar and a little bit more mature is also YunoHost, https://yunohost.org/, or for professional environments, UCS https://www.univention.com/.

I use https://yunohost.org on my Pi, mostly for monitoring other stuff but you can get Nextcloud running just fine with it!