susam.net VS etsd

I have a similar setup for my personal and project websites. Some similarities and differences:

* I use Linode VMs ($5/month).

* I too use Debian GNU/Linux.

* The initial configuration of the VM is coded as a shell script: https://github.com/susam/dotfiles/blob/main/linode.sh

* Project-specific or service-specific configuration is coded as individual Makefiles. This takes care of creatng An example: https://github.com/susam/susam.net/blob/main/Makefile

* The software is written in Common Lisp. In case of a personal website or blog, a static website is generated by a Common Lisp program. In case of an online service or web application, the service is written as a Common Lisp program that uses Hunchentoot to process HTTP requests and return HTTP responses.

* I use Nginx too. Nginx serves the static files as well as functions as a reverse proxy when there are backend services involved. Indeed TLS termination is an important benefit it offers. Other benefits include rate limiting requests, configuring an allowlist for HTTP headers to protect the backend service, etc.

I began developing personal websites in 2001. It was a time when people like me would develop personal websites just because we could. It didn't matter whether we had something useful to say or if anyone visited the website. All that mattered was that it was fun! I still maintain my website in the same spirit.

I do share the technical posts from my websites on HN and Reddit hoping to get some feedback but that's not the primary motive. Also, there were no HN and Reddit in 2001. Back then I used to write for myself and I still do so now. My personal website is a way for me to keep an archive of some fun things I know so that my future self can look back at them when needed or desired. Only a few days ago, I added a jokes page[1] to my website just because I thought it would be nice to keep my favourite jokes somewhere easily accessible.

As years go by, I've found that the friction of editing and publishing new posts or pages to my website has only become less. First came, virtual private servers that swayed me away from shared web hosting solutions. Then came Git which made it incredibly efficient and convenient to keep a change history of my website and sync it to any system. I write my pages in plan HTML using Emacs. Then git add; git commit; make pub [2] and the updated website is published within seconds. A Common Lisp program reads all my HTML pages, adds a common theme and template to them and writes them out to a directory Nginx can read from. It is as low friction as it can get that suits my taste and preferences while maintaining complete flexibility on the website.

It has been 13 years since I wrote my first "Hello!" and while HTML and web development and publishing has evolved a lot since then, I am still having fun!

[1] https://susam.net/maze/jokes.html

[2] https://github.com/susam/susam.net/blob/main/Makefile#L144

form.service (the systemd unit file)

Source code [0] is available on GitHub; looks like they wrote their own simple site generator.

I've been thinking about something similar (maybe even simpler) for my blog too.

[0]: https://github.com/susam/susam.net

A pretty same setup with a bunch of differences:

1. I'm using a single postgresql database for all apps (each with a different user) on a different server; each app has a different db user

2. I use a minio instance for file/media uploads/serving

3. I mostly use nginx but i'm transitioning new apps to caddy because of automatic integration with let's encrypt and much smaller config for common purposes

4. I use a fab-classic (fabric 1x) script to deploy new versions: https://github.com/spapas/etsd/blob/master/fabfile.py

5. For backup I do a logical db backup once per day via cron (using a script similar to this https://spapas.github.io/2016/11/02/postgresql-backup/)

6. One memcache instance of all apps

7. Each app gets a redis instance (if redis is needed): https://gist.github.com/akhdaniel/04e4bb2df76ef534b0cb982c1d...

8. Use systemd for app control

Yes, you are right on that. If the server is compromised a malicious user may change the client-side code to add a backdoor and steal your private key when you unlock it. He'll be able to steal only the keys that are unlocked while the backdoor stays undetected (not all the data).

The ideal way to resolve that would be to change the service to an API and offer binaries with a correct signature so the user can check and make sure that they get the correct thing. Actually I tried writing the client binaries using electron (https://github.com/spapas/etsd/tree/master/client) but didn't have the time for that :(

You are rigth though, I've added a Risks section to warn for that thingie https://github.com/spapas/etsd/blob/master/README.md#risks