“Self-hosting” seems to be a real topic among IT-savvy people at the moment. Well, to some extent it has certainly been that way for a long time, but I’ve been hearing a lot about it recently. It means setting up and using server hardware at home - from a Raspberry Pi to a full-blown home server with a powerful Intel processor and double-digit gigabytes of RAM. I’ve been getting more and more into this topic recently and have learned a few interesting things, especially about hardware, that I want to share here.

If you load a new app onto a smartphone with Android or iOS, this app is very restricted in its permissions. For example, to access the device’s memory outside the app, the user must first explicitly allow the app to do so. This opens a dialog that contains a message such as “[app name] is trying to access the memory” and two buttons with the options “allow” or “deny”. Such mechanisms are known as portals, as they form a gateway out of the app’s sandbox. A sandbox is a firmly defined area that is assigned to the app and which it is not allowed to cross without further ado. A security feature that can, for example, make it more difficult for malicious apps to access the data in the banking app installed next to it or the user’s private photos.

I’ve been running a Nextcloud instance privately for years. I set it up back then because I personally don’t get on with paper calendars and notebooks. I find it more useful to have a device that is able to remind me of appointments, tasks and the like. And because it is practical to have such digital notes available across devices, a server platform in the background is a good idea.