Comment on Self hosting as a gift
plateee@piefed.social 5 days ago
Would you make someone you love a home server?
No. Especially no for a non-technical, remote person.
Troubleshooting my lab in the basement is hard enough without having to try some weird screen share app, or telling the person, “press the blinky light button. NO NOT THAT ONE”.
If you want to share the joys of a home lab, do what I did for my technologically impaired in laws - get a wireguard VPN client on a laptop and walk them through (several times) the process of connecting to the VPN, browsing to your services, logging into the services, doing the thing, then disconnecting from the VPN.
- Show them the process while they take notes on the process.
- Let them follow their own notes with minimal help (except to correct the notes) while they do the process end to end.
- Repeat that last step a few times with zero feedback so they build confidence in the process.
- The next day, have them do it again based exclusively on their notes and memory.
- If you’re still in town, wait a full day and repeat the last step a few days later.
My in-laws are now experts at VPN’ing in and interacting with my services.