I’ve only ever used desktop Linux and don’t have server admin experience (unless you count hosting Minecraft servers on my personal machine lol). Currently using Artix and Void for my desktop computers as I’ve grown fond of runit.
I’m going to get a VPS for some personal projects and am at the point of deciding what distro I want to use. While I imagine that systemd is generally the best for servers due to the far more widespread support (therefore it’s better for the stability needs of a server), I have a somewhat high threat model compared to most people so I was wondering if maybe I should use something like runit instead which is much smaller and less vulnerable. Security needs are also the reason why I’m leaning away from using something like Debian, because how outdated the packages are would likely leave me open to vulnerabilities. Correct me if I’m misunderstanding any of that though.
Other than that I’m not sure what considerations there are to make for my server distro. Maybe a more mainstream distro would be more likely to have the software in its repos that I need to host my various projects. On the other hand, I don’t have any experience with, say, Fedora, and it’d probably be a lot easier for me to stick to something I know.
In terms of what I want to do with the VPS, it’ll be more general-purpose and hosting a few different projects. Currently thinking of hosting a Matrix instance, a Mastodon instance, a NextCloud instance, an SMTP server, and a light website, but I’m sure I’ll want to stick more miscellaneous stuff on there too.
So what distro do you use for your server hosting? What things should I consider when picking a distro?
I love Debian for servers. Super stable. No surprises. It just works. And millions of other people use it as well in case I need to look something up.
And even when I’m lazy and don’t update to the latest release oldstable will be supported for years and years.
@bjoern_tantau @communism That ‘support for years and years’ means security support. So even if the nominal versions stay stable, security fixes are backported. Security scans that only check versions usually give false positives: they think fixes in newer versions are not present when in fact they are.
Many others distros do exactly the same. I only chose Debian because the amount of software already packaged in the distro itself is bigger than any other, barring 3rd party repos.
Debian
This is the way.
Add unattended-upgrades, and never worry about security updates.
I’m using cron to run daily “sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y” LMAO, what’s the way to use unattended-upgrades?
Debian. This is the way (for servers).
I run NixOS. It (or something like it, with a central declarative configuration for basically everything on the system) is imo the ideal server distro.
I think I can sense your love/hate relationship with nixos from here :) you are not alone
Very true haha. NixOS is great and the best I’ve got right now but I would lie if I said it has never been painful.
Especially for desktop use I want to build my own distro which takes a lot from NixOS, mostly in terms of the central configuration but not much else (I definitely want a more sane package installation situation where you don’t need stuff like wrapper scripts which are incredibly awful imo), but also other distros, and also with some unconventional things (such as building it around GNUstep). But who knows if that ever gets off the ground, I have way too many projects with enormous scale…
Always, always, always: Debian. It’s not even a debate. Ubuntu is a mess for using as a server with their snaps bullshit. Leave that trash on the desktop, it’s a mess on a server.
Snaps are meant for server applications
That’s a frightening statement. I don’t work in secret-squirrel shit these days, but I do private-squirrel stuff, and used to do security stuff, and snaps are just everything our security guys wake up at night to, screaming. Back when I ran security for a company, the entire idea would have been an insta-fuckno . Please, carefully reconsider the choices that put you in a position where snaps are the best answer.
