Looking for help/guidance on how to setup a server for a business

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨young_broccoli@fedia.io⁩ to ⁨selfhosted@lemmy.world⁩

https://fedia.io/m/selfhosted@lemmy.world/t/1369426

Hi. Some friends of mine are starting a business and they want to setup a server to host a simple "contact" website, run an e-mail service (about 10 accounts for now but with possibilities of expanding it to support more) and to store and remote access documents.

Im a computer savvy person so they asked me for help, but dont know much about self-hosting so I come here asking you:

What kind of hardware do they need and would be best?
What OS and other software is required and recomended?
How to set it up/configure it? Im partial to foss but if there are good propietary options they are acceptable too.
And last: What do we have to watch out for or avoid.

Also, space is a bit of an issue, I was thinking they could use something small like an intel nuc but Im worried that hardware would be underpowered for their needs.

I have been googling for stuff myself but I get overwhelmed by the ammount of information and some contradicting opinions so I appreciate your recomendations and guidance. Im not asking you to give me a full tutorial, although I would appreciate it too, but just to be pointed in the right direction to avoid, as much as possible, spending money and time on things they might not really need or might not perform as well.

Thanks in advance.

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possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Seek someone with professional experience. Also you don’t want to host your own email server. Use the cloud for this as it is way simpler and doesn’t have the same issues.

!sysadmin@lemmy.world

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- Agent641@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Even C/selfhosted fears self hosted email servers lmao
  
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  - Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Not fear but you need to have the respect it deserves.
    
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- azron@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  We, selfhosters and sysadmins alike, need to change our tune around the position of “do not self host email.” It only serves to keep email in the grip of big tech. Yes it is difficult and someone without any experience shouldn’t start there but it is definitely manageable and not nearly as hard as it is made out to be.
  
  There are multiple email “distributions” nowadays making the software stack set up and maintenance effectively an exercise in running a regular Linux distro upgrade. Mailinabox and mailcow to name two off the top of my head.
  
  The DNS records are relatively straightforward to set up and validate with these mail distros, they basically tell you what to put and provide ways of validating you did sbay they said you should. There are also many ways to test that you set them up properly by having a service validate them via email you send to the testing service, e.g. mail-tester.com and dmarctester.com, finally DMARC has a port function builtin so you can get regulsr delivery reports that come directly from the servers choosing what to do with your email giving you a clear signal when there are problems.
  
  You don’t have to jump into hard mode around a clean IP either you can offload that for a nominal fee to an email service provider if you don’t want to try your luck, e.g. MXroute.com has a one time fee for multiple domains.
  
  Yes email is convulted and confusing at times and scary to host given how essential it is but I’d encourage anyone with the time and desire to do it.
  
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  - possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Self hosting email is a huge pain. I wouldn’t personally recommend it. In many ways it sucks but that’s the world we live in.
    
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IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Others have already mentioned about the challenges on the software/management side, but you also need to take into consideration hardware failures, power outages, network outages, acceptable downtime and so on. So, even if you could technically shoehorn all of that into a raspberry pi and run it on a windowsill, and I suppose it would run pretty well, you’ll risk losing all of the data if someone spills some coffee on the thing.

So, if you really insist doing this on your own hardware and maintenance (and want to do it properly), you’d be looking (at least):

2 servers for reundancy, preferably 3rd one laying around for a quick swap

Pretty decent UPS setup, again multiple units for reundancy

Routers, network hardware, internet uplinks and everything at least duplicated and configured correctly to keep things running

A separate backup solution, on at least two different physical locations, so a few more servers and their network, power and other stuff taken care of

Monitoring, alerting system in case of failures, someone being on-call for 24/7

And likely a ton of other stuff I can’t think of right now. So, 10k for hardware, two physical locations and maintenance personnel available all the time. Or you can buy a website hosting (VPS even if you like) for few bucks a month and email service for a 10/month (give or take) and have the services running, backed up and taken care of for far longer than your own hardware lifetime is for a lot cheaper than that hardware alone.
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- Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  2 servers for reundancy, preferably 3rd one laying around for a quick swap
  
  Overkill for a small startup. We sell to medical practices and they get (at most) a small tower server from HPE (ML30). Backup servers can either be a small 2 bay NAS or a microserver depending on the needs
  
  Pretty decent UPS setup, again multiple units for reundancy
  
  If they can afford that. Most are already good by just using a decent online UPS.
  
  Routers, network hardware, internet uplinks and everything at least duplicated and configured correctly to keep things running
  
  Not a multi million company.
  Routers: BS.
  Network: Maybe 2x 16 port switches but too much overhead. 1x 48 Port if you really need that.
  Internet uplinks: If you have a satellite office and need the S2S-VPN to be constantly up.
  Btw: You didnt mention a duplicated phone line ;P
  
  A separate backup solution, on at least two different physical locations, so a few more servers and their network, power and other stuff taken care of
  
  Again overkill.
  Backup on the server with something to a 2-Bay NAS and a secondary job with rotating external USB disks to take or somewhere external with you.
  
  Monitoring, alerting system in case of failures, someone being on-call for 24/7
  
  Monitoring: Yep
  Alerting: Done by monitoring in the best circumstance
  On-call 24/7: As this is a small company: LOL
  
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  - Dashi@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    You missed the (and doing it properly) part. Could you do it on his setup? sure. Could you do it on your setup recommendations? Sure. Could you do it on a little raspberry pi? Probably. A industry standard best practice for backup is 3-2-1. Do all companies follow industry best practices? Heavens no. Redundancy is great, it may save you from calling someone at triple rates for after hours support only to find your one 48 port switch failed. It’s all about what risk you are willing to take on any of this.
    
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Lem453@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
You don’t have the knowledge or experience to do this for a business. This is different than a personal cloud. You will be blamed when things don’t work.

Don’t touch this with a 10ft pole.

If you want to help, find commercial services that offer this and suggest those.

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philpo@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
They set up a business. They do business. They should ask someone to do this whose business it is. Not you. They are taking advantage of you.

You will certainly and 100% ruin your friendship with them.

Keeping a server secure is an ordeal for a professional - especially when it comes to using it as a business server.

Doing E-Mail yourself, especially in a professional capacity, is a god damn nightmare and even most professionals refuse to do it and rather pay someone who handle it. For a reason.

The usecase you mentioned does not require a server. It can easily be done via a web hosting provider. Unless there is something shaddy going on and you/they are afraid of storing that stuff with a provider. But for what you mention here you need a simple web hosting provider for 5 bucks a month.

Actually doing that yourself is far more complicated than you imagine here. It’s not just the server. How do you get a connection with a static IPv4 to host your services? Actually preferably multiple static IPs? Are you considering a CloudFlare tunnel? How do you plan redundancy if that connection craps out? Or the server kicks the bucket. Or power goes out? This alone costs FAR more than the money you pay for a cheap webhoster or even a VPS. (Which you don’t need,imho)

For the love of god or whoever: Don’t do that. You will be liable to them (at least from their point of view) if their IP is on Googlemails blacklist and now “that one important client mail did not arrive in time”. Or if the cheap residential DSL craps out and their very important site is just having the sale of their life?

I am absolutely for self-hosting things, don’t get me wrong. I selfhost basically everything (but no mail…that is a shitshow), mostly on FOSS. But don’t start with someone else’s business if you start doing this. Selfhost a few easy things. Get a Mini PC and proxmox, selfhost within your home network, then expand slowly.
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robalees@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Wholeheartedly agree with everyone else on the email. I’ve worked IT in a range of different sized businesses. The hardest one to date was the super paranoid place that insisted on hosting email. It’s an absolute pain to maintain and can be an unnecessary security risk for a few bucks!

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- Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  What we usually do is using an SMTP relay.
  Plus points on having a spam protection service included and in front of the mail server.
  
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variants@possumpat.io ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
For email and calendar I’D probably look into proton. For other software tools i would start with services people like that you don’t have to manage other than be like the admin and as you go try and find alternatives and self host your own and teat it out. Maybe even something like digital ocean where you can just spin up a droplet that’s presetup for you and learn more and more until you’re comfortable to transition other people to it

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brickfrog@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

they want to setup a server to host a simple “contact” website

Not sure what sort of uptime/reliability your friends are expecting out of a self hosted solution but for something like that you wouldn’t need much processing power, even a Raspberry Pi can host a simple website. Not sure what to recommend offhand but there are definitely vendors in that space that sell simple DIY “contact us” form software, or I guess if you wanted to roll your own that’s an option too. I’d be more concerned about keeping it locked down/secure.

Keep in mind for the internet your friends would likely need business class internet with multiple static IPs so you can give your little DIY box its own IP address. Many (most?) residential internet service providers do not allow self hosting websites on their network and they’d be dynamic IP anyway though you could work around that somewhat with dynamic DNS since you’re going to need to purchase a domain name and point it to somewhere anyway.

run an e-mail service (about 10 accounts for now but with possibilities of expanding it to support more)

Like others said you really don’t want to go that route unless you’re well versed in that area. I’d be annoying for a business use case especially a new one, your emails will likely keep going into other provider’s spam folders for a good period of time.

Seems easier to just go to Google Workspace / Microsoft 365 / whatever other provider you like to use, presumably the business has a business use case for reliable email among other things.

Bonus: Those cloud services can easily host simple contact forms for you so maybe that’s your all in one solution. Look into Google Forms and similar.

and to store and remote access documents.

That sounds like the above commercial cloud solutions again :)

But sure technically you could go through the extra step hosting that yourself. Depends on how the business wants to use/access this stuff, it’s really a question for them. Could be as simple as a Windows server with RDP (if they’re Windows people & just want to log into something “windows” to browse/open files) or maybe multi-user Linux with VNC (the geeks might like, maybe not so much the general Windows/Mac users). Or if you’re trying to do something web oriented maybe something like Nextcloud if you want to do all this in a web browser.

You should triple check what exactly they are expecting when it comes to remote access documents… you really don’t want to spend the time setting up something that they totally weren’t expecting and end up hating.

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- Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  Many (most?) residential internet service providers do not allow self hosting websites on their network and they’d be dynamic IP anyway though you could work around that somewhat with dynamic DNS since you’re going to need to purchase a domain name and point it to somewhere anyway.
  
  That’s what I already do.
  cloudflare-ddns, own domain and done. Except for reliability at night where the ISP reboots my DSL connection at 4am.
  
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blarth@thelemmy.club ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Put them on M365 or Google Workspace. Do not buy a server.

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abeorch@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I have been looking.at the same thing. Basically alternatives to Google Workplace or MSFT 365.

lemmy.ml/post/21772726. I think most people are using a hosting providers email and web hosting and then maybe running Nextcloud and other apps themselves though there are some providers who are doing integrated email and Nextcloud.

There are things like coop.cloud and yunohost that appear to be trying to provide.out of the box self hosting ‘recipies’ Im just starting to look at yunohost but just for me / the family. - Id personally love to meet people and work through using these together as I am not an expert. It would seem that these might be the ‘killer app’ for self hosted alternative cloud services but Im not sure and they might not be quite mature enough. I have know knowledge of the admin overhead.

Google and MSFTs free for non-profits mean that clubs/small charities end up using those two anyway.

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- abeorch@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Sorry that should be coopcloud.tech
  
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  - Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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