Tutorial gone bad reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- linuxmel · 2023-12-21 23:42 It's amazing how many tutorials that are incomplete or just way off and just don't work! This past week I went through about a dozen tutorials to get wordpress running behind Traefik. Today I found one from Digital Ocean. I said to myself this one has to be the one that's going to work, these guys are the real deal. I was wrong. The docker compose for Traefik worked perfectly. The WordPress after loading reports database connect error. After studying the docker compose file I realized the database section only contains password, and no username or database username information. I looked in the comments section and saw someone taking about the same issue and they posted a correct docker-compose.yml which I modified with my information and it works perfectly. I was very surprised that Digital Ocean would post something that was incorrect. I'm so grateful for this reddit sub for selfhosting! Thanks for reading. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Micex · 2023-12-22 01:14 Not to be rude. However with this post, do you want us to agree with you? You could have posted the links/compose yml so we can discuss? Things I can advise is maybe look through all the services in the compose files and go to the GitHub/docker hub to get latest compose configuration. This way usually works most of the time. Tutorials should be the starting point to understand services and their advantages and how they work. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Firenyth · 2023-12-22 01:21 I never like a tutorial that just gives me a project. I'd rather know where to go to configure the project how I'd like. I'd rather use my own data base and setup so I know where it's going and that its working how I want. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- weischin · 2023-12-22 01:56 As with all guides, the onus is on us to check that the settings are correct and/or configured for our use case. Blindly copying and pasting is not useful ---------------------------------------------------------------------- linuxmel · 2023-12-22 02:13 Thank you, you make a good point. I just assumed a tutorial must be accurate, but I'm learning not to think that way. I'm learning how to investigate and research when a tutorial doesn't give the results I expected. My main point with this post was being disappointed in Digital Ocean because I have used a lot of their tutorials with success. Also besides them, a high percentage of tutorials I follow don't succeed. Your comments have made me think in a better direction. Thanks ---------------------------------------------------------------------- linuxmel · 2023-12-22 02:14 Great point, thanks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- linuxmel · 2023-12-22 02:16 Good advice, I'm learning to ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Deathmeter · 2023-12-22 06:14 I find Traefik in specific to be difficult to configure because configuration errors (especially dynamic config using docker labels) aren't easy to diagnose, and a lot of the resources online are from the v1 era which isn't totally compatible with Traefik v2. You might have had less pain using Caddy instead ---------------------------------------------------------------------- linuxmel · 2023-12-22 06:26 I never thought about the version difference . That's probably a lot of the issues. I'm going to look into caddy. Thanks! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sudden_Cheetah7530 · 2023-12-22 06:29 There is no foolproof tutorial for the reverse proxy. Up and running it can be done easily, but configuring it properly needs deep understanding about the networking. Just be patient and read the doc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fatalskeptic · 2023-12-22 06:50 This has been the most frustrating part of self hosting. The knowledge gap between who can self host vs who should host is very wide. People who should are the ones in the post basically scoffing and saying the “gitgud” version. I’m with you OP, the tutorials need to be more plug and play so someone can understand what’s going where. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- funride1 · 2023-12-22 07:32 I have been using traefik for about 18 months now. Initially it was difficult to understand. I invested time in it and now I am very comfortable and can help if you have any issues ---------------------------------------------------------------------- tenekev · 2023-12-22 08:15 How can a tutorial be simultaneously plug-n-play and in-depth enough for people to understand? IMO, these are mutually exclusive. No matter how well written a tutorial is, you are not gonna learn something new untill you hit a problem that needs solving. Accounting for everything that might break in a form of a tutorial is nearly impossible. And plug-n-play pretty much means copy-paste and it works, which is a very bad thing to do. You don't need to 'gitgud'. You need to cultivate a troubleshooting mindset. That takes time and problems to solve. Github Issues are your friend. Selfhosting is not a plug-n-play hobby and never will be. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Perpetual_Nuisance · 2023-12-22 09:30 I'd expect some level of troubleshooting + analytical skills from someone with "linux" in their username. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- christoph312 · 2023-12-22 09:43 Since software changes so fast and tutorials are outdated very quicky, I use them mostly to get the correct keywords to lookup in the documentation. Once you read a few docs you learn how to read them, just takes a bit of getting used to! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- itachi_konoha · 2023-12-22 10:01 Read the damn documentation. Who follows tutorial now a days since most softwares put emphasis on good documentation now a days? Modern frameworks, from what I've seen, the documentation is enough to grasp more than basics. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Evelen1 · 2023-12-22 10:36 I agree, but many times the issue is not that they don't work, it just don't work anymore. When it comes to linux or self-hosting in general, how tings work change all the time. I have many guides on selfhosting here: [https://flemmingss.com/](https://flemmingss.com/) they all worked when the post was written. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Thashiznit2003 · 2023-12-22 11:28 Frigate CCTV has some of the worst documentation, from an understandability standpoint, that I’ve ever seen. Also, Organizr doesn’t have any overview explanation of what it actually does anywhere in its documentation. Some of these developers make great software, but could definitely use a technical writing class. These are just two examples but I’m sure I’ll see more. It’s not stopping me from reading the documentation, but it’s disheartening to have to sit there reading 10 pages of documentation to get the secret info that will make a simple docker compose file work. Especially when they give you the compose file at the beginning, you try to deploy it, fail, and the info you need is at the end of that 10 pages of instructions. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cybasura · 2023-12-22 12:26 Nature of time, if things dont get updated, even the program itself can go bad This is why I generally prefer the blueprints, the steps to recreate the idea/concept from scratch Afterwhich, I will learn the programs to help simplify the process So that if the program goes dead, I know how to work with the idea ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fatalskeptic · 2023-12-22 16:30 Oh my sweet summer child ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Toastytodd4113113 · 2023-12-22 17:10 Mealie. Prime example. Since the new updates. I cant seem to update my imagine to the new ones. Old ones work but the doc dockercompose file. Not working. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- KN4MKB · 2023-12-22 18:33 That's why most of these services have documentation. The people who write those tutorials use the official documentation. But they can get old and not work anymore. In the future, if you want a sure fire way to get something running, look at the documentation for the services you host and just follow that to get things running. You don't really need to copy and paste someone's commands down a list of you know how your services work. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- srozum · 2023-12-22 22:36 I just went through exactly same process - setting up Ubuntu on Mac Mini and starter pack: DNS, UFW, CA, Traefik, Whoami for sure, Heimdall, Portainer, Jellyfin, etc. Traefik documentation is hard to put together since it supports different approaches to configuration: command vs traefik.yml, dynamic config vs labels. All the articles are just slapping sh$t together. Ports exposed, configs mixed with logs, etc. Even though I had a plan and a vision of what I want to accomplish, it took me few iterations and more than a week of typing up/down commands. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kingb0b · 2023-12-26 18:15 Incorrect. It's possible, just very hard which is why most people don't make such tutorials. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- tenekev · 2023-12-26 20:35 No, what you want is a documentation. Just because that one perfect tutorial helped you, doesn't mean it's helpful for everyone or even that it's good. I've seen shitty tutorials, riddled with inaccuracies that hit the nail on the head and answer my biggest questions. And I've seen seemingly perfect and in-depth tuts that leave you with a lot of unanswered questions. You can write the most in-depth tutorial and at the end you will realize that you have replicated several documentations in your own way. Which is pointless. If you want in-depth, go read the official docs of whatever software you need.