how are people setting up a private Discord server to receive self hosted server app notifications? reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fart_vandalay · 2023-12-22 20:58 I see people and apps mentioning use of Discord to receive service notifications. I have used Discord for years, but never made my own server. This seems like an easy way to use a pre-existing free web service to collect messages from my home server apps. Where I am confused is just how people are setting up their own servers. Particularly, how people are setting up their own **private** servers in Discord. All the tutorials I read online say stuff like this https://privacydefend.com/how-to-make-your-discord-server-private/ > Adjusting Server Settings > > Open Discord and log in to your account. > Click on the server name to access the server. > Click on the server settings icon (gear icon) located next to the server name. > Click on the “Privacy Settings” option. > Under “Server Privacy,” select the “Private” option. seems like every single tutorial or guide I read just parrots off these same exact instructions. The problem is, they **do not work** because these "privacy" settings no longer exist on Discord. Then you get a lot of articles and pages like this; https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/206143407-How-do-I-set- up-a-private-server- > Disable all permissions for @everyone > Create a new role in the server > Enable permissions for the role > Assign the role to your server members which make no sense at all, they are only talking about how to restrict users in your server; I do not want any users. I just want my Discord user account to have access, and I do not want the server to appear publicly **anywhere** on Discord. I dont want people to see it when they search for servers either, or to be able to request access, or see that it even exists. It seems like the Discord docs do not address that use case at all. Which leaves me confused, as to what exactly all these other self- hosted home server users have done in order to configure for themselves a private Discord server to receive notifications from their home server apps. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bka-informant · 2023-12-22 21:25 Nobody can access your server unless you send out invites or set up a community server ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Party_Natural_2081 · 2023-12-22 21:27 As far as I'm aware, and I could be wrong, most Discord servers are defacto private with default settings. The only way to join them is by invite link. I think the only exception is marking your server as a "community" which allows it to be listed in the registry. Using Discord for notifications seems suspect anyway. I ended up paying for notifiarr, but only for the trash guide sync. I would never use it's Discord integrations. It's easy to set up and probably fine for most use cases, but Discord are undoubtedly logging all messages and I certainly wouldn't want a third party having access to anything potentially sensitive or in a legal grey area(Linux isos). Better off using something like Telegram for that, but that's just my two cents. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nasazh · 2023-12-22 21:33 Why not use self hosted Matrix server for that? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CatoDomine · 2023-12-22 22:23 Discord "servers" are not servers in the sense that we are used to, they are more like a group of channels that you administer and can invite people or bots to, but the "server" is still on Discord's service. To my knowledge there is no way to selfhost Discord. You can however setup a private Discord "server" the same way you setup any new Discord server. Click the **+** sign and select "**Create my own**". If you want to self host something like this, Matrix is the only answer that I am aware of. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Cylian91460 · 2023-12-22 23:11 What they are doing is creating a server for them, they don't create any invites. That makes it private. After that they use webhooks to automatically send messages in the server ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ethereal_g · 2023-12-22 23:36 This. I’ll send webhooks to my matrix server. A bot picks them up and posts in the relevant channel ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nathan12581 · 2023-12-22 23:43 I use my own solution as I wanted a simple way to notify my phone based off actions. I just send a simple HTTP GET or POST request to my api and it’ll notify my phone. I can edit the link and the icon that shows in the notification based on the service. When I click the notification it’ll redirect me to whatever I set the ‘link’ parameter to. As simple as that. You can check it out here, if you’d like: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/cloud-notify/id1549955568 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Old_Bug4395 · 2023-12-22 23:49 This seems like a strange usecase for discord, I would recommend telegram or another app like that honestly. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Robbie11r1 · 2023-12-23 00:04 Highly recommend Ntfy.sh for this exact purpose. Very easy to self host, has existing integrations in many self hosted favorites and includes SMTP server for things like Truenas or Synology that dont have built in notifications to third party apps. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- daedric · 2023-12-23 00:15 As other have said, there are no private, selfhosted Discord servers. Discord is actually changing it's naming to Guilds, it's just a separated community, but hosted on Discord servers. You can try: * Matrix * Mattermost ---------------------------------------------------------------------- djgizmo · 2023-12-23 00:45 Have you not used discord servers? It’s invite only. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CactusBoyScout · 2023-12-23 00:47 Telegram is pretty easy to setup for notifications ---------------------------------------------------------------------- notdoreen · 2023-12-23 00:59 I use discord notifications on Uptime Kuma. It's built in. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 21shadesofsavage · 2023-12-23 03:22 is it? i use discord heavily to send notifications in different channels in different groups. same thing as slack pretty much ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fart_vandalay · 2023-12-23 03:29 I'm trying to avoid having any servers be facing the public Internet. Prefer to send the messages from my private home server to some pre existing Internet-accessible platform ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ReachingForVega · 2023-12-23 03:34 Just so you know, discord data is not private so if you are happy with discord reading it then it's the same as using someone else's matrix server and making some private channels. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ReachingForVega · 2023-12-23 03:37 I have some friends that use private servers like kanban boards or journals. Very odd but I guess they don't need to back it up. Be impossible to export though. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fart_vandalay · 2023-12-23 03:52 Thanks yeah I don't care about that I don't care if some Discord admin sees my server messages about high network usage and completed Linux ISO downloads ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BraveNewCurrency · 2023-12-23 06:25 >I have used Discord for years, but never made my own server. Just click the "+" at the bottom of your list of servers. Problem solved. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- xCharg · 2023-12-23 06:44 >This seems like a strange usecase for discord, I would recommend telegram - both can't be selfhosted - both have a client app or web client to use - both are interacted with via api This is conceptually the same thing. Why do you recommend one over the other? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- uekiamir · 2023-12-23 07:12 Maybe if you actually just tried instead of bullshit nothing, you would've understood very quickly how Discord servers worked. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Old_Bug4395 · 2023-12-23 09:03 I read the post as OP wanting to use Discord for private notifications for their lab, so I was recommending something more DM-centric. If it's for a group then discord does make sense ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Old_Bug4395 · 2023-12-23 09:16 Because I initially thought their use case was a private discord server that only they would be using, it doesn't really make much sense to set up a group chat for yourself... Making a telegram bot that DMs you is not really conceptually the same thing as a group/community server I think you can self host a telegram relay, of course that's still not self hosting your telegram data itself. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- KervyN · 2023-12-23 09:59 I am huge fan of pushover. Cost 5$ ONCE and it provides tons of features, including email to push (for those cron error mails if you want) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- KervyN · 2023-12-23 10:06 Holy cow! Why is this not the top answer. Thanks. I can finally put pushover to the grave and use my own stuff. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ReachingForVega · 2023-12-23 10:52 In that case, do it. I personally would prefer a telegram bot or messaging platform you currently use. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 21shadesofsavage · 2023-12-23 10:53 yeah. i meant i have a discord server for my own use with channels grouped under different categories. eg media server notifications has movies, tv, anime, -arr release rss channels. different applications have their own categories. the ai category runs a bot to generate images where each channel by default uses a different model then i can set the server default to only notify on @, and individually set error/status channels notify me. otherwise i can just see which channels have unread messages when i decide to check on the discord server and catch up ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Old_Bug4395 · 2023-12-23 11:05 I see, that's an interesting setup but it makes sense, never really thought of something like that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- arcadianarcadian · 2023-12-23 12:42 Why installing/managing to get notifications?? Gotify / ntfy / Telegram ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Greedy-Web-9170 · 2023-12-23 12:48 Or you can simply use Pushover service. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- viktorprogger · 2023-12-23 14:16 That may be off topic, but did you think of your very own Telegram bot sending messages in your private Telegram channel? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JVAV00 · 2023-12-23 14:56 There is an opensource project in the works called ~~fosscord~~ spacebar, it is still in the make but not really useful atm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- IM_OK_AMA · 2023-12-23 16:12 If you already have Discord installed why not? It works great and has slack-compatible webhooks so it's widely supported. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fart_vandalay · 2023-12-23 16:13 I am not familiar yet with Telegram so I would have to look into this some more, thanks ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fart_vandalay · 2023-12-23 16:15 thanks, I was surprised to find that this was not explicitly stated in the docs I found on Google ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fart_vandalay · 2023-12-23 16:19 I am used to doing the same thing at work, but via Slack, sending automated "bot" messages to a team infrastructure channel to notify everyone about operations updates and activities at work. However I dont want to use Slack for this because Slack is highly tied to my professional usages and I want to keep my home server stuff more highly segregated. I dont even like installing Slack on my phone for the reason that its so work-oriented. So Discord seems like a good alternative. I am in dozens of Discord servers already for various non-work things ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fart_vandalay · 2023-12-23 16:23 I did try and did not find explicit "Make Server Private" settings as described in countless (now outdated??) online docs, and the official docs did not describe the behavior, so it was unclear what behavior to expect from the service and importantly, it seems like people who had already been using Discord like this may have done something to configure their servers which isnt covered in the standard docs and tutorials which are all oriented towards making your server for friends and community to use. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fart_vandalay · 2023-12-23 16:25 the Discord UI is constantly prompting to "discover" and "search" for new servers so it seems like there's some aspect of servers being public and publically join-able. Perhaps this is a recent development ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Old_Bug4395 · 2023-12-23 16:54 Yeah it makes sense, we do the same thing at work, I had just never really thought of doing it at home ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Robbie11r1 · 2023-12-23 16:58 Of course, but credit should really go to u/binwiederhier the creator! I've just been a loyal fan and user for a while now. He has really done an amazing job developing and expanding the service to become the only notification service I recommend to anyone. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- djgizmo · 2023-12-23 17:10 As someone who’s use discord since 2016, the installed, I’ve not seen discover in so so long. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lcurole · 2023-12-23 19:09 Eh I can get not wanting them to have your data but if it's legit not private data as far as reliability goes they use Google cloud messaging so it's very reliable. I push tens of thousands of notifications out daily and have never had any issues. It's very impressive what you get for free but of course your data privacy concerns are valid ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Hulwal · 2023-12-23 19:19 I built [FeedCord ](https://github.com/Qolors/FeedCord) off of this idea. I use a diacord server for a few friends we use it as a no distraction stream of the things we like to read & discuss about.. Webhooks are dead simple to set up for Discord Channels ---------------------------------------------------------------------- knottybigdog · 2023-12-23 19:20 Bro what a godsend ---------------------------------------------------------------------- malvim · 2023-12-23 20:40 Came here to say this. Easiest solution for me, and you can even separate in topics. I have a group with my bot that has “error”, “success”, “info”, topics. My cron jobs all just send their notifications to this group. It’s great ---------------------------------------------------------------------- uekiamir · 2023-12-23 20:54 Hence the **JUST TRY** bit. What are you so afraid of? Or is it laziness? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DasKraut37 · 2023-12-23 23:58 Are you Santa?! This is what I’ve been looking for! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 99_product_owners · 2023-12-24 00:32 Another vote for telegram. If you just want to send messages to a group or chat as a bot, you only need curl. Telegram messages also support code snippets (single backticks, triple backticks) so it's handy for technical messages. I have a couple of bots representing various items in my homelab, all in my 'skynet' chat where they dump messages. ntfy looks cool and I'd look into that first but keep telegram in mind. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- primevaldark · 2023-12-24 04:58 You can also selfhost Mattermost, Zulip, and RocketChat ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 12_nick_12 · 2023-12-24 19:11 I second this. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Firm_Tailor719 · 2023-12-27 16:53 I’m late to the party and only recently heard of Matrix server. Need to read up and set one up. 👍