Both were down for me before, they seem to be up right now but just made this account on Lemmy.blahaj.zone (Henry is the name of my actual blahaj lol). It’s probably because of the traffic influx from reddit refugees from the absolutely disastrous spez ama (where he doubles down on everything and doesn’t apologize at all). Allegedly they’re trying to suppress Lemmy mentions but I guess it’s not working well enough lol
A good problem to have although long term we’re going to have to figure out how to deal with these spikes in traffic.
Is it in the ballpark of “easy if you’re a techie and experienced with Linux” to use an old PC as a server instead of paying to host it?
The short answer: yes.
The long answer: Yes, but…
If this is your home network, you’re providing attackers with an entry point into your network. You’re also giving yourself an avenue to get DDOS’d etc. You’d have to open ports and get that set up - or deal with a reverse proxy or whatever.
But generally it’s as easy as running a Docker container and pointing a domain at your IP.
And, of course, ensuring that your IP provider doesn’t run behind a Client-Grade Network Address Translator (CG-NAT). Otherwise, you’re better off renting a Virtual Private Server (VPS) or if you’re particularly strapped of money and have a lot of patience, you can bridge it with your home server using a Virtual Private Network (VPS) and a good amount of scripting to remap the ports accordingly.
Might be my vacation project then. But I probably won’t use it seriously if I’m not sure I can keep it decently secured.