Hey, so I recently had the idea of proposing some new ideas, I had for the IT infrastructure of my local scouts organisation, mainly it’s own nextcloud instance and website (and if that works well, maybey a matrix server and wiki, but website and nextcloud are much higher priority right now). But, I am wondering, what the best way to do the hosting would be. Using a VPS would be pretty nice, because there would be no upfront cost, but we would have to pay monthly fee and that’s pretty hard to pitch for a new and untested idea, especially because we don’t have that much regular funds/income. The other option would be to self host on hardware that stays in the building, but I am not quite shure, but then we would have a pretty steep upfront cost and I am not 100 percent shure, if we even have a proper network in the building.
The main thing, I am trying to ask here is, if any of you have ever done something similar before and if so, how you did it. Also I am thankful for any advice in general. I have done this already for my family, but doing this for an entire organistation is an entirely different thing. Thank you very much in advance!
Honestly, I would go with a managed Nextcloud solution like Hetzner Storage Share or another reputable provider. No hassle of updating and securing the server, no data stored at Google or Microsoft, and easy to administrate by people who aren’t expert system administrators in case you are no longer available. I also went with that route for my personal instance because it was actually cheaper than hosting it myself on a VPS.
I wouldn’t, unless you’ve been specifically asked by the organization to do so and given the proper authorization, legal counseling, etc, etc. Don’t go looking for solutions to problems that don’t exist.
Your heart is in the right place, but I’m with @NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip here.
The by far easiest to try would be to order one of these: https://www.hetzner.com/storage/storage-share/
I’m not sure if they provide the service for non French organizations, but FramaSpace offers free nextcloud instances for some non profits.
My local ecology-focused organization has an instance thanks to them ♥️
Hetzner Storage Share
My nextcloud is on a relatively expensive ($5/month) VPS but I should get off my butt and move it to a $2/month one. I like to hope your organization can afford that, at least for a while. I will PM you a link where as a broke nonprofit you might be able to get a free one if you ask nicely.
I think it’s not worth trying to self-host on your own hardware unless you want to experience the hassles and headaches as a self-education or hobby goal in its own right.
Hardware does not need a steep upfront costs.
You don’t need a nasa pc to run nextcloud, larger businesses routinely trow away machines that are beyond what you need. Chances are family of a member already has some machines they where going to trow away. Your hardware priorities are most cpu cores with as much compatible ram.
The advantages of having your own hardware is you can run multiple local servers and let members experience without additional costs. Imagine it like a private mini internet run by members that only is accessible at location.
I highly recommend proxmox as a server os which has 1 line helper script commands that create a whole nextcloud installation and others automatically, its also very easy to backup those.
Haven’t tried it out, but there are some free Nextcloud hosts listed on the official website.
Hey, what’s your budget? You could go far with a second-hand NUC (next unit of computing), I’m sure you can get one for under $100 and you could do more than just nextcloud with it (peertube, VPN, chat etc).
I personally think this is a better idea than an old laptop. Easier to work on if the fan or SSD ever dies, and the cooling is a little better than any cheaper laptops I have worked on. It also wouldn’t need to be a NUC, basically every PC company makes a SFF or 1L sized computer, I’m partial to the Lenovo but the Dell’s are pretty nice too. I have about 8 Lenovo that are used as mini servers between home and work, on 24/7
Look into digital ocean. They have pretty cheap hosting, like $6 a month last time I checked. You used to be able to get a month for free too. If it looks like a good option I can probably rustle you up a referral code.
I simply wouldn’t. Just use Google Drive or Dropbox.
Unless you can provide redundancy and 24x7 support you don’t want others dependent on you.
I‘d probably go with a VPS. It probably won‘t cost more than 10$/month, maybe even less, depending on how much heavy usage your Nextcloud instance requires. And you won‘t have to worry about keeping your hardware and network running, which pretty much always takes up more time than expected.
Some web hosters (I‘ve had very good experiences with Hetzner) charge an hourly rate and allow you to preconfigure VPSes with software like Nextcloud. So unless you have specific needs, you could just spin up an instance, check if it suits your needs and, if not, only pay a few cents.
Linode. I don’t trust the parent company but who can you trust? It’s super easy to setup and like $5 a month for a small scale project that isn’t mission critical.
Note: I would never use it for a paid or really important thing. If you expect your Boy Scout group to have 50,000 users one day, it’s not fit for purpose. It’s more than fine for a little league schedule or whatever.
run the nextcloud-all-in-one on an old laptop
VPS is not that much, especially if you aren’t storing a ton of media. Digital Ocean and Hetzner are good places to look. This will also prevent some networking headaches you’re likely to have hosting it “on prem”.
If part of your reason for doing this is to involve the kids in the process, then it’s better to do it locally. Someone in the org has or can find an unused desktop computer that you guys can have fun with for pretty much zero cost. You will probably have trouble trying to connect to it from outside your network though.
