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I've written a series of blog posts about a "hands-off" self-hosting setup intended for relative beginners.
(cyclicircuit.prose.sh)
this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2025
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This is very cool, but also very dangerous. Many projects release versions that need some sort of manual intervention to be updated, and automatically updating to new versions on docker can lead to data loss in those situations.
Here’s a recent example from Immich:
https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/tag/v1.133.0
It is my humble opinion that teaching newbies to do automatic updates will cause them to lose data and break things, which will probably sour them from ever self hosting again.
Automatic OS updates are fine, and docker update notifications are fine, but automatic docker updates are just too dangerous.
That's reasonable, however, my personal bias is towards security and I feel like if I don't push people towards automated updates, they will leave vulnerable, un-updated containers exposed to the web. I think a better approach would be to push for backups with versioning. I forgot to add that I am planning a "backups with Syncthing" article as well, I will take this into consideration, add it to the article, and use it as a way to demonstrate recovery in the event of such an issue.
it'll still cause downtime, and they'll probably have a hard time restoring from backup for the first few times it happens, if not for other reason then stress. especially when it updates the wrong moment, or wrong day.
that's the point. Services shouldn't be exposed to the web, unless the person really knows what they are doing, took the precautions, and applies updates soon after release.
exposing it to the VPN and to tge LAN should be plenty for most. there's still a risk, but much lower
Consider warning the reader that it will not be obvious if backups have stopped, or if a sync folder on the backup pc is in an inconsistent state because of it, as errors are only shown on the web interface or third party tools
Yeah I agree with the warnings. One of the things I'm trying to ensure I get across accurately (which will be discussed later in the series) is how to do monitoring. Making sure backups are functioning properly would need to be a part of that.