This is not an academic journal: it is merely the whimsically-named chronicle of my adventures and misadventures in self-hosting personal services—calendar, contacts, email, and web pages—using FreeBSD (the operating system), Apache httpd (the web server), Radicale (the calendar and contacts server), Postfix and Dovecot (mail service). And a wee bit about mail user agents (Mutt, Mu4e, etc.).
Caveat lector: I have made mistakes, and doubtless I will make more mistakes. Do not blindly follow the things I have done.
I will document my mistakes when I am aware of them.
But if I’ve made mistakes and might make more, why am I even sharing the story, and who might be interested in reading it? I am sharing the story because I have done some things right. You might be interested in reading it if you have tried self-hosting and become frustrated, or if you have thought about self-hosting and read horror stories and become too scared to start. You may find relief in reading these pages. You may find encouragement. I am sharing the story because self-hosting, especially of email, is widely considered to be too difficult for the likes of me and thee. But if me can do, maybe thee can too!
Below, the articles of this Journal are listed in three indexes: What’s new, in reverse order of publication; Chronology, in the order that things happened; and Topics, such as FreeBSD, email, web, calendar and contacts.
This index lists recently posted articles according to the date posted.
This index lists articles in the order in which things happened.
This index lists articles by topic. Within a topic, they are listed in the order in which things happened, as in the Chronology.