I would learn the following at some point (not in order):

• nftables - specifically how tables/chains/rules interact and how to use them correctly (this is a learning process)
• ssh - using non-default port key-only authentication.
• custom routing - more advanced, but is very handy if you plan to have services talking to each other in non-typical ways.
• openvpn and WireGuard - pros/cons, what they do and how they can make connecting to things more secure.
• podman - docker alternative that is imo more secure and open. It can run services in a non-root enabled way (rootless) which is great with you get it working, but can be hard to get there.

Above are more on personal preference in some cases. There are so many options to do things in the Linux world.

Be careful relying on AI to do this stuff for you. I’ve reviewed some generated nft configs that left things wide open in some cases, or added needless fluff that worked, but caused bottlenecks. Better to know what it is doing, so you can catch when it is confidently incorrect.

Ofc, if you want to go back to basics, you should first dive into the file system, data storage, permissions and ownership. Without those, the rest might not be able to protect you no matter how well they are setup.

What I was thinking about back then was different. I understand what you mean with modular homes, but the idea was more like something you would see in a space show. Hallways with panels like 2x2’ that lock together to form the surface, structure, insulation, electrical and plumbing, with e-ink like material on the people facing side to change the look. Similar idea to the modular home concept, just on a much smaller scale, with extra bells and whistles.

I’m not really sure how else to describe it honestly.

Bottom line imo. As long as capitalist interests slow the adoption of standardization in the grand scheme of all production, construction, agriculture, infrastructure, etc. then we aren’t going to get there regardless.

In vehicles alone there are so so many proprietary things that each company produces specifically not to fit any other model of their own make, let alone fitting another company model. Yet, they all need almost exactly the same parts. It’s a bit insane when to look at it all from a few steps back.

But it’s not all the fault of the producers of any of these things. Demand drives supply. Culture in general needs to get to a place where a persons self worth is not dictated by what they own, but instead on how well they actually enjoy life. Richness in the form of experience.

Material possession is driving almost all the problems of the world right now. While that remains true, very little change can really happen unfortunately.

The housing problem specifically can be fixed, but no politician is willing to bite the corporate hand that feeds them. Ban home ownership for non-human entities and cap how many an individual can own in a district.

Rich people still get their houses in different places, but these hedgefund llcs and real estate firms buying up all the real estate have to liquidate. Done.

Unless the people demand it though, it isn’t going to happen.

I always thought as a kid that modular construction would eventually be the norm. Kinda like building in video games, or Legos. Basically, premade panels or blocks that automatically interlock and are pre-fitted with the required hookups and utilities etc.

I realized later that as cool as this might be, it would probably be very inefficient cost-wise, where some panels would contain the infrastructure and components for unneeded things.

Interesting thought though.

That’s kinda what I thought about 3d printed walls when I first heard about them. Good idea in theory, but maybe not in practice.

Maybe a combo of the two?

If I am following, there are a few ways, which shouldn’t involve hacks in nft, but you would need it allowing at least localhost traffic, which I assume you do already.

The keyword “localhost” usually will only work within a network or pod on rootless, however there is a separate address that can work.

host.containers.internal

I use it quite often for extra-user and pod communication. Hopefully this helps.

I setup custom bash scripts eons ago to handle all my subuid/gid and networking stuff, and I’m on the road now, so getting into the code is harder. If I have time tonight, I’ll reply back with how I did it for rootless.

I run everything in rootless podman with quadlets. Be prepared for the docker die-hard crowd to tell you podman is inferior, but it really isn’t. At least not in my 10ish years using it. Is it harder to get going? Sure, but the extra abstraction layer for security is worth it imo.

I have to get ready to update my scripts for the podman 6.0 changes upcoming, but otherwise they pretty much run themselves. Systemd gets a lot of hate sometimes, but when you get it working, it’s pretty much automated.

Want to have program x run after condition y. Use targets, sockets or a small monitor service. I have encrypted volumes that require me to enter the unlock password before they will unlock, the services will just wait until that is done.

Networking and permission issues? Run a pod. Podman unshare is also your friend.

The biggest thing I found getting everything figured out is the lack of step-by-step instructions on how it all works. The docs help, but can be a bit confusing/ambiguous at times.

Feel free to dm me if you have a specific question and I’d be glad to try and help. Just might be a bit delayed on responses for the next bit while I’m travelling.

The only problem back then was discovery. Finding the site that could give you what you were looking for wasn’t always easy, then Google came around and not only was it lightning fast, but it actually found things so much easier than Ask Jeeves, msn, AOL or Yahoo.

Then it slowly morphed into the mess we get now from there. AI seems to be making it much worse, not better.

I searched verbatim for something niche and uniquely named the other day. The smaller sites I use to avoid the big tech couldn’t find it, and Google was 3 pages of ads, AI crap and competitors. The site was on page 4.

Ugh.

I self host and run a considerable amount of open source software, locally and through a remote VPS.

Knowing how much I tinker and mess with configs and settings until breaking things usually, this would not be a good idea for me.

I concur. Podman is superior in my opinion. It’s more secure by default (rootless containers) and can do pretty much everything docker can do naively (you can literally alias docker to podman in your shell and it will work)

It’s not as easy to find info on some of the systemd specific stuff (Quadlets), but once you figure that out, it’s pretty amazing.

I ended up making up my own scripts to allow me to create new system users, pre-loaded with aliases and shortcut functions to make my life easier ( automatic quadlet container file generation, pre-set network rules, etc), but it is not required.

All the info is there, but starting out it can be a bit overwhelming.

My containers are pretty much self sufficient now. I just intervene when something needs major updating or config changes

Even though switching my laptop to Linux was a bit of a pain, especially for other family members, i didn’t regret it at all before. This just makes it even more reassuring as the right move.

Even the programs I had that rely on windoze I just run in wine or in a small vm.

If you can switch, do it!