I downgraded from used enterprise gear to those ultra small form factor PCs. They sip power well enough on their own that I haven’t really bothered tuning anything. I suppose I could cap the frequency with cpufrequtils and set the governor to conservative rather than on-demand (I do this with my battery-powered RasPi projects) but I’m not sure how much difference that’ll make for my servers.

In the past, I had Docker Swarm setup and automation to collapse the swarm down to a single machine (powering the other ones down and back on with WoL) but that was more trouble than it was worth. On average load, the USFF PCs run at about 15 watts and don’t usually peak above 30 unless they’re rebooting or doing something very heavy. Even transcoding doesn’t break 20 watts since I’m using hardware acceleration.

The biggest power savings I found that was worth the effort was to just get rid of the enterprise gear, switch from VMs to Docker containers where possible, and get rid of stuff I’m not using (or only run it on-demand).

The only remaining enterprise power suck I have left is my managed switch. It’s a 2005-era dinosaur that’s loud and power hungry, but it’s been a workhorse I’m having a hard time parting with.

Looks like they banned you from the lemmy.zip instance only: https://lemmy.zip/modlog?page=1&actionType=ModBan&userId=16510340

When a federated account is banned from an instance, the backend also bans them from any community on the instance they’ve interacted with (including if you’ve just voted in them if I’m not mistaken).

Also, yes, admins can ban anyone on any community on their instance (but only locally if it’s a remote community). Ergo, a lemmy.zip admin can ban you from !asklemmy@lemmy.world on their instance, but you won’t be officially banned and other instances will see your content there while users on lemmy.zip will not.

Like you’re thinking: put HAProxy on your OpenWRT router.

That’s what I do. The HAProxy setup is kind of “dumb” L7 only (rather than HTTP/S) since I wanted all of my logic in the Nginx services. The main thing HAProxy does is, like you’re looking for, put the SPOF alongside the other unavoidable SPOF (router) and also wraps the requests in Proxy Protocol so the downstream Nginx services will have the correct client IP.

Flow is basically:

LAN/WAN/VPN -> HAProxy -> Two Nginx Instances -> Apps

With HAProxy in the router, it also lets me set internal DNS records for my apps to my router’s LAN IP.

Well, removed yes. Deleted, not always.

I’ve been looking into crowdsec for ages now and still haven’t gotten around to even a test deployment. One of these days, lol, and I’ll get around to it.

Oooooh. That’s smart. I mostly host apps, but in theory, I should be able to dynamically modify the response body and tack on some HTML for a hidden button and do that.

I used to disallow everything in robots.txt but the worst crawlers just ignored it. Now my robots.txt says all are welcome and every bot gets shunted to the tarpit 😈

I’ve got bot detection setup in Nginx on my VPS which used to return 444 (Nginx for "close the connection and waste no more resources processing it), but I recently started piping that traffic to Nepenthes to return gibberish data for them to train on.

I documented a rough guide in the comment here. Of relevance to you are the two .conf files at the bottom. In the deny-disallowed.conf, change the line for return 301 ... to return 444

I also utilize firewall and fail2ban in the VPS to block bad actors, overly-aggressive scrapers, password brute forces, etc and the link between the VPS and my homelab equipment never sees that traffic.

In the case of a DDoS, I’ve done the following:

• Enable aggressive rate limits in Nginx (it may be slow for everyone but it’s still up)
• Just stop either Wireguard or Nginx on the VPS until the storm blows over. (Crude but useful to avoid any bandwidth overages if you’re charged for inbound traffic).

Granted, I’m not running anything mission-critical, just some services for friends and family, so I can deal with a little downtime.

I used to use HAProxy but switched to Nginx so I could add the modsecurity module and run WAF services. I still use HAProxy for some things, though.

I have never used it, so take this with a grain of salt, but last I read, with the free tier, you could not secure traffic between yourself and Cloudflare with your own certs which implies they can decrypt and read that traffic. What, if anything, they do with that capability I do not know. I just do not trust my hosted assets to be secured with certs/keys I do not control.

There are other things CF can do (bot detection, DDoS protection, etc), but if you just want to avoid exposing your home IP, a cheap VPS running Nginx can work the same way as a CF tunnel. Setup Wireguard on the VPS and have your backend servers in Nginx connect to your home assets via that. If the VPS is the “server” side of the WG tunnel, you don’t have to open any local ports in your router at all. I’ve been doing that, originally with OpenVPN, since before CF tunnels were ever offered as a service.

Edit: You don’t even need WG, really. If you setup a persistent SSH tunnel and forward / bind a port to your VPS, you can tunnel the traffic over that.

On these, yes, but the batteries are not integrated like in modern laptops.

My record is 9.9 years (and going). This is my old Thinkpad T420 which lives on my equipment rack to act as a SSH / web console for my equipment. I just close the lid and put it to sleep when it’s’ not in use. It doesn’t even connect to the internet, just my isolated management VLAN.

My HomeAssistant server (also an old ThinkPad) is the next longest at just under a year. It also lives on an isolated VLAN.

Both of these are repurposed laptops with batteries in good condition and thus have built-in UPS (in addition to the UPS they’re plugged into).

The rest average about 4-7 months depending on power outages (rare but when they do occur, they’re longer than my UPS can provide) and rebooting for kernel updates.

https://pairdrop.net/

You can also self host it: https://github.com/schlagmichdoch/pairdrop

This probably isn’t the answer you want to hear, but yes, I still consider it slop.

Not everyone is an artist, and that’s okay. Just do your best, and even the worst chicken-scratch doodles are better than what any AI craps out.

So, I set this up recently and agree with all of your points about the actual integration being glossed over.

I already had bot detection setup in my Nginx config, so adding Nepenthes was just changing the behavior of that. Previously, I had just returned either 404 or 444 to those requests but now it redirects them to Nepenthes.

Rather than trying to do rewrites and pretend the Nepenthes content is under my app’s URL namespace, I just do a redirect which the bot crawlers tend to follow just fine.

There’s several parts to this to keep my config sane. Each of those are in include files.

• An include file that looks at the user agent, compares it to a list of bot UA regexes, and sets a variable to either 0 or 1. By itself, that include file doesn’t do anything more than set that variable. This allows me to have it as a global config without having it apply to every virtual host.

• An include file that performs the action if a variable is set to true. This has to be included in the server portion of each virtual host where I want the bot traffic to go to Nepenthes. If this isn’t included in a virtual host’s server block, then bot traffic is allowed.

• A virtual host where the Nepenthes content is presented. I run a subdomain (content.mydomain.xyz). You could also do this as a path off of your protected domain, but this works for me and keeps my already complex config from getting any worse. Plus, it was easier to integrate into my existing bot config. Had I not already had that, I would have run it off of a path (and may go back and do that when I have time to mess with it again).

The map-bot-user-agents.conf is included in the http section of Nginx and applies to all virtual hosts. You can either include this in the main nginx.conf or at the top (above the server section) in your individual virtual host config file(s).

The deny-disallowed.conf is included individually in each virtual hosts’s server section. Even though the bot detection is global, if the virtual host’s server section does not include the action file, then nothing is done.

Files

# Map bot user agents
## Sets the $ua_disallowed variable to 0 or 1 depending on the user agent. Non-bot UAs are 0, bots are 1

map $http_user_agent $ua_disallowed {
    default 		0;
    "~PerplexityBot"	1;
    "~PetalBot"		1;
    "~applebot"		1;
    "~compatible; zot"	1;
    "~Meta"		1;
    "~SurdotlyBot"	1;
    "~zgrab"		1;
    "~OAI-SearchBot"	1;
    "~Protopage"	1;
    "~Google-Test"	1;
    "~BacklinksExtendedBot" 1;
    "~microsoft-for-startups" 1;
    "~CCBot"		1;
    "~ClaudeBot"	1;
    "~VelenPublicWebCrawler"	1;
    "~WellKnownBot"	1;
    #"~python-requests"	1;
    "~bitdiscovery"	1;
    "~bingbot"		1;
    "~SemrushBot" 	1;
    "~Bytespider" 	1;
    "~AhrefsBot" 	1;
    "~AwarioBot"	1;
#    "~Poduptime" 	1;
    "~GPTBot" 		1;
    "~DotBot"	 	1;
    "~ImagesiftBot"	1;
    "~Amazonbot"	1;
    "~GuzzleHttp" 	1;
    "~DataForSeoBot" 	1;
    "~StractBot"	1;
    "~Googlebot"	1;
    "~Barkrowler"	1;
    "~SeznamBot"	1;
    "~FriendlyCrawler"	1;
    "~facebookexternalhit" 1;
    "~*(?i)(80legs|360Spider|Aboundex|Abonti|Acunetix|^AIBOT|^Alexibot|Alligator|AllSubmitter|Apexoo|^asterias|^attach|^BackDoorBot|^BackStreet|^BackWeb|Badass|Bandit|Baid|Baiduspider|^BatchFTP|^Bigfoot|^Black.Hole|^BlackWidow|BlackWidow|^BlowFish|Blow|^BotALot|Buddy|^BuiltBotTough|
^Bullseye|^BunnySlippers|BBBike|^Cegbfeieh|^CheeseBot|^CherryPicker|^ChinaClaw|^Cogentbot|CPython|Collector|cognitiveseo|Copier|^CopyRightCheck|^cosmos|^Crescent|CSHttp|^Custo|^Demon|^Devil|^DISCo|^DIIbot|discobot|^DittoSpyder|Download.Demon|Download.Devil|Download.Wonder|^dragonfl
y|^Drip|^eCatch|^EasyDL|^ebingbong|^EirGrabber|^EmailCollector|^EmailSiphon|^EmailWolf|^EroCrawler|^Exabot|^Express|Extractor|^EyeNetIE|FHscan|^FHscan|^flunky|^Foobot|^FrontPage|GalaxyBot|^gotit|Grabber|^GrabNet|^Grafula|^Harvest|^HEADMasterSEO|^hloader|^HMView|^HTTrack|httrack|HTT
rack|htmlparser|^humanlinks|^IlseBot|Image.Stripper|Image.Sucker|imagefetch|^InfoNaviRobot|^InfoTekies|^Intelliseek|^InterGET|^Iria|^Jakarta|^JennyBot|^JetCar|JikeSpider|^JOC|^JustView|^Jyxobot|^Kenjin.Spider|^Keyword.Density|libwww|^larbin|LeechFTP|LeechGet|^LexiBot|^lftp|^libWeb|
^likse|^LinkextractorPro|^LinkScan|^LNSpiderguy|^LinkWalker|msnbot|MSIECrawler|MJ12bot|MegaIndex|^Magnet|^Mag-Net|^MarkWatch|Mass.Downloader|masscan|^Mata.Hari|^Memo|^MIIxpc|^NAMEPROTECT|^Navroad|^NearSite|^NetAnts|^Netcraft|^NetMechanic|^NetSpider|^NetZIP|^NextGenSearchBot|^NICErs
PRO|^niki-bot|^NimbleCrawler|^Nimbostratus-Bot|^Ninja|^Nmap|nmap|^NPbot|Offline.Explorer|Offline.Navigator|OpenLinkProfiler|^Octopus|^Openfind|^OutfoxBot|Pixray|probethenet|proximic|^PageGrabber|^pavuk|^pcBrowser|^Pockey|^ProPowerBot|^ProWebWalker|^psbot|^Pump|python-requests\/|^Qu
eryN.Metasearch|^RealDownload|Reaper|^Reaper|^Ripper|Ripper|Recorder|^ReGet|^RepoMonkey|^RMA|scanbot|SEOkicks-Robot|seoscanners|^Stripper|^Sucker|Siphon|Siteimprove|^SiteSnagger|SiteSucker|^SlySearch|^SmartDownload|^Snake|^Snapbot|^Snoopy|Sosospider|^sogou|spbot|^SpaceBison|^spanne
r|^SpankBot|Spinn4r|^Sqworm|Sqworm|Stripper|Sucker|^SuperBot|SuperHTTP|^SuperHTTP|^Surfbot|^suzuran|^Szukacz|^tAkeOut|^Teleport|^Telesoft|^TurnitinBot|^The.Intraformant|^TheNomad|^TightTwatBot|^Titan|^True_Robot|^turingos|^TurnitinBot|^URLy.Warning|^Vacuum|^VCI|VidibleScraper|^Void
EYE|^WebAuto|^WebBandit|^WebCopier|^WebEnhancer|^WebFetch|^Web.Image.Collector|^WebLeacher|^WebmasterWorldForumBot|WebPix|^WebReaper|^WebSauger|Website.eXtractor|^Webster|WebShag|^WebStripper|WebSucker|^WebWhacker|^WebZIP|Whack|Whacker|^Widow|Widow|WinHTTrack|^WISENutbot|WWWOFFLE|^
WWWOFFLE|^WWW-Collector-E|^Xaldon|^Xenu|^Zade|^Zeus|ZmEu|^Zyborg|SemrushBot|^WebFuck|^MJ12bot|^majestic12|^WallpapersHD)" 1;

}

# Deny disallowed user agents
if ($ua_disallowed) { 
    # This redirects them to the Nepenthes domain. So far, pretty much all the bot crawlers have been happy to accept the redirect and crawl the tarpit continuously 
	return 301 https://content.mydomain.xyz/;
}

Post title works as-is, at least IMO. You can always edit it if you want.

Yes, what you’re describing is what’s called “willful ignorance” here.

“Ignorance” is used to mean simply “lack of knowledge” in most cases in English. It doesn’t carry the negative connotation by itself.

There’s nothing wrong with being ignorant. It just means there’s opportunity for learning.

There’s everything wrong with being willfully ignorant.

– Me

Good to know.

I think this just fixes the bug where deleted accounts were invisible to admins. It’s a start but doesn’t fully address the problem. Still, having it federate the content removal is a step in the right direction.

They’ve also been throwing out rage bait in the “YSK” community. But yeah, I definitely agree it’s a problem. So much so that I’ve added some built-in filters for that in Tesseract (client-side) to deal with it. I don’t want to go into the technical details for fear of that jackass trying to counter them, but suffice it to say they’re effective based on their current M.O… I just need to finish this release and get it pushed out as it’s been approaching vaporware status over the last 1-2 months.

I think Piefed is also taking action in either its UI or backend. I don’t recall exactly what, but I saw something mentioned a week or two ago on another post complaining about that self-deleting spammer account.

Maybe it will, maybe it won’t, but either way: Please, no. One of the most refreshing things was noticing the internet had largely matured from that. I’m all for throwing a wrench in the gears of the AI brains, but there’s a limit.