Distributed servers - any experiences?

[Dasboot]

I've been doing CMSes, VPSes, servers & command line work for a couple of decades now, currently going into crypto & privacy for REAL 🙂

There are some platforms that kinda are the equivalent of Amazon S3, storing files on all the distributed servers/users, BUT these are not set up to be proper webservers yet as far as I can see.

Then there is of course also the question of the domain name and DNS provider, but that can be taken care of in different ways.

As I'm planning to set up a blog of sorts for my new "pivot" I would like to do this on one of these distributed systems both to prove what is possible as well as getting into that particular tech early.

Anyone done this?

Unsure if I can post links to open source projects here, would that count as advertising? So far I've found a couple of candidates.

Last edited: May 24, 2020

 

[cckuhqilfownnfctux]

a couple of years you mean? 😉 otherwise it's very strange that you know nothing about decentralized systems if you are soooo long in the IT-servers-commandline industry. people who are really "doing VPSes" know about cluster filesystems and their (dis)advantages and limitations, SQL replication and its (dis)advantages and limitations, anycast DNS and so on.

still, answering your question: in my experience the only working (means making profit) setup was setting up a bunch of clearnet (usual .com) domains, linking them to a bunch of cheap servers, and setting up a proxy from these servers to the master node. once any domain or server goes down by the abuse report - set up a new domain/server pair. If you set up everything properly and the proxy chain between the entry node and the master node will consist of more than 2 servers - no one would find and take down your master node.
I've tried .bit and .bazar domains and Tor and I2P for "anonymous" hosting only to find out that users are too dumb and lazy for all this kind of stuff - no one wants to install some custom software to access the website. The traffic distribution was like 95% visits from clearnet domain mirrors, 4.99% from Tor and 0.01% from I2P.

If it's going to be a pet project and you just want to learn more stuff - try Freenet (static content only) and Zeronet (mostly static content. dynamic possible but difficult)

 

[Dasboot]

Been doing stuff like VMware since 1999, so no, not new at all. What do you prefer, KVM, Proxmox, Xen or even Virtualbox? Remember running BeOS on top of VMware AND KVM in 99, fun times...

What I am looking for is peer to peer, completely distributed systems NOT based on proxies and old tech - what at some point will be the new standard for hosting that cannot be taken down at all 🙂

You mention .bit and .bazar and users not being able to navigate, that is exactly the problem - the early versions of tech like this is built by devs, and often completely not user friendly...

"Just download X extension or Y packed, install and then check Z domain this way" is NOT what makes for distributed systems getting anything close to being adopted mainstream - but any standard domain routed to a true peer to peer, distributed and fully anonymous network would certainly be a good candidate.

Or just having to chose .bit or whatever as the only possible domain name.

 

[cckuhqilfownnfctux]

Dasboot said:
What do you prefer, KVM, Proxmox, Xen or even Virtualbox?
Click to expand...

do you even understand what you are asking about? KVM/Xen/Virtualbox are virtual machine types, Proxmox is a linux distro to run virtual machines. It's similar to asking "what you prefer - apples, food, oranges or carrots?"

Dasboot said:
Remember running BeOS on top of VMware AND KVM in 99, fun times...
Click to expand...

but KVM was released just about ten years ago...

Dasboot said:
"Just download X extension or Y packed, install and then check Z domain this way" is NOT what makes for distributed systems getting anything close to being adopted mainstream - but any standard domain routed to a true peer to peer, distributed and fully anonymous network would certainly be a good candidate.
Click to expand...

"standard domain" would not fit an "anonymous decentralized network" because it could simply be taken down by authorities. if you want "standard domain" - go for "standard networks", if you want "peer to peer, distributed, fully anonymous" - go for "non-standard" domains.

no truly untraceable, undestructible, anonymous network will ever be adopted mainstream and make its way on general public's computers, same as Monero will never be accepted by the governments as a legal payment system.
anonymous = crime, crime = not allowed.

 

[Dasboot]

Oh, you are such a positive & constructive guy...

Yes, there is this identification between anonymity and crime that has been pushed onto us, BUT if no one tries to break that up nothing will happen!

I prefer to see whats coming, being early & adoption what actually works - not only staying in the command line or any box that is ready made from whomever...

Simply knowing that nothing would be found if someone tries to find my actual server would be a great thing, even if the domain name somehow would be reachable in theory!

Might even be very handy if only for things like doxxing... Staying of automatically collected lists, spiders or any AI being released, for this project that would be good enough.

 

[cckuhqilfownnfctux]

Dasboot said:
Simply knowing that nothing would be found if someone tries to find my actual server would be a great thing, even if the domain name somehow would be reachable in theory!
Click to expand...

then the answer is Freenet or Zeronet where are no "actual servers" because the content is hosted on all computers in the network, so taking a site down will require taking down all the computers on that network.
but it will require your users to install an additional software on their computers 🙂
and it will work for doxxing only - i.e. for static content only, as there is no usual php+mysql stuff possible in distributed networks.

 

[cckuhqilfownnfctux]

I haven't looked it up but I think there should be cleanet proxies to Freenet/Zeronet networks, similar to OnionLink. We link you up with the onions. clearnet proxy to the Tor network.
so it does not require users to install anything to access the Tor network, but it sacrifices the anonimity and security as authorities could collect the traffic going through the onion.link server.