I have been running this web server on a Raspberry Pi Zero W in my coat closet for three months, and my dynamic IP still hasn’t changed. That’s good because I still haven’t implemented a script to change where my URL points from FreeDNS in the event that my home IP changes. At some point I guess it’ll happen, and the server will be offline until I figure it out.

I wasn’t paying for my Google Cloud VM, and it turns out the price was right. Since I started working on my own server in the coat closet, I haven’t been using my free Google VM. I got an email today saying that it’s been 120 days since I’ve opened Google Cloud Shell. If I didn’t log in, “in 7 days, your Cloud Shell home directory will be automatically scheduled for deletion.

Running your own servers — be they VPSes on Google, AWS or Digital Ocean, or Raspberry Pis in the closet — is a learning experience. You have to put on your sysadmin hat and get to work. Today I’m trying to figure out the ftp server. I’ve used a hundred of them but never installed and configured one. The hardest part to figure out is the SSL encryption. If you see this file, it means I’ve made some progress.