[buchanae]

I moved all my stuff from AWS to a Hetzner VPS recently. I don't have much, and AWS was actually cheaper, but I'm so much happier having everything in one, simple spot.

There's a gap in my knowledge so far, which I think is mirrored in this post: I have been piecing together my server by hand, and I _know_ I will regret this at some point, but I don't know how I want to solve this yet. I don't want to involve Docker in this setup. Perhaps I should go back to Saltstack or Ansible, or maybe there's something in Nix for me, or snap/flatpack maybe, I don't know. There's a good chance I'll just never solve it, but it seems like there's a gap there that's waiting for a great, simple, small solution (or it exists and I just don't know about it).

So after all these years (decades now) of learning and working in linux every, single, day, I still have a lot to learn! :D

[jakubgarfield]

You are not wrong. Docker (paired with Kamal in Rails world) would simplify a few bits of the setup. But not all. The reason I haven't switched is:

1. my lack of experience with running docker in production

2. don't fix something if it ain't broken

But I'm planning to revisit it when my current LTS version runs out of support. Also, Kamal defaults change a few core pieces (caddy vs nginx, puma vs passenger) so there's a bit of extra learning curve). Oh and you'd still need to harden the server and keep it up to date.

[stickynotememo]

And why not Docker? I feel reluctant to suggest it even though you explicitly declined it, but it really does seem to be the best solution.

[buchanae]

I initially reached for Docker actually, but when I started researching how to run it securely, I just thought "I don't need this. Systemd is already there and does all of this in an easier and more direct way".