Does it make sense for someone like me to use Cloudron?

[Bytepartner]

Hello,

I have a non-technical question and would be interested in your opinion.

First and foremost: I think the Cloudron approach is great, open-source on "my" own server instance, that fits my idea. Overall also pretty cheap, although that is not my main focus.

In short, my question is: can a non-coder like me "meaningfully" use Cloudron?

To understand what I mean, however, I think I need to say a few words more:

I have rented a Cloudron server from the hoster Windcloud, a V-server with a Cloudron instance pre-installed, and I have deposited my Cloudron licence there.
Now I can install applications from MyApps and manage them in the Cloudron FrontEnd, etc., set up mail servers, etc., works so far, so good.

I receive the Cloudron Forum Newsletter once a week. I skim it and see if there are issues related to my apps that I might want to take notice of. Often I find it hard to follow technically, and certainly not in detail.

E.g. GIRISH's contribution on the issue "Vaultwarden warnings" – you don't have to read this post to follow my question

I use Vaultwarden. And I understand - very abbreviated - that there is a problem which can be solved on the WEB TERMINAL level, at the end it says: "Take that above token and put it in config.json in the field admin_token. Important: remove the single quote around the argon2id string above. JSON does not require it.

And this I can't follow anymore. And I will not have the capacity to dig as deep as necessary + "try and fail" doesn't seem to be a good approach either

I can't even judge whether "my" Vaultwarden is now unsafe, whether I / you need to take action as described in the post, or whether it's a specific problem that doesn't affect me at all or that I can neglect?

Every now and then I read similar posts that describe a problem and then describe a solution that is not accessible to me.

And that brings me to the core of my question:
Beyond my insecurity resulting from lack of understanding – what do you think: Does it make sense for someone like me to use Cloudron? And perhaps even recommend it to others? Doesn't someone like me need a Cloudron service provider whom I can approach and commission?

Do other users have an opinion on this?

Thanks + greetings
Dank + Gruß

Frank

[Kubernetes]

Hi Frank, very good question and point. I do not do any recommendation, but would like to share my thoughts.

Cloudron makes it very easy to setup and maintain Apps. That allows also non technical users to use it. Cloudron takes care for system security, auto updates the Apps and Cloudron itself.

However, I personally think it is a major risk to run Applications in the internet without having the knowledge how it works and what to do when security might become a problem. Cloudron is reducing that risk a lot, but there is no 100% security ever possible.

The Blog post you mentioned regarding Vaultwarden is something that may happen not so often, so most of the time there is nothing to do except of reboot/restart the Cloudron server sometimes to get updates applied. If you have questions or concerns regarding specific Apps the Forum Community is helpful and should be good to support you for similar topics. However, even if the Forum supports you, you should still be able to follow the instructions.

As I said, just my thoughts and not any recommendation. Hope it is still useful somehow

Best,
Mike

[lukas]

Cloudron is really user-friendly, you can really easy access / change all needed files / configurations and one I cann tell you for sure: The support here is on a highly professional level + the guys responds in fast time!

I'm also a "fresh" cloudron user and I don't want miss this amazing stuff anymore

[timconsidine]

@Bytepartner I understand your concerns, however I think that Cloudron is still relevant to those without a lot of technical knowledge.
The whole point is that it makes it easy to run a server with minimal maintenance and technical knowledge.
Very often, it is not necessary to understand fully : the "monkey see, monkey do" (no offence intended) philosophy works very well.
If an app is giving you what you want in terms of functionality and productivity, there is no need to delve deeply and understand everything.
And with some time and patience, your knowledge and your confidence can grow.
The forum is very friendly and supportive, and can guide you through the basic steps needed on those few occasions when you have to delve deeply.

[timconsidine]

@Bytepartner said in Does it make sense for someone like me to use Cloudron?:

I can't even judge whether "my" Vaultwarden is now unsafe, whether I / you need to take action as described in the post, or whether it's a specific problem that doesn't affect me at all or that I can neglect?

I took a look at this, as I have Vaultwarden too.
To answer your question and give you some confidence in your installation, you can do a couple of things without any intervention in the terminal.

First, just open your Vaultwarden in the browser : click on the URL of the instance that is showing in your portal
At the bottom, there is an option to create an account.
Scary - we don't others on our Valutwarden instance (unless we have invited them).
Click on the link and fill in the form with dummy date (e.g. a spare email address) to create an account.
Hopefully you will get an error message in red box, saying signups not allowed or duplicate account.
If so, then you should have nothing to worry about, and you do not need to edit any files as per 1st part of @girish post.
If it does create an account, then you need to do something.
I will leave explaining that to another post, but you can actually solve this issue without using the terminal, which is the scary bit for you.

Second, the bit in @girish post which had scary terminal instructions.
Use the settings cog wheel in top right of the vaultwarden app panel to open the app's configuration screen.
There you can use the 2nd icon in from the right on the top line called File Manager.
Just click this and it will show a list of files and folders.
Double click config.json to open the file and view its contents.
If your admin password is shown in plain text in one of the values, then you need to do something.
If not, then close this file with no changes (i.e. do not press Save).
Repeat this for confidence with the file config.env.
If you don't see your admin password listed in plain text, then you're good and don't need to worry about following the terminal instructions.

@Bytepartner, does this make sense ?
Does anyone want to contradict or improve this answer ?

[scooke]

There is absolutely NOTHING else available that will make using the apps available on Cloudron doable and, frankly, safe. Any potential dangers stem not from Cloudron's side, but from some inherent (and as-of-yet undiscovered) weakness in any given app. If you think your status as a non-coder puts normal, day-to-day use of Cloudron out of reach, then quite honestly you are better served by paying for O365 or Google Worksuite. (Even then, there are hacks out there that weaken these paid-for services!)

To be honest, paying for someone else to have installed and run Cloudron (Windcloud) is already something of a risk because you are trusting them to run, install, and maintain Cloudron according to Cloudron's own Best Practices. As you peruse this forum you will find many problems stem from users doing things to their server which they should be letting Cloudron do (security updates, etc.) Hopefully WindCloud doesn't mess things up. You will likely find though that even Cloudron, as amazing as it is, is still limited by RAM and processor, so if you are on the S plan, for example, you only have 4GB ram - not a whole lot, and will probably manage to run about 3-6 apps well. This isn't a Cloudron problem though, it's just how things work.

[humptydumpty]

Fellow noob here! I've been in your shoes, and it's scary when you don't know if you did things right or not. I've been using Cloudron for over 2 years now, and it's been amazing. I've successfully (and headache-free might I say) switched hosts and restored complete Cloudrons (+20 apps) using the backups that Cloudron auto-created.

Likewise, I frequent these forums and annoy the heck out of the staff and the knowledgeable community here (sorry guys), but I've learned a lot by reading posts and seeing what went wrong and how it was fixed. I suggest signing up for a GitHub account, because any issues are more than likely an upstream bug, and it's best if you report it yourself on the app's GitHub page.

Once you're comfortable with your Cloudron on a VPS, I suggest setting up a home server. For me, that's when things started to make sense and I had a better understanding of firewalls, networking, etc. In short, setting-up/running a Cloudron seems daunting, but in reality, it's a breeze!

Tip: Use S3 for your server/app backups (like BackBlaze). Do NOT use the same drive on your server. If your VPS supports it, create an image of your VPS periodically and before any major updates (in case you need to wipe your VPS because of a bad IP reputation, etc.) Do those two things, and you're golden.

[robi]

If you are open to keep learning, stick with it.

If not, you can use moocloud.ch which is a Cloudron partner, and takes care of it for you as a Managed Service Provider (MSP).

[girish]

@Bytepartner To add to what others have already said, don't hesitate to ask questions, however simple, in threads that you don't understand. We (the whole community) are happy to clarify and help out. By nature of selfhosting, as it is today, Cloudron still needs some technical know how. You don't need to be an expert but need to have basic knowledge of servers. This can be learnt quite quickly.

Also, this reminded me of our issue #1 - selfhosting for mortals . Our goal was and still is to "Let's build a world where everyone stores their data in an infrastructure of their choosing." . 'everyone' here means anyone who is willing to put in some effort towards their data sovereignty .

[Bytepartner]

@timconsidine : Hi Thank you so much for reading, for looking and for taking the trouble to write it down so patiently in simple language for me. I appreciate it very much. I'll try to follow up and get back to you. Thanks again!

[Bytepartner]

@girish @humptydumpty @Kubernetes @lukas @robi @scooke @timconsidine

Dear all!

Thank you for all your answers!!!

I conclude from them (very abbreviated):

If I want to use Cloudron with a reasonably safe feeling, then I either need to go deeper into the matter of SERVER-ADMINISTRATION than I have done so far. Or I need a Cloudron admin I can trust.

Hm. I'll have to think about it some more.

In any case, thank you sincerely for your time and comments.

[Bytepartner]

@timconsidine Allright: THANK YOU – I checked both and everything looks okay

[timconsidine]

excellent !
personally I think you can be 'reasonably safe' with a standard Cloudron deployment
as you have seen, help is available
good luck with the decision

[jdaviescoates]

@Bytepartner said in Does it make sense for someone like me to use Cloudron?:

SERVER-ADMINISTRATION

There is a very limited need to very occasionally be able to do something in the command line either using Cloudron's built in Web Terminal or by logging into your server.

So yeah, you need to be a little be OK with doing command line stuff. But I wouldn't say you really need to know anything at all about server administration

[scooke]

@Bytepartner said in Does it make sense for someone like me to use Cloudron?:

If I want to use Cloudron with a reasonably safe feeling, then I either need to go deeper into the matter of SERVER-ADMINISTRATION than I have done so far.

You missed the collective point! Cloudron makes it so you DO NOT NEED TO KNOW SERVER ADMINISTRATION! If you can:
A. Sign up at a VPS host, like Hosthatch, OVH, KimSufi, SSDNodes, etc., and purchase a VPS with at least 8GB of RAM.
B. Use the admin credentials provided by the VPS host company to login into your VPS
C. Run the three commands on https://www.cloudron.io/get.html
D. Set the DNS for a domain to use with Cloudron
E. Patience

Then you are ready to go.

TBH, as I wrote those letters, if any of them sound in the slightest confusing or unclear... then yeah. You need to spend a chunk of time learning, which I think someone else suggested. If that's the case, I recommend signing up at Digital Ocean, pay monthly for the $5 VPS, and follow their various tutorials at https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials. Learn how to set up a server, how to secure a server, how to make users, how to give a user "sudo" rights, how to set up ssh to use a key rather than password, and a few about firewalls - at a minumum getting familiar with those will make you ready for self-hosting.

Just remember, with Cloudron, it manages the server. At lot of Support requests lately seem to come from people "managing their servers" - this is what Cloudron does!

[jdaviescoates]

@scooke said in Does it make sense for someone like me to use Cloudron?:

at least 8GB of RAM.

You can run one or two apps with even less than that, but you do need at least 25GB of disk space to install Cloudron.