system - server - hosting

We want a system for learning management (LMS), and another for general usage. I like the Moodle LMS and Nextcloud. The problem is that, for years, both of these should be done locally (VPN), you can't really webface them. New solutions are making it possible to do both. I've previously had webhosting, and I think that's been part of the problem. This time around I want to do a VPS. I would still put Nextcloud on a VPN, but I think Moodle can reasonably be done on a VPS at this point with TOTP. So we can host Moodle on Google, but the question is which Tech Stack (see below). The idea is there re 3 layers: the hosting (Google), the http server (Apache), and the system (Moodle, NextCloud).

• VPS - Virtual Private Server. Cloud server. Google, UpCloud
• VPN - Virtual Private Network. Home server. Unlimited storage, only limited by HDD space. I am uninterested in the typical web usage of VPN's for anonymity and so on. These are mostly useless (see vid from Wolfgang's Channel below). Thinking here of the much more prudent usage of a home network for a VPN. It's possible to make it web-facing also, but this should not be done without 2FA and SSL.
• Backup Critical files need this. Probably anything paper that's irreplaceable, eg, DD214, grades, etc. This shouldn't need to be more than about 1-5 GB anyway, but critical. Chris Titus uses BackBlaze. BackBlaze however relies on Duplicity, which in turn relies upon the dreaded gvfs, one of the top 5 no-no items (pulse audio, gvfs, microsoft, oracle, adobe). Use some other with rclone, rsync, remmina, cron.

plan

Current A-Plus costs: $5 month x 2 sites ($120) + annual 2 x domain w/privacy ($30), one site only MySQL.

1. DNS - Google ($12 yr x 2 incl.privacy)
2. rclone some criticals to Drive
3. Moodle VPS on Google LXC
   • $ yay -S google-cloud-sdk 282MB
   • go to Google Cloud and provide credit card
   • follow Chris Titus' instructions in video below

   Host on Google (30:32) Chris Titus Tech, 2019. Do an inexpensive, shared kernel setup. Uses Ubuntu server and Wordpress in this case.
   Moodle 3.5 Install (22:47) A. Hasbiyatmoko, 2018. Soundless. Steps through every basic setup feature. Ubuntu 18.04 server.

4. Nextcloud VPS on Skysilk ($60)

1. transfer DNS to Google

Chatted with old provider and obtained the EPP's for both domains, began registration in the new domain. Once these are established, we'll have to change the A-records, and pehaps "@" and "C" records to point to current hosting. Each possible VPS provider handles their DNS in different ways. Some providers manage the entire process under the hood, at others a person must manually make any changes to their A-records.

Rsync Backup on Linux (9:19) Chris Titus Tech, 2019. Great rundown plus excellent comments below.
New DNS Update (7:18) Without Code, 2018. Proprietary, but a transparent example of what is involved in the process.

server blend

Nextcloud is not an actual server itself, the underlying server should be something like Apache or Nginx. Nextcloud then overlays these and serves files via the server underlying it. The logins and so forth are accomplished in Nextcloud in the same way we used to do so with, eg. Joomla or Wordpress (optimized for blogs).

Nextcloud: Setting Up Your Server (17:43) Chris Titus Tech, 2019. Uses Ubuntu as underlying server on (sponsored) Xen or Upcloud. Rule of thumb $0.10 month per GB, eg $5 for 50G.
What are Snaps for Linux (4:47) quidsup, 2018. These are the apps that are installable across distros.

2. existing storage for backup

We can use free storage such as Drive or Dropbox to backup data. They key is it should be encrypted on these data mining, big tech servers.

RClone encryption (10:21) Tyler, 2017. Methods to encypt with rclone. Also good idea to download rclone-browser, for an easy GUI.
Rsync Backup on Linux (9:19) Chris Titus Tech, 2019. Great rundown plus excellent comments below.
Using Cloud Storage (22:55) Chris Titus Tech, 2019. Easy ways to encrypt before dropping into Google Drive, etc. (sponsor:Skysilk)

choosing a VPS

One can of course select Google, but what virtualization do they typically employ? Skysilk uses LXC containers via ProxMox.

Rsync Backup on Linux (9:19) Chris Titus Tech, 2019. Great rundown plus excellent comments below.
Using Cloud Storage (7:31) Wolfgang's Channel, 2019. Be sure to pick a provider that uses Xen or KVM, rather than OpenVz-based virtual machines.

tech stack

I used to use a LAMP stack, but I am trying to avoid MySQL (proprietary RDBMS), and use PostgreSQL (OODBMS), as a minimum update (LAPP), and have looked at some other stuff (see below). I may try a PERN stack if I can get it going with Moodle. Post

Various Tech Stacks (48:25) RealToughCandy, 2020. Decent rundown plus large number of comments below. Narrator skews "random with passion" over "methodical presentation", but useful. PostgreSQL around 38:00.
Using Arch as Server (33:11) LearnLinuxTV, 2019. He's running on Linode (sponsor), but the basics the same anywhere. Arch is rolling, but just keep it as the OS for one app.