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Idea: NixOS configuration meant for hosting "for the common good" services, like tor relays, simplex relay, archive team warrior, etc. (lm.paradisus.day)
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by rutrum@lm.paradisus.day to c/nixos@infosec.pub
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This idea is inspired by nixos-mailserver. It was so easy to spin up the mailserver after changing some DNS records and putting in some settings. I thought it might be a good idea to do the same for services that need public, decentralized infrastructure to support. Some ideas include

  • Tor relay, or exit node
  • Encrypted messaging nodes. It looks like SimpleX chat relies on SMP servers to relay communication
  • Crypto miners (I know, I know, but you understand how it fits the "public contribution" usecase)
  • Search engines like searxng (I currently use a public instance)
  • Libredirect services, like proxy clients for social media

Maybe federated services, but those require more than just the software running on the public internet. Those require moderation and long term maintenance. Ideally, the services in this config would be ephemeral.

Does this sound like a good idea? Would you spin one of these up on a $10 VPS? I understand that this is the NixOS community, not necessarily the privacy community, but I figured thered be overlap.

What other services do you think would be applicable?

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[-] rutrum@lm.paradisus.day 1 points 6 months ago

For it to contribute to the public, I would also want some sort of way to help the admin notify the oublic about it. I was even thinking that this would come with its own cli tool to check that the instance was visible on the open internet, and the present in public instance lists like searx.space. In this case, building and configuration is alrwady handled by NixOS, which is nice. I havent looked into others.

this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2024
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