I want to host my Journal wiki on the web. It’s small in size. I prefer nodeJS because every tiddler is stored in individual files.
I already have a domain name.
What options do I have to host my wiki on NodeJS in the cloud, provided that it is free/cheap and easy to set up?
a digital ocean droplet is probably the cheapest and easiest option. How ‘easy’ you consider it is largely a matter of how comfortable you are with setting up a server, it is the easiest one to setup that I have used. their cheapest option is $6/month and is more than enough to run a wiki. I am working on getting a docker setup to make deploying Bob easy, using the core server should be pretty similar.
If I am lucky I will be able to poke it this weekend and write up how to do it, if not then I have no idea when it would happen.
If anyone has a suggestion other than digitalocean I would like to know so I can look at other options.
For those not in the know an internet facing Node.js with Bob is possibly a state of the art solution, as bob handles multi-user, multi-access saving on a per tiddler basis.
For completeness on Hosting, without Node.js, single file
Here is some more information that some might find helpful.
This guy had posted comparisons and benchmark results of various hosting (VPS) providers. It’s worth reading.
I think the cheapest option right now is $2.5/= per month from Vultr with the following configuration
I have no idea what kind of performance I will get out of any configuration. I am running TiddlyWiki locally on excellent hardware. I cannot relate to the hardware configurations posted on the VPS providers’ websites.
GCE has a free tier. If I understood its terms correctly, then I can host TiddlyWiki for free as long as I limit my usage to a single instance of e2-micro.
I do not want to spend time setting up a server and ensuring its security. My to-do list is brimming with high-priority tasks as is.
So I was hoping for some service provider that I can just tell, “hey, run the TiddlyWiki app on these tiddlers. Here is the link to relevant GitHub repositories”. But my search has been unfruitful.
Because of the issues above, I have no idea it is even worth investing time in setting up a cheap server. You can spend hours learning and then setting up the server, but in the end, if you get a subpar performance from the cheap or free tier, then it is just not worth your time.
The lowest tier on anything should be fine, I doubt there are any services that offer something that doesn’t have the requirements for tiddlywiki.
The setup part is a different matter, that is why I am working on the docker stuff, if I can figure it out (I have never used it before so it is a learning experience) than it should be very simple to set up on anything that can use docker.
Please do share your results, even if they are not 100% successful.
You know, installing NodeJS, Git and TiddlyWiki on a VPS is not the hard part. It is the setting up of security and firewalls, and SSL certs that worry me.
I wish there were some sort of ready-made automation script for setting up a secure NodeJS script. (Either my web search skills have failed me, or such a script does not exist.)
The small print is “IPv6 Only”. Don’t know if that makes any difference to anyone, but I suspect it makes the various tutorials harder to interpret.
I just set up Bob on a digital ocean droplet with nginx handling authentication and access and https via lets encrypt.
The instructions are here OokTech-TW / BobDocker · GitLab
It could be modified to use the core tiddlywiki server instead, but that will be left to someone else.
Hopefully at some point in the not too distant future I will get the multi-user authentication setup I made for Bob working with this, but I don’t know how long that will take.
Is nginx needed, since TW on node has it’s own ssl certificate system? Having to learn an entirely new set of software skills just to accomplish one task is … frustrating.
Here nginx is for access control and the point of what I made is that you follow the instructions and don’t have to learn anything, just follow the instructions.
As another project, I have most of a system set up that uses nodejs and has a much more sophisticated acess control setup, but it isn’t a small project.
I have a script almost working that sets everything up for you after you make the droplet.