_____         _   _         
|  |  |___ ___| |_|_|___ ___ 
|     | . |_ -|  _| |   | . |
|__|__|___|___|_| |_|_|_|_  |
       a Gopher hole    |___|

========================
How is this beig hosted?
========================

There's several places to host this, and it's pretty easy to do.
All you need is some understanding of Linux and some basic
understanding of DNS.

The Gopher server and the protocols involved use so little
resources, that even the smallest cloud hosted VPS could host
this, but even an old Pentium II or Pentium III should easily
be up to the task, maybe something older.

======================
So what are you using?
======================

So, I've basically gone for the cheapest cloud-hosted VPS server
over on Digital Ocean, and I already have a domain that's in
CloudFlare. 

The cheapest VPS server costs $4 a month and is of the following
specifications:

        Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
        512MB RAM
        10GB SSD

It's a really small VPS, but easily enough to serve a Gopher
server, or even a Gemini server.

=============================
So how do you get it to work?
=============================

Well, it's a bit beyond the scope to explain in full deatil here
but I may go in to this in a future post or phlog, however, the
basics of it are this:

        * create the VPS on Digital Ocean
        * log in to the VPS, reset the password etc.
        * update the OS
        * install the "pygopherd" package
        * log in to CloudFlare (or your DNS provider)
        * create an A record in the DNS settings, point it to the
          public IP address of the VPS
        * create a Gophermap in /var/gopher/gophermap

and away we go

Now, whilst I've opted for the cloud solution, there's nothing
stopping you hosting this on your own kit at home, you could
even use a Raspberry Pi if you wanted.

If you're hosting at home, a lot of ISPs give you a "dynamic IP"
so you'll probably have to setup a Dynamic DNS account and then
open port 70.

So, what are you waiting for? Get setting up your Gopher and
let's see it.