https://blog.thecabin.io/Notes from a small home server on the internet.Hugoen-usTue, 28 Jul 2026 11:00:00 +0300https://blog.thecabin.io/serving-a-blog-without-a-container/Tue, 28 Jul 2026 11:00:00 +0300https://blog.thecabin.io/serving-a-blog-without-a-container/Every service on this server is a Docker container behind Caddy — except the static ones. Why the blog is just a bind mount and a Caddyfile block.<p>Everything on this server follows the same pattern: a Docker container on a shared <code>proxy</code> network, a subdomain block in the Caddyfile, a data directory on the big disk. It would have been easy to give the blog its own nginx container too.</p> <p>But a static site is just files. Caddy is already running, already has a TLS certificate workflow, and is perfectly happy to serve a directory:</p> <pre tabindex="0"><code>blog.thecabin.io { root * /srv/blog file_server log } </code></pre><p>The build output directory is bind-mounted read-only into the Caddy container. Publishing means regenerating files on the host — Caddy notices nothing, because nothing about it changed. There is no image to rebuild, no health check, no restart.</p> <p>One less container to babysit. The best service is the one that isn&rsquo;t running.</p>https://blog.thecabin.io/hello-world/Tue, 28 Jul 2026 10:00:00 +0300https://blog.thecabin.io/hello-world/This blog now exists. It is plain text, generated by Hugo, and served from a small home server that already hosts a dozen other things.<p>This blog now exists.</p> <p>It runs on the same little box in the corner that already serves a landing page, a stack of small browser games, a music server, and various other experiments — all behind one Caddy reverse proxy on a residential fiber line.</p> <h2 id="how-it-works">How it works</h2> <p>The setup is deliberately boring:</p> <ul> <li>Posts are Markdown files in a git repository.</li> <li><a href="https://gohugo.io">Hugo</a> turns them into static HTML.</li> <li>Caddy serves the output directory directly. No containers were added, no ports were opened, no JavaScript is shipped.</li> </ul> <p>Publishing a post is: write a file, run <code>hugo</code>, done. There is no admin panel, no database, and nothing to update or patch. If the server is on, the blog is up.</p> <h2 id="why">Why</h2> <p>Most of what happens on this server gets figured out once and then forgotten. Writing it down somewhere public forces a bit of rigor, and occasionally someone else with the same weird problem finds it.</p> <p>Expect notes on self-hosting, the games built here, and whatever else accumulates.</p>