Topic: Collecting parts and knowledge for building a personal weather website.

[OldAlaskaGuy]

I am in the researching portion of building a personal weather website. Just a few basic questions. Can I self host using a RasberryPi or Zimablade with a 24/7 internet connection through my router. If so what hardware would be recommended? Do I need to get a domain through e.g GoDaddy? I will be using CumulusMX as the dashboard. What extra security software is needed with the server. There are bits and pieces of information floating around there. Is there a step by step user manual that can walk me through the steps, especially setting up the server. What are the pitfalls? I have a bit of computer knowledge. I have built and updated several computers and laptops, my first was a Windows ME machine.

[weatherdoc]

Not sure about hosting on a RasberryPi or Zimablade but I think as long as you run Linux with an Apache webserver you could self-host. I self-host using a Synology NAS (Model DS220+). I registered my domain at https://www.noip.com/. It's very easy with Synology but there is an up-front cost of probably $300-$500 depending on the model NAS and hard drives. I have two 4TB hard drives. Synology has clear instructions for self-hosting including the recommended security settings that are included with the NAS OS.

[R.Sidetrack]

Is there a step by step user manual that can walk me through the steps, especially setting up the server.

Have you read this guide? https://www.cumuluswiki.org/a/Your_Own_Server

[Paulcheffus]

Hi

My website is self hosted on a Raspberry Pi 2 model B but I don’t use Cumulus, I use a modified version of Pywws that allows me to use the data posted by the custom option of the Ecowitt console / gateway.

Cheers

Paul

[ezbncs]

I am in the researching portion of building a personal weather website. Just a few basic questions. Can I self host using a RasberryPi or Zimablade with a 24/7 internet connection through my router. If so what hardware would be recommended? Do I need to get a domain through e.g GoDaddy? I will be using CumulusMX as the dashboard. What extra security software is needed with the server. There are bits and pieces of information floating around there. Is there a step by step user manual that can walk me through the steps, especially setting up the server. What are the pitfalls? I have a bit of computer knowledge. I have built and updated several computers and laptops, my first was a Windows ME machine.

i got the pi5 so I run debian 12 bookworm basically headless with no gui. I do everything through the command line and ssh.

It takes like less than 10 minutes to get a webserver, php, mariadb installed pretty simple. I have always used debian even before I had a raspberry. For webserver easy install apache2, php, and mariadb.

That is what is called aka a LAMP server you may not even need php or mariadb not sure what your doing exaclty. Apache2 is what display your website to the world or just your lan.

You can expose it just to your lan or wan aka world wide web, but than you have to worry more about security more obviously.

Besides server configuration and exaclty what u plan to do with the site it sound a lot harder than it is really. Sure if you never worked with linux or the command line there is a curve but raspberry does have a gui OS.

If you plan to send your site out the world you will need something like no-ip so you have a more stable dns aka virtual host domain. Otherwise the site can only be accesses with your ip address only. You will want a ssl certificate obviously to run https secure connection if you plan to do much.

Great thing about everything I said you may need its all opensource and free so it will not cost you a thing just time. If you have any further questions feel free to ask. I'm sure others be glad to assist also if need be good luck.