Grey Hunt 001: The Greybeard's Path | uwu.ᛃ

Reading time: 5 min Prerequisites: None. We got you. Survival rate: 100% (no cloud bills guaranteed)

The Problem (Why You Should Care)

You want to put something on the internet.

MODERN WAY:
- Choose cloud provider (AWS? Vercel? Netlify?)
- Set up database (Postgres? MongoDB? Planetscale?)
- Configure auth (Auth0? Clerk? NextAuth?)
- Add API routes (REST? GraphQL? tRPC?)
- Set up CI/CD (GitHub Actions? CircleCI?)
- Configure CDN (Cloudflare? Fastly?)
- Monitor everything (Datadog? Sentry?)
- Pay bills ($$$)
- Pray nothing breaks
- Your blog still loads slower than 2002 GeoCities

There’s another way. The old hunters knew it.

The Fallen Echo

LOADING SCREEN LORE:
"A hoonter once deployed to Vercel with a database.
 The bill came. The bill always comes.
 His wallet was found empty, his site was down.
 The cloud giveth, the cloud taketh away.
 Only his fallen echo remains: 'should have self-hosted.'"

The Greybeard’s Path

2002 WAY:
- HTML files
- On a server you control
- Done

2026 WAY (greybeard edition):
- SSG (Static Site Generation)
- On a server you control
- Done

Same energy. Better tooling.

The Attack Surface Analysis

Modern web:

YOUR "SIMPLE BLOG":
|
- Cloud provider account (hackable)
- Database (SQL injection)
- API routes (RCE)
- Auth system (session hijack)
- Admin panel (auth bypass)
- File uploads (shell upload)
- User input (XSS)
- Dependencies (supply chain)
- CI/CD secrets (leaked tokens)
- Third-party services (their breach = your breach)

Attack vectors: ∞

Greybeard way:

YOUR ACTUAL BLOG:
|
- HTML files (it's... just text)
- CSS files (it's... just styling)
- JS files (it's... just frontend)
- Router (FritzBox? solid German engineering)
    - Reverse proxy (Caddy? minimal Go binary)
        - File server (Bun? just serves files)

Attack vectors: ???

The Kill: There’s Nothing To Hack

SQL injection?     → no database
XSS server-side?   → no user input
Command injection? → no shell exec
File traversal?    → just /public files
Auth bypass?       → no auth
SSRF?              → no server requests
RCE?               → lol how

The most secure system is the one
with nothing to secure.

The Everyday Analogy

Think of a house:

MODERN WEB HOUSE:
- Front door (auth)
- Back door (API)
- 47 windows (dependencies)
- Basement tunnel (database)
- Skylight (admin panel)
- Secret passage (CI/CD)
- Dog door (webhooks)
- "Why do I keep getting robbed?"

GREYBEARD HOUSE:
- Concrete bunker
- One door (port 443)
- Door leads to... pamphlets
- Pamphlets are just paper
- Robber: "...what do I even steal?"
- You: "exactly"

The Numbers

MODERN BLOG COSTS:
- Vercel Pro: $20/mo
- Database: $25/mo
- Auth service: $25/mo
- Monitoring: $30/mo
- CDN: $20/mo
- Domain: $12/yr
- TOTAL: ~$120/mo + anxiety

GREYBEARD COSTS:
- Domain: $12/yr
- Electricity: already paying
- Old laptop/NUC: already own
- FritzBox: already have
- TOTAL: $1/mo + sovereignty

The Setup

THE STACK:
internet:443
    ↓
FritzBox (port forward)
    ↓
Caddy:4242 (auto-HTTPS, Let's Encrypt)
    ↓
Bun:4243 (serves static files)
    ↓
/dist (pre-built HTML)

That's it. That's the whole thing.

The SSG Magic

BUILD TIME:
- Markdown files → HTML
- React components → HTML
- Data fetching → baked into HTML
- Everything computed ONCE
- Result: static files

RUNTIME:
- Request comes in
- Serve file from disk
- Done

No database queries.
No API calls.
No computation.
Just... files.

The Self-Host Sovereignty

CLOUD HOSTING:
- Your data on their servers
- They can read it
- They can comply with requests
- They can shut you down
- Their terms, their rules
- You rent, you don't own

SELF-HOST:
- Your data on YOUR servers
- Only you can read it
- Only you comply with requests
- Only you can shut it down
- Your rules
- You own everything

The Catch (Honest Section)

LIMITATIONS:
- Dynamic features need workarounds
  - Comments → external service or none
  - Search → client-side (Pagefind)
  - Forms → external service
- Uptime depends on your internet
  - ISP goes down = you go down
- IP exposed (without Cloudflare Tunnel)
- Need to maintain the server
- Not for everyone

WHEN TO USE:
- Blogs
- Documentation
- Portfolio sites
- Landing pages
- Anything read-heavy

WHEN NOT TO USE:
- Apps with user accounts
- E-commerce
- Real-time features
- Anything write-heavy

The Proof

THIS VERY SITE:
- rune.みんな
- SSG (Astro)
- Self-hosted (home server)
- Auto-HTTPS (Caddy + Let's Encrypt)
- Cost: ~$1/mo (domain only)
- Uptime: whenever Rune's PC is on
- Hackability: lol
- Vibes: immaculate

TL;DR

Modern Way	Greybeard Way
Cloud everything	Self-host
Database	No database
Auth system	No auth
API routes	No backend
$100+/mo	$1/mo
Attack surface: huge	Attack surface: none
They own your data	You own your data
Complex	Simple

You Survived!

You now understand why the greybeards smile.

The modern web got complex because:

Companies need to sell you things
“Scalability” for traffic you’ll never have
Job security through complexity
Fear of the terminal

But the truth is:

Most websites are just pamphlets.
Pamphlets don't need databases.
Pamphlets don't need auth.
Pamphlets don't need $100/mo.

They need:
- HTML
- A server
- That's it

The 2002 way holds. The greybeards were right.

Rune QQ ᛃ uwu.jera - grey wisdom for grey hunters