Run your own services on a five-euro box, one lesson at a time
For anyone who has a working app and a hosting bill, and wants a Debian box they control instead: no PaaS, no vendor lock-in, root access from day one. Twelve ten-minute lessons, each one a real terminal recording, each one ending with a command that proves the outcome.
Lesson 1 · Free
The Twelve Lessons
- Bare VPS to a Public HTTPS Page — a stranger loads your page over HTTPS; root SSH login is off and a firewall is up. Free.
- Caddy as Your Web Server — your site serves compressed files with security headers from a Caddyfile you wrote. Free.
- systemd Runs Your Own Service — your app answers behind Caddy and comes back by itself after a reboot. Free.
- Tailscale: One Private Network — your laptop reaches the VPS over a tailnet address with no open port.
- Tailscale Funnel: Publish Without a Port — one service is public through the funnel while the firewall stays shut.
- Docker Compose on the Box — a container stack starts, stops and survives a reboot as one unit.
- Caddy Reverse Proxy for Many Services — three services answer on three subdomains from one Caddyfile.
- Hermes: An Agent That Lives on Your Box — a Hermes agent runs as a systemd unit and logs to the journal.
- The Telegram Gateway — you send a message from your phone and your box answers.
- One Bot Token per Box — two boxes answer two chats and neither can read the other's.
- Backups That Actually Restore — a restic snapshot goes to a remote and you restore it into an empty directory.
- Auto-Shutdown and Monitoring — the box sleeps when idle, wakes on demand, and tells you when it does.
Price
Lessons 1-3 are free on YouTube. Lessons 4-12, all nine as MP4 files: €49, one payment, 30-day refund.
FAQ
What do I need? A Debian 12 box you can SSH into as root, and a domain whose A record points at it.
Do the lessons work on any host? Yes: the commands are identical on a five-euro VPS or an old laptop under your desk.
How do I know a lesson actually works? Every command in every lesson runs in a fresh container as part of this course's own test suite before it ships.
What do I get after paying? A download link for lessons 4 through 12 as MP4 files, straight after checkout.
Do you offer a refund? Yes, within 30 days of purchase: write skills@automate-it-all.win.
Can I ask about my own setup? Yes, at skills@automate-it-all.win.