Cool Things You Can Do with Your Own Server

Many readers have responded that this is their first time playing with servers, and they strongly request tutorials to feed them. So today, I will summarize for everyone: what cool things can you do with your own server?

1. Build a Website

When I was buying Alibaba Cloud servers during the 618 group purchase, I encountered a very annoying problem: there was no small tool to directly check whether readers were new users.

Readers could only ask themselves: “Brother, think back, have I ever registered for Alibaba Cloud servers?” The brain answers: “I don’t remember!”

This created an embarrassing situation where readers were uncertain if they were old or new users, and when placing an order, they hesitated, worried that if they were old users, they wouldn’t be able to get a refund after purchasing. How could they let down their identity as a ‘white ticket party’?

So this Double Eleven, I spent half an hour setting up a “simple version” of a white ticket qualification checking tool on the server.

It’s incredibly convenient; readers can directly input their Alibaba Cloud account ID and click submit to check if they are new users. If they are new users, they can order servers through my Alibaba Cloud ambassador link, so the 200 spots I applied for were quickly snatched up.

Just think, once you confirm you are a new user, placing an order becomes a very easy and relaxed thing. Who doesn’t love the white ticket activity?

As I often recommend open-source projects: e-commerce system mall, micro personnel management system vhr, you can directly download the source code locally and upload it to the server to run it.

Due to time constraints, I chose the prototype JFinal, which is a high-speed Web+ORM framework based on Java. For a small website like the Alibaba Cloud white ticket qualification check, it’s sufficient! The official website has many projects, and interested readers can download them, make some changes, and deploy them to the server to experience it—very enjoyable.

2. Run Scripts

Of course, to check whether readers are new users, I also need to crawl some data from Alibaba Cloud. When it comes to crawling, Python is the best; even my main language, Java, may pale in comparison.

Let’s take a look at the basic idea of the Python script:

if __name__ == '__main__':
    init_db()
    while True:
        get_users()
        time.sleep(60)
    close_db()

• Initialize DB
• Crawl user data from Alibaba Cloud and insert it into the database one by one
• Close DB connection

Generally speaking, Alibaba Cloud server images choose CentOS (Community Enterprise Operating System), a distribution of Linux that uniquely supports online upgrades with the yum command.

I chose CentOS 8.3 for my Alibaba Cloud server, and the Python version is 3.6. I can run the Python script directly with python xxx.py, which is very convenient.

Of course, crawling has its risks, so scripts should be used with caution.

3. Learn Linux

To be honest, the production environment after starting work is basically Linux, so once you have your own cloud server, you can learn Linux without restraint.

As a reader said, aside from playing games, Linux is somehow more enjoyable than Windows. Let me take this opportunity to share some basic knowledge of Linux.

What is Linux?

It is a computer operating system, just like the common Windows and macOS, that can run on computers.

What are the advantages of Linux?

• Stable and reliable; basically, all companies’ backend servers use Linux systems
• Secure; Windows systems are easily attacked by hackers and viruses, while Linux is much safer in comparison.

So why learn Linux?

• Learning Linux can deepen your understanding of computer operating systems, computer composition principles, and computer networks, which are crucial knowledge for programmers.
• Since many servers run on Linux systems, it’s essential for operations personnel to learn it.
• Linux is more secure in information security and big data processing.

What are the career directions for Linux?

If you have your own cloud server, learning Linux becomes easy. You can even execute commands like rm -rf * and then reset the image, which is incredibly carefree.

4. Build a Personal Blog

I am a heavy user of mainstream blogging platforms like CSDN, Juejin, and Blog Garden, and CSDN alone has brought me millions of visits.

However, at the same time, these platforms are somewhat less open; for example, Blog Garden often removes articles from the homepage, which was not so strict before, perhaps due to new reviewers; and for Juejin and CSDN, they even intercept GitHub. I hope that both can whitelist GitHub in the future, as GitHub is a large platform.

A personal blog is completely different; you can do whatever you want!

Tools like WordPress, Hexo, VuePress, Docsify, Hugo, Halo, etc., can help us easily build a personal blog. Each tool has a detailed getting started guide, as shown below for VuePress.

Moreover, each tool has a large number of customizable APIs and themes; I really like this theme under Hexo, it’s really nice.

If you need, I can provide a step-by-step tutorial for each building tool later.

Why do you need a blog?

The answer is that excellent programmers are all writing blogs, and there are many benefits to blogging, such as:

• It can help you sort out and summarize knowledge points (personal improvement)
• It can help others understand knowledge points (may you have peace in life)
• It can lead to promotions and salary increases, showcasing personal value (a good personal blog is a reflection of ability and value output, like Ruan Yifeng’s personal blog, which is almost known to everyone)

So when you have your own server, the hardware facilities for building a personal blog are completely in place; all that’s left is a personal domain name that’s cheap to the point of being negligible.

Of course, aside from what I’ve mentioned, there are even cooler things to do:

There are many cool things to do in life, so let’s start with having our own server~~~~

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FreeWheel, founded in 2007, is a high-end video advertising technology provider under the American media giant Comcast Group, with branches in Beijing, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, London, and Paris. The core business system development team of FreeWheel has explored a path to building cloud-native microservice applications through years of practice.