Why this cozy-configuration

This specific configuration is a little complex (and we will get to that), but it has a couple of key reasons why it was done this way which I will go through now. Internet networks are controlled through static IPs (a number/postcode your server has), meaning that where they are is always static as well know. This is fine if you have the ability to host these sorts of service static within your house, company or institution, but this is often not possible for most so it makes hosting and maintaining web services inaccessible in many ways. This often leads to servers being owned and provided by companies instead of people X communities and that their matteriality (what they are made from) is dislocated from us. Think about the last time you saw a sever, was it on tv, in a back corner of an institution or not at all? Using a few clever work arounds we can transform these pos-abilities through a VPN (virtual private network) and a reverse proxy. What does that mean? It means we use a server with a static IP (like a vps described in the getting a server section) to host a VPN which is a way of creating our own network between computers/servers so that they can talk to one another. We then redirect web traffic from the static IP to these different machines so that they can serve up web service we want to run. This also means that these machines can be anywhere and move with us, we can even run them from phone signal if we want (not recommended).

This transformation of infrastructure is not that new and has a legacy within experimental publishing and feminist servers like hub.XPUB, ATNOFS and Servpub x wiki4print. These histories and their resources show a number of approaches to why and how to use this VPN setup to transform our relationship to the cloud, through working as collectives to hack and enable different sorts of configurations x constellations that digital infrastructure X networks can provide.

The iteration of cozy-cloud, as a crip (disability justice) centred space we are moving away from the previously mentioned projects in experimental publishing and towards community tools. Doing this we are thinking about how we can start to transform these experimental configurations and their legacy to be less of an academic research outcome x process and towards an accessible place for different groups to come together, share thoughts, feelings, desires and most notable skills/approaches to transform and achieve them. To do this we are trying out working with lemmy (this may change if it doesn't fit), which is a reddit similar and enables us to create and organize different communities and topics to talk and think through these matters.

Using this VPN configuration also means that we can move the server with us and be with its materiality that make up the community services we want to provide and maintain. It means that when we install the cozy cloud as a cozy relaxation space for disabled x neurodiverse x chronically ill people where we are able to be with this cloud x server affectively. In this calming space we can (if we want to) start to imagine what cloud services might do, be like and how we may be able to transform what they can be through coziness (instead of overworked and extractive).