Own Your Infrastructure
The classroom is a pavilion at Anini Beach. The students are a mix: a Princeville retiree who’s tired of Google reading his email, a Hanalei photographer whose cloud storage bill just tripled, a Kīlauea farmer who wants to monitor his irrigation without corporate surveillance.
The lesson: build your own server. Today. Before lunch.
Why Anini Beach?
Because learning infrastructure in a data center teaches you about data centers. Learning it here, with salt air and unreliable power, teaches you about reality.
The servers we build can handle:
- Humidity that kills normal computers
- Power that flickers with every storm
- Internet that depends on weather
- Heat that never stops
If it works at Anini, it works anywhere.
The Server We Build
Hardware (Total: ~$400)
- Raspberry Pi 5 or Mini PC ($150)
- 1TB SSD storage ($70)
- Quality SD card ($20)
- Proper case with cooling ($30)
- Battery backup ($130)
Software Stack
- Debian Linux - The foundation
- Docker - Service containers
- Nextcloud - Your private cloud
- Pi-hole - Network-wide ad blocking
- WireGuard - Secure remote access
- Home Assistant - Automation platform
What It Replaces
- Google Drive ($120/year)
- Dropbox ($120/year)
- Gmail (privacy: priceless)
- Smart home hubs ($200)
- VPN service ($60/year)
ROI: 18 months
The Curriculum
Morning Session: Hardware
9:00 - 10:30
We start with unboxing. Every component explained:
- Why this processor
- Why this much RAM
- Why SSD over HDD
- Why this power supply
Assembly is meditation. Each connection deliberate, each cable managed.
The first boot is ceremony. The BIOS appears. We’re in.
Mid-Morning: Operating System
10:30 - 12:00
Installing Linux is the first sovereignty act. No license agreements. No tracking. No corporate oversight.
We explain every choice:
- Why Debian (boring is beautiful)
- Partition schemes (and why they matter)
- Network configuration (static IPs save pain)
- Security basics (fail2ban from day one)
By lunch, everyone has a working server.
Afternoon: Services
1:00 - 3:00
This is where magic happens. Docker containers spin up:
docker run -d nextcloud
Suddenly, you have your own cloud. Your photos sync to YOUR hardware.
We deploy service by service:
- File sync that works offline
- Email that no one can shut down
- Automation that doesn’t phone home
- Analytics that don’t leave your network
Late Afternoon: Integration
3:00 - 4:30
The services talk to each other:
- Nextcloud stores Home Assistant backups
- Pi-hole blocks ads for every device
- WireGuard lets you access everything remotely
- Automated backups run at 3am
Your server becomes an ecosystem.
What Students Build
The Retiree’s Email Liberation
No more Google reading his mail. His own domain, his own server, his own rules. Spam filtering that actually works. Decades of email archived locally.
The Photographer’s Archive Fortress
36TB of photos, all local, all backed up, all accessible from anywhere. No monthly fees. No upload limits. No compression. No AI training on her work.
The Farmer’s Sensing Network
Soil moisture, weather, irrigation control—all running locally. No cloud fees. No internet requirement. Data stays on the farm.
The Philosophy We Teach
You Don’t Need Permission
Building infrastructure doesn’t require a computer science degree. It requires curiosity and patience.
Complexity Is Manageable
A server seems complex until you build one. Then it’s just components you understand.
Failure Is Education
When your server crashes (it will), you’ll fix it. Because you built it. You understand it.
Community Is Support
Every graduate joins our Signal group. Problems become collective learning.
Beyond the Beach Class
Monthly Maintenance Meetups
First Tuesday, Princeville Library. Bring your server. We troubleshoot together.
Advanced Workshops
- Email server deep dive
- Network security hardening
- Backup strategies that work
- Kubernetes for homes (yes, really)
The Server Collective
Graduates can join our backup collective. Your server backs up to mine, mine to yours. Distributed resilience.
Common Concerns Addressed
“I’m not technical enough”
Neither was anyone else on day one. Technical is learned, not born.
“What if it breaks?”
You’ll fix it. You built it. You have the knowledge and the community.
“Isn’t the cloud easier?”
Easy is expensive. Easy is vulnerable. Easy is someone else’s control.
“Why not just buy a NAS?”
A NAS is an appliance. A server is capability. One you use. The other you understand.
The Real Value
It’s not about saving money (though you will). It’s not about privacy (though you’ll have it). It’s not about control (though you’ll gain it).
It’s about understanding.
When you build your own server, you understand how the internet works. How services connect. How data flows. How power becomes possibility.
You stop being a user. You become an operator.
Next Class: December 15
Location: Anini Beach Pavilion
Time: 9am - 4:30pm
Cost: $200 (includes lunch)
What to bring: Laptop and curiosity
Hardware: Available for purchase at cost
Limited to 8 students. Personal attention guaranteed.
Register for Server Building Class
The Bigger Picture
Every server we build is a node in Kauaʻi Digital Village. Not isolated infrastructure—connected resilience.
Your Nextcloud can federate with your neighbor’s. Your backup can mirror to a friend in Kōloa. Your knowledge spreads to the next student.
We’re not just building servers. We’re building capability. We’re building community. We’re building the commons.
One beach class at a time.
The tide comes in as we pack up. Eight new servers heading to eight North Shore homes. Eight fewer people dependent on platforms. Eight more nodes in the network we’re building.
This is how sovereignty spreads: not through manifestos, but through Saturday classes at the beach.