Tools and Services
This document provides information about the general services used by Free Your Tech for operations. These services, provided by third-party corporations, include web domains, email servers, web hosting, code hosting, automation, and general-purpose cloud computing.
Domains
The association’s web address - freeyourtech.org - is registered through Namesilo. Their DNS servers route visitors to our web address to the correct servers. Currently, the domain name is registered on the chair’s personal account, pending transfer to an organizational account.
The DNS registry contains entries for our website, documentation, email provider, and servers for future self-hosted services.
Billing
Domains are automatically renewed annually with a fee of $9.49 charged to the associated payment card. Invoices are sent via email and subsequently published on Open Collective after manual upload.
Email & Calendar
Professional business email addresses (e.g., mail@freeyourtech.org) are hosted by Purelymail. Purelymail handles sending and receiving emails, providing a reliable service at a low cost. Each account includes contacts, calendar, tasks, and notes synchronization capabilities. The service is privacy-focused and reliable.
The admin panel controls billing options, mail accounts, and mail routing. Currently under the chair’s personal account, it can be transferred to a separate organizational account as needed.
Billing
The service costs a flat $10 annually with moderate usage. Usage-based pricing is available for heavy use. Fees are automatically charged to the associated card with invoices sent via email. Currently, the chair covers costs personally as the account is shared with other email addresses. Billing is managed here.
Users
User accounts can be viewed, modified, or deleted through the admin panel. Account data is stored with password-derived encryption. Without configured recovery options, encryption keys are not stored on the server.
Routing
Email aliases allow a common address for multiple accounts (e.g., mail@). This facilitates multiple people responding to the same emails while maintaining individual accounts. Particularly useful for routing topic-specific aliases to appropriate personnel. More information is available here.
Webmail
The webmail interface uses the open-source Roundcube UI, providing a standard email reading and writing experience. Multiple accounts can be accessed simultaneously via “Switch User.” Sieve filters can be configured for automatic mail sorting or forwarding.
Clients and Apps
Device-specific documentation is available here. Any application supporting standard IMAP and SMTP protocols can be used with proper configuration.
On iOS, the built-in Mail app works with custom server configuration. Android users can use Thunderbird or K-9 Mail, which automatically recognize server addresses based on DNS configuration. Desktop users can use Thunderbird, while Linux desktop users may prefer Gnome Mail (Geary).
Calendar, Contacts and More
Purelymail provides additional features via WebDAV, CalDAV, and CardDAV standards. Compatible applications can synchronize contacts, calendars, tasks, and notes. This works with built-in iOS apps (except Notes, which synchronizes to a mail account Notes folder).
Android requires a separate synchronization client like DAVx5 (open source and free on F-droid). Recommended applications include Fossify apps for contacts and calendar, and jtx Board for notes and tasks.
Code and Collaboration
Code and text-based resources are hosted on Codeberg, a free and open-source non-profit platform with Git version control. The platform includes collaboration features such as issue tracking and pull requests.
Our organization page at codeberg.org/freeyourtech displays our repositories and projects. Issues can be reported on the relevant repository or on the meta repository.
We host source code for our website, documentation, server infrastructure, and other content. Contributors can fork repositories, implement changes, and submit pull requests for review.
Codeberg functions similarly to GitHub. For small changes, the web editor is sufficient. For larger changes, local development with git and a text editor is recommended. All contributions require a Codeberg account.
To correct a typo in this documentation:
- Go to the repository’s page
- Fork the repository
- Create a branch from main
- Find and edit the file using the web editor
- Commit the change
- Create a pull request from your branch to the main branch of the original repository
Project Management
We use Codeberg issues for task tracking and progress monitoring. The organization projects view provides a kanban-style overview categorized by project.
Billing
Codeberg is free to use. We plan to contribute through an annual membership in the future.
Web Hosting
Our website and documentation are static sites requiring only basic content serving (HTML, CSS, JavaScript). Codeberg Pages provides this service at no cost, eliminating maintenance and security concerns.
Static content placed in our Codeberg repositories is automatically displayed when users navigate to our web address. This requires proper DNS configuration according to Codeberg Pages instructions.
Automation
Codeberg CI, built on Woodpecker, automates tasks triggered by repository updates. For example, our documentation is automatically compiled to a static website whenever source files are updated.
Implementation followed the documentation with appropriate access tokens and configuration.
Cloud Computing
Hetzner, a German web hosting company, provides server infrastructure for Free Your Tech. We use Hetzner Cloud for self-managed services, databases, and applications requiring dedicated server resources, balancing performance, reliability, and cost-effectiveness.
Usage
Initial setup may be performed manually through the Hetzner console for expediency. Our goal is to implement Infrastructure-as-Code in our infra repository for transparency and reproducibility.
Essential paid resources include a VPS with dedicated resources, S3 storage, and an IPv4 address. Server configuration uses NixOS for reproducibility. Database and configuration files are regularly backed up to S3 storage (cloned, archived, and encrypted).
Billing
Hetzner resources have fixed monthly pricing, resulting in consistent monthly bills. Charges are automatically applied to the corporate card with invoices sent via email and subsequently published on Open Collective after manual upload.