docs: new document selfhost-search-engine.typ
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blog/selfhost-search-engine.typ
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blog/selfhost-search-engine.typ
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#show link: underline
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#set text(
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font: "ETBembo",
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size: 10pt)
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#set page(
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paper: "a4",
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margin: 1cm,
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)
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#set par(
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justify: true,
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leading: 0.52em,
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)
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#align(center, text(20pt)[
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*An overview on hoaxes*
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])
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= Introduction
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#link("https://docs.searxng.org/")[SearXNG];, put in its own words, is a
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'free internet metasearch engine'. Note that it describes itself as a
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#emph[metasearch] engine specifically - unlike your traditional search
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engine like Google or Bing, SearXNG does things a little bit
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differently: It aggregrates the results produced by search services like
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those aforementioned, and feeds them back to you.
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Because of this key detail and a great deal of effort by those who’ve
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helped shape it, SearXNG protects your privacy, and does so very well: -
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Private data from requests going to the search services it aggregrates
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results from is removed - It does #strong[not] forward #emph[anything]
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to any third parties through search services - Private data is
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#emph[also] removed from requests going to the results pages
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Furthermore, SearXNG can be configured to use
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#link("https://torproject.org")[Tor];.
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However, the aspect of privacy isn’t the only great selling feature of
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the engine; from my use of the engine so far, it’s also great
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at…searching \(is that a surprise?). The fact that it’s a metasearch
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engine plays a key role in this, as it provides SearXNG the ability to
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pull content more efficiently and gives #emph[you] the ability to
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further tailor your experience.
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= Setting up SearXNG
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== Installing the service
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As you may have expected if you’ve used NixOS for a while, searxng is
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packaged #emph[and] has a service on NixOS. This makes setting it up
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just that much easier.
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To get started, place somewhere in your #emph[system] config the
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following:
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```nix
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{
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# ...
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services.searx = {
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enable = true;
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settings = {
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server = {
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port = 8888;
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bind_address = "127.0.0.1";
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secret_key = "@SEARX_SECRET_KEY@";
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base_url = "https://search.devraza.duckdns.org/"; # replace with wherever you want to host yours
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};
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};
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};
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# ...
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}
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```
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The snippet above starts the `searx` systemd service for listening on
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port `8888`, and assumes a `base_url` of
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`https://search.devraza.duckdns.org`.
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Now that we’ve got the actual `searx` instance running, we can now set
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up a reverse proxy allowing the service to be accessed remotely
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\(whether this is within your local network or across the internet is up
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to you).
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== Setting up a reverse proxy
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=== What is a reverse proxy?
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Before I get started with the technical details of setting this up, I’d
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like to briefly clarify what a reverse proxy exactly is \(to my
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understanding).
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Let’s get the wikipedia definition of reverse proxy out of the way
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first:
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#quote(block: true)[
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\[…\] a reverse proxy is an application that sits in front of back-end
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applications and forwards client requests to those applications. \[…\]
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]
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However, you might be confused as to what this actually means; I’ll give
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an example of the usage of reverse proxies to better explain this:
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- Suppose you’ve got a few services running on a server \(for
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demonstration purposes, let’s name these `x`, `y` and `z`), each
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running on their own unique port.
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- Assuming you had a domain, and wanted to access all of these services
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from their own unique sub-domains \(e.g.~`x.yourdomain.com`,
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`y.yourdomain.com` and `z.yourdomain.com`), you would have to use a
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reverse proxy.
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- This reverse proxy would take in requests from clients going to
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sub-domains, and forward these requests to the appropriate port on
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your machine for the service being requested.
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The concept should be clear now, if it wasn’t already.
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=== Using NGINX to set up the reverse proxy
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NGINX is a popular web server that supports the creation of virtual
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hosts and the usage of reverse proxies. To accomodate our `searx`
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instance, we append the following to our NixOS server configuration:
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```nix
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{
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# ...
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services.nginx = {
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enable = true;
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# any extra configuration here
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virtualHosts = {
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"search" = { # this can be anything, being an arbitrary identifier
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forceSSL = true;
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serverName = "search.yourdomain.com"; # replace this with whatever you're serving from
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# SearX proxy
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locations."/" = {
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proxyPass = "http://${toString config.services.searx.settings.server.bind_address}:${toString config.services.searx.settings.server.port}";
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proxyWebsockets = true;
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recommendedProxySettings = true;
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};
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};
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};
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};
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# ...
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}
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```
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The expression highlighted above is used to dynamically adjust the location NGINX will forward requests to, depending on your `searx` config
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After saving your changes and rebuilding your server’s system
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configuration \(as usual), you should have a working #emph[private]
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instance of SearXNG that you can access using the `serverName` you’ve
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given it.
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Set your browser to use this as your search engine using the relevant
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documentation \(with Firefox this is as easy as right-clicking on the
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URL after opening up the page and clicking a button). Enjoy!
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