Member OP
Looking for mentorship. Will manage servers for free in exchange for learning. In my country, formal training is expensive. I have basic linux, can configure nginx, some docker. Want to understand production networking, monitoring, incident response. Can commit 15 hours/week. Is this reasonable offer or am I wasting forum time?
Yours is at least honest. I've seen "free labor" turn into "why did you format the array" followed by "I was just following instructions." Dry humor aside, structured beats unstructured. Unpaid internship with curriculum beats unpaid internship with grunt work.
I almost did something similar with a "hosting company" that turned out to be one guy reselling RackNerd who wanted me to handle abuse tickets at 3am for "experience". Double checked and his TOS didn't even mention volunteers. Be careful!
Section 7.3 of most provider TOS defines "acceptable use" to exclude unauthorized system access. "Free labor" for server management may constitute employment under local law, triggering minimum wage requirements. Define "mentorship" precisely. Is it training or supervision? Are you a contractor, employee, or student? Document everything. Acceptable use policies vary.
Member
If you cant figure out server management without handholding maybe youre in wrong field. RTFM. I built my whole setup from scratch with zero help, just docs and trial by fire. Anyone offering free labor is desperate and providers will smell it. Misconfiguration waiting to happen. My nodes have 99.9% uptime because I dont let amateurs touch them.
