If you are going for a reverse proxy, I highly recommend using Caddy. Issuing TLS certificates is all done automatically and reverse proxy headers are all automatically set.

In many cases, this simple config is enough:

example.org {
    reverse_proxy localhost:1234
}

The easiest and quickest way thats still safe is to just use tailscale.

Its a zero config VPN that you can install on all your devices. I’ve been using it for quite some time now and I’m still fascinated by how easy to use it is.

It’s easiest to just register a domain name and use Couldflare Tunnels. No need to worry about dynamic DNS, port forwarding etc. Plus, you have the security advantages of DDoS protection and firewall (WAF). Finally, you get portability - you can change your ISP, router or even move your entire lab into the cloud if you wanted to, and you won’t need to change a single thing.

I have a lab set up on my mini PC that I often take to work with me, and it works the same regardless of whether it’s going thru my work’s restricted proxy or the NAT at home. Zero config required on the network side.

I use nginx as a reverse proxy and assign each service either a subdomain or a specific url. SSL is configured once so all services get https. Its not the best though, some services don’t like being behind a reverse proxy or don’t play nice with the url, subdomain management can get cumbersome and if the service doesn’t have a login page, it is open to bad actors… i was thinking of making a website with login and exposing other web services through an iframe but i don’t know how viable that may be.

A vpn would probably be the best way to go from a security standpoint but accessing services may be a pain on remote devices where a vpn isn’t supported - like how would a TV on a remote network access tour jellyfin server if the service is only accessible through a vpn tunnel and the tv has no way of connecting to it? Not sure.

By “remotely accessible”, do you mean remotely accessible to everyone or just you? If it’s just you, then you don’t need to setup a reverse proxy. You can use your router as a vpn gateway (assuming you have a static ip address) or you can use tailscale or zerotier.

If you want to make your services remotely accessible to everyone without using a vpn, then you’ll need to expose them to the world somehow. How to do that depends on whether you have a static ip address, or behind a CGNAT. If you have a static ip, you can route port 80 and 443 to your load balancer (e.g. nginx proxy manager), which works best if you have your own domain name so you can map each service to their own subdomain in the load balancer. If you’re behind a GCNAT, you’re going to need an external server/vps to route traffics to its port 80 and 443 into your home network, essentially granting you a static ip address.

OpenVPN to internal network

My advice is to just use Tailscale. It’s a 5 minute setup and you get access to your stuff from anywhere, securely, without opening ports to the public internet. It will give your server a second IP address, which you will be able to access from any other device which is also registered to your Tailscale account.

My personal setup:

• Tailscale installed on all devices that need access to my home lab
• Custom domain with root A record set to server’s Tailscale IP
• caddyserver reverse proxy on server, with DNS https authentication configured (regular http with won’t work because it’s not on the public internet)
• services all on subdomains

I am using duckdns.org and let my router ping it when it’s public IP changes. Then I use nginx as a reverse proxy with help of https://nginxproxymanager.com/ so I don’t need to write config files and it also runs certbot for my so I don’t need to deal with https manually.

Actually I also have my own domain so I use a subdomain pointing via CNAME to the duckdns subdomain. This way I can easily change the provider of dyndns.

If you are the only one using the services, then go for a VPN instead of port forwarding or sth. This way, your stuff isn’t openly accessible from the internet to anyone poking around

Im using wireguard VPN. You have to setup VPN server (using your DynDNS address, but duckdns in my case), open wireguard port in your router and configure each device that needs access. Reverse proxy is not needed, but I have it so I can use jellyfin.example.com instead of 192.168.100.40:8096. I use NPM (nginx proxy manager) with awesome GUI that can create lets encrypt certificates. I also use piHole for local DNS server

If it’s only you (or your household) that is accessing the services then something like hosting a tailscale VPN is a relatively user friendly and safe way to set-up remote access.

If not, then you’d probably want to either use the aforementioned Cloudflare tunnels, or set up a reverse proxy container (nginx proxy manager is quite nice for this as it also handles certs and stuff for you). Then port forward ports 80 and 443 to the server (or container if you give it a separate IP). This can be done in your router.

In terms of domain set-up. I’ve always found subdomains (homeassistant.domain.com) to be way less of a hassle compared to directories (domain.com/homeassistant) since the latter may need additional config on the application end.

Get a cheap domain at like Cloudflare and use CNAME records that point domain.com and *.domain.com to your dyndns host. Iirc there’s also some routers/containers that can do ddns with Cloudflare directly, so that might be worth a quick check too.

VPS with public IPv4, Wireguard/Tailscale/Headscale and my own Domain.

Wireguard, simply connect to it whenever I’m out somewhere and boom, instant access to everything on my local network

I used to use Wireguard with Authelia, then I switched to Tailscale (with a self-hosted Headscale server), and now I’m trying out Netbird (which is open source btw)

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

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