I’ve been dabbling with selfhosting for a bit now (home assistant and nextcloud), but it’s clear that I lack a fundamental understanding of networking. For example:
- I’ve got OpenWRT on my router, but no idea what I’m doing when it comes to firewall settings, DNS, DHCP, etc.
- I’ve got a domain thru Porkbun, but no idea how to properly setup my DNS settings there to route to my local machine.
- I’ve got NGINX running in a docker container in a VM and can get to the UI on my local network, but no idea what I’m doing wrong with my attempts at a reverse proxy.
Does anyone here have links to a good in-depth tutorial series for learning about securely selfhosting?


This what I was trying to setup when I first started (with Nginx, domain and free tier version of Google Cloud). I wasn’t able to get it all running with Nginx and HTTPS.
I use Tailscale and Nginx Proxy Manager. Very easy to get it running. I use DNS Challenge with my Domain Provider. The Domain points to my Tailscale IP. So I don’t need to open anything.
I use a similar setup with Traefik instead of Nginx PM, and Headscale instead of Tailscale. It is almost the same kind of setup.