Hello everyone
Last week I bought a domain with the intention of connecting it to my NAS so I can access my apps over the internet without tailscale (plus give access to a few family members on jellyfin). I did it through clourflare.
I was very naïve but I had no ideal of the sheer amount of learning it would require to achieve the things I’m looking to do (just basic access with some additional authentication). So far I’ve managed to publish my immich server (behind a authentication screen) but largely still very confused about how its actually working. And very confused about setting up external auth and using reverse proxy. Honestly feeling quite defeated.
I’ve posted here in the selfhosted Lemmy and you guys have been really helpful but I think I could really benefit from someone showing me and explaining how it works. I have already learnt a lot from last week but the more I learn the more questions I have.
I’ve taught myself home networking, I knew nothing about it before I built a NAS, but with this I just want to be sure I’m doing it right.
I can pay you. Not heaps but hopefully enough for 20-30 minutes of your time. Not trying to rip anyone off here haha
Thanks for all your continued advice on this
It’s a huge problem that so many people act like it’s super easy and simple. It’s incredibly complicated to someone who is not a networking professional.
When I was starting out with selfhosting and stuff, I had tons of issues with networking, reverse proxies, etc. And much of the advice here was not… particularly helpful. I genuinely don’t think most people here understand how much they know, and how much comes across as gibberish when they speak to a true newbie. I still see it in this forum all the time for new people. Just the other day someone described themselves as a total newbie, nothing more than Jellyfin running on a Mac locally, and a comment I saw suggested their next step should be running proxmox and setting up VMs and this that and the other service. Like… that’s not a good next step.
When I was given a similar suggestion, I asked why I would need proxmox for my project, and I was told something along the lines of, “Don’t discount their usefulness if you’re trying to do this as a career.” I am not trying to do this as a career. I already have one of those. I’m trying to replace subscription services with something more economical and under my control.
That’s it, exactly.
This has been my experience with self-hosting too. There are so many different areas of concepts that need to form a cohesive whole. Following a how-to and pasting some commands can lead to something running, but then there are worlds of knowledge to actually understand it. Especially when complexity seems to increase exponentially.
Funny thing is that for every low-level concept I actually learn, the more I appreciate my OpenBSD computer that I mostly play around with otherwise.
@artyom I think part of it is that it *is* easy… when you’re working on your own setup, that you built, and know all the components of, and know all the long term goals of, that was built over years piece-at-a-time…
Get anyone who acts like it’s easy to work on someone’s setup that isn’t their own, and they’ll quickly remember how complicated it all is.
It has nothing to do with whose setup it is and everything to do with an immense amount of specialized knowledge that requires, at the very least, months to even begin to understand to the extent that you can deploy your own server.