Help a noob find what I'm looking for please. I have a bunch of IP addresses and I wanna give em names.
Help a noob find what I'm looking for please. I have a bunch of IP addresses and I wanna give em names.
I'm using Heimdall to easily access my self hosted stuff ATM. I would like for my family to use them too if they're so inclined, but there's no way they will be able to remember the IP addresses, I know I can't!
Is it a DNS I'm looking for? If so, I'm already hosting a couple of instances of Adguard, can I just set it so that Plex is 192.xxx.x.47 and snapdrop is 192.xxx.x.53 and use that to resolve the request so my 13 year old can just type Plex into his browser and find it?
Or do I need something like Caddy or Nginx or something in between?
Thanks for any advice.
DNS is what you're looking for. To keep it simple and in one place (your adguard instance), you can add local dns entries under Filters > DNS Rewrites in the format below:
192.xxx.x.47 plex.yourdomain.xyz 192.xxx.x.53 snapdrop.yourdomain.xyzExcellent news, at least I know where to start now. I wanna play with all the network things and learn, but I also wanna just have it sorted in 5 minutes of hacking
Its that simple to use different IPs just with DNS server:
DNS server
192.xxx.x.47 -> plex.yourdomain.xyz 192.xxx.x.53 -> snapdrop.yourdomain.xyzBut dont you have your services on the same IP and different ports? If thats the case you will also need reverse proxy like nginx. So DNS server will point your domain name (you can just make a name for local use) to your server IP. Then reverse proxy can point each name to a specific IP and port.
Reverse proxy
192.xxx.x.47:32400 -> plex.yourdomain.xyz 192.xxx.x.47:8080 -> snapdrop.yourdomain.xyz
Yes, you can setup a DNS server to redirect these requisitions to the servers. However you'll have to make sure that every single device is using the DNS server you configured.
You can also configure
avahi(on linux) or otherzeroconf(you must find out what zeroconf each other system have, cause I don't know) to recognize local hostnames as mDNSI use
avahito discover myoctopi.localin my network and it works like a charmI have my router point everything through my DNS servers, a main one and a backup on a pi3b, so that shouldn't be an issue.
Except for Wifey. She hates ad blocking with a passion, so I've set her phones to use Google DNS servers.
Wifey also does not care one jot for what I'm playing with, it's mainly my 13 year old ATM. Wifey likes having TV shows appear when they air in the States and that's it.
She's an odd one but I love her a great deal.
I shall have a look into avahi just because I've heard of it but never known what it actually does. Thanks
Avahi basically broadcasts to the whole network "hello there, my name is some-cool-domain.local". When you request that address, your router checks if someone broadcasts that name and uses their IP if so.
I use Heimdall too, with a bunch of other things. One of them is Pihole.
Pihole will not only help blocking ads at DNS level, it will also work as DHCP server and resolve localy configured addresses, like homepage.ourhome.
Put it on your network and disable the DHCP feature in your WiFi router/firewall (you may need to explicitly set it to forward DHCP to Pihole).
One warning, do not set up names like host.local. the TLD .local is reserved it will cause issues.
Awesome.
Adguard and piHole share a lot of features and I've spent time with both of them. I liked phole a lot but I have kids and one feature I liked about Adguard was that I could set up groups (so the kids get a group and essential services get another) and I could in theory just switch off internet to the kids' devices as a punishment, or even services like Fortnite or whatever.
So that's why I picked Adguard.
Now before I bought my server pc I bought an old Nighthawk router/modem on eBay specifically because I could use it to replace my ISP router that was locked down (seriously, everyone in the building uses this ISP and all the WiFi bands are the same!) I can lock devices out of the WiFi with that now if I do desire, but honestly the threat is enough so far lol.
First thing I did was send DNS to Adguard. I have run DHCP through Adguard before and it just jammed up and worked a bunch of times until I had to change it back or withstand ear bashings from my 10 year old because it kept killing his online gaming.
So as far as I can see, I don't have to use the DHCP feature to resolve the names to ip addresses, since the IP address resolves to the name via a domain name server, DNS, the Adguard, right?
I was considering .Lan but I like your .ourhome idea. We live in an old church and have The-Crypt (it was gonna be de-crypt but I changed my mind last minute) as the WiFi address so .crypt is sounding good.
A proxy is the easy way in my opinion. You can also do straight up DNS, point your dns server to each of your IP addresses, which is by far simpler, but I prefer the nginx/caddy route.
NGinx will also handle things like SSL for you, which you can terminate at the proxy and make life a lot easier for you. So you can do things like register a domain, set up nginx to handle the certs for you, and then no more errors on "insecure connection", even if each underlying service is only using http. Plex was specifically nice getting that up, so I could finally do
plex.my.domain.whateverand have it be nice and https. Inside the house it's nice, outside the house it's even greater, especially because a proxy can route those ports for you. So plex.my.domain.whatever goes to Plex, and tautulli goes to tautulli, etc..I WANT to learn how to do all that stuff properly but it hurts my brain. I WILL learn it at some point.
But I have a domain with Cloudflare and found that far simpler than DuckDNS and Nginx .
I intend to look into Nginx and caddy and learn them, it annoys me that it makes my eyes cross, but if I can just use Adguard for now then I shall do that, for now.
I'm at a point where I know that the IT manager at work is a bit shit because the internal addresses at work have no certificate, but also that I'm not better because it makes my eyes cross too. I've done it before but I don't know how I did it, it was a lot of poking.
nginx is a beast, I haven't used Caddy. What I'd say to a newcomer is stick to the plan, just do it step by step. Don't go looking to build a 30-service massive 1000 line nginx file immediately. Start small.
- Get the proxy running. Celebrate, have a beer.
- Proxy a single service through your new proxy. Celebrate, take a break.
- Proxy a second service through the proxy,.
- Set up SSL for those services.
- Set up each service individually.
Trying to do it all at once will make you go crazy, I made that mistake. Focus on one small thing at a time, slowly adding to your config, that'll make it easier. Also make backups, or better yet store the conf in a git directory or something so you can easily rollback. If you have one service running but adding a second breaks it and you want to take a break, it's a lot better rolling it back to a known good state rather than leaving it in a broken state.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters DNS Domain Name Service/System Git Popular version control system, primarily for code HA Home Assistant automation software ~ High Availability HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the Web IP Internet Protocol NAS Network-Attached Storage Plex Brand of media server package SSL Secure Sockets Layer, for transparent encryption SSO Single Sign-On TCP Transmission Control Protocol, most often over IP nginx Popular HTTP server
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i wouldnt say im an expert at it as ive only had my media server for a month now, but how i approached making it user friendly was buying a domain name, and using a cloudflare tunnel to link your ip addresses/port to a subdomain.domain combination.
e.g i have overseer accessible by overseerr.domainname.extention and have it linked to the servers ipadress and port number. if i wanted to add another one, i would for example add a new subdomain and do the same (e.g plex.domainname.extention and point it to the correct ip/port combo)
although this has the cost of owning a domain, it doesnt require you to open a port so its better for security reasons
I have done this with Home Assistant. It's at ha.mydomain.com after I treated myself to a domain for Christmas.
The only issue I have with this is that my server is a hole in my lan.
I have a pretty good password on my HA but that can't be said for any of my internal stuff.
Plus I've since discovered the amazing world of Tailscale and I'm fiddling with that. I didn't realise it was so easy to always be on my own network even when I'm not, I found a setting on android that means I'm always in my Tailnet. This makes me wonder if the domain was a waste of money (it wasn't) but then remember there's more than just me in the house, and I use the domain for prescence detection by having my family install the HA app, logged in through the domain.
I shall certainly use this method in the future if any of my family want access to anything while they're out and about, but I could probably just set em up on Tailscale and share it that way with less hassle
FYI there’s an option between opening ports and TailScale. Cloudflare tunnels have a connection started from within your network to cloudflare servers, and your internal services can be accessed through that connection. Throw a zero trust wall in front of that, and you have a secure login, in front of your now publicly accessible services.
Home Assistant even has an addon for it.