Hello all,
I have started experimenting again with a local server and I am facing a few issues, here is my case.
I run Debian o an old HP prebuilt without GUI. I do everything with ssh from my laptop (basic connection ssh user@addr)
I have installed docker. I have installed a few containers. I also installed portainer for easier management.
All good so far because everything is local.
I have purchased a domain with cloudflare and set up a tunnel as to avoid exposing any ports and having an easier time managing and deploying stuff.
I have set up jellyfin and vaultwarden but when I tried to install nextcloud AIO it was advised to add a local reverse proxy as to avoid many problems.
My questions are:
Is the tunnel solution appropriate for jellyfin?
I suppose it’s OK for vaultwarden as there isnt much data being transfered?
Would it be better to run nginx proxy manager for everything or can I run both of the solutions?
Any general recommendations on the above and in general are appreciated!
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I’m definitely not a network pro, but it sounds like you’re looking to do something similar to what I have.
I’ve got nginx proxy manager as my reverse proxy with pi-hole for local DNS. All traffic goes through the pi-hole and anything going to mydomain.com has DNS entries pointing to nginx. I’ve set nginx up so service.lan.mydomain.com is for anything local and just service.mydomain.com for anything external with wildcard SSL certs for both (*.domain doesn’t seem to cover *.lan.domain so add certs for both - probably because it’s a sub-subdomain).
The Cloudflare tunnel can then just get directed to service.mydomain.com instead of the IP of the service.
I have read all comments and most of them provide useful information but I think this is what I need indeed.
Do you have any sources / guides on how to proceed with these configurations? :)
Unfortunately there isn’t really an all-in-one guide. TechnoTim has info on the Pi-hole config side and wildcard certificates, but I think he uses it with traefik.
NPM is pretty straightforward. If you find a site isn’t working, try turning on Web Socket support.
I’d say just search for guides on each part individually:
- Get all the services installed and up and running
- Get SSL certificates from Cloudflare for your domain.
- Set up NPM for the services you want to reverse proxy with your Cloudflare SSL certs (they wont work until the next step is done)
- Set up pi-hole to be your local DNS (there’s also adblock lists to add) and configure it to send all service(.lan).mydomain.com to the ip of NPM.
- Set up the Cloudflare tunnel.
I can try to help if you run into any issues.
first your questions
Is the tunnel solution appropriate for jellyfin?
Yes but also no. the tldr is It will work, but video streaming is against CloudFlare rules. I ran this way for about 2 years with Plex just for my own use, so for about 15 hours a week on 480p and I never got my service suspended, but I’ve heard stories of others getting suspended… So just know it’s a risk
I suppose it’s OK for vaultwarden as there isnt much data being transfered?
That’s a good use of tunnels
Would it be better to run nginx proxy manager for everything or can I run both of the solutions?
You can definitely run both solutions (tunnel points to npm, npm towards to all other services), and it saves you setting up tunnels for each service
Now for my 2 cents
As others have suggested, tailscale funnel is a valid option. A reverse proxy using a VPS is also a valid option. And as I pointed out, doing the CloudFlare tunnel is an option if you’re willing to accept the risk.
My current setup is using a free Oracle VPS with a small nginx docker container forwarding all port 80 and 443 traffic through a tailscale. On the other end is a nginx proxy manager docker container that points to all my services across the network. I have my CloudFlare details configured in nginx proxy manager to generate a wildcard SSL certificate that I apply to all my local services
Inside the network, I use adguard to redirect the domain to the local LAN IP of the nginx proxy manager server to avoid traffic going through the internet.
Then all you need to do is point the domain on CloudFlare dns to the Oracle server, and you’ll have several layers of separation between the internet and your local LAN , as well as SSL certs both internally and externally on any services you share
It might not be the most elegant setup, but I share my Plex server (as well as about 30 other things) with several other people and can handle multiple 1080p streams going through it without any issue and it’s been nice and stable for over a year without any issues
Yes but also no. the tldr is It will work, but video streaming is against CloudFlare rules. I ran this way for about 2 years with Plex just for my own use, so for about 15 hours a week on 480p and I never got my service suspended, but I’ve heard stories of others getting suspended… So just know it’s a risk
My understanding is that this clause was quietly removed from the Ts and Cs, perhaps 1 or 2 years ago. I haven’t heard of anyone getting banned for it since then.
Personally while I have Jellyfin set up through Cloudflare, it’s almost entirely run local-network only (with a local DNS entry in Pihole to connect to the domain direct when on my network) so I haven’t had any issues but probably wouldn’t trigger any unusual activity alarms in Cloudflare.
I do vaguely remember something about it getting changed, but yeah, as you said unless you’re sharing it with a bunch of people, it’s probably not enough to trigger anything on their side anyway
I think theres a nice variety of methods out there now that there’s no “one right way” to do it which I think is great compared to just a few years ago where your only real options were a reverse tunnel or CloudFlare tunnels
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters CF CloudFlare DNS Domain Name Service/System HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the Web IP Internet Protocol Plex Brand of media server package SSL Secure Sockets Layer, for transparent encryption TLS Transport Layer Security, supersedes SSL VPN Virtual Private Network VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting) nginx Popular HTTP server
9 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 20 acronyms.
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I haven’t deployed Cloudflare but I’ve deployed Tailscale, which has many similarities to the CF tunnel.
- Is the tunnel solution appropriate for Jellyfin?
I assume you’re talking about speed/performance here. The overhead added by establishing the connection is mostly just once at the connection phase, and it’s not much. In the case of Tailscale there’s additional wireguard encryption overhead for active connections, but it remains fast enough for high-bandwidth video streams. (I download torrents over wireguard, and they download much faster than realtime.) Cloudflare’s solution is only adding encryption in the form of TLS to their edge. Everything these days uses TLS, you don’t have to sweat that performance-wise.
(You might want to sweat a little over the fact that cloudflare terminates TLS itself, meaning your data is transiting its network without encryption. Depending on your use case that might be okay.)
- I suppose it’s OK for vaultwarden as there isnt much data being transfered?
Performance wise, vaultwarden won’t care at all. But please note the above caveat about cloudflare and be sure you really want your vaultwarden TLS terminated by Cloudflare.
- Would it be better to run nginx proxy manager for everything or can I run both of the solutions?
There’s no conflict between the two technologies. A reverse proxy like nginx or caddy can run quite happily inside your network, fronting all of your homelab applications; this is how I do it, with caddy. Think of a reverse proxy as just a special website that branches out to every other website. With that model in mind, the tunnel is providing access to the reverse proxy, which is providing access to everything else on its own. This is what I’m doing with tailscale and caddy.
- General recs
Consider tailscale? Especially if you’re using vaultwarden from outside your home network. There are ways to set it up like cloudflare, but the usual way is to install tailscale on the devices you are going to use to access your network. Either way it’s fully encrypted in transit through tailscale’s network.
Thank you for all of this, but a vpn solution won’t work for me as I run a VPN all the time on all my machines.
Edit: Upon looking a little on tailscale, I might consider it, seems interesting.
This all sounds like too many levels of hair. If you really want to serve from home and have the upstream bandwidth for it, then reverse proxy to a cheap VPS seems like the easiest approach. I lost interest in that ages ago, partly because of crappy home internet. I have played with the idea of colo’ing a server at a data center but in the end, it’s simpler to use VPS and/or rental dedicated servers, so I do that instead. Whether that counts as self hosting is up to you, I guess.
The cloudflare tunnel is effectively a local reverse proxy
Create a docker network, place everything on the same docker network, then you can reach stuff by setting the tunnel at http://[container-name]
So you set the tunnel at http://nextcloud or http://jellyfin:8096 and so on
You’d think “but without a local proxy that does ssl encryption, cloudflare could read my communication” - no, if they really wanted they could read it anyway as they decrypt and reencrypt
AFAIK, Tailscale has Funnel, which is better than CF tunnels since you can expose any machine you have without buying an expensive switch.
Why would you need an expensive switch for CF tunnels??
It bypasses the switch and forms a tunnel directly to the machine and you don’t need to change any configuration on the switch
Both options can expose any service as long as the machine has internet
if your service has to be public i would recommend getting a switch that can do VLANs and put your server inside it’s own VLAN DMZ so if you get hacked they will be trapped inside the VLAN
Also need a router that allows for VLANS as well. Otherwise you can not access the other network when your home. As you need routing between the VLANS. Or you can use a L3 switch.
I use Nextcloud with Nginx Proxy Manager and just use NPM to handle the reverse proxy, nothing in Nextcloud other than adding the domain to the config so it’s trusted.
I use Plex instead of Jellyfin, but I stream it through NPM with no issues. I can’t speak to the tunnel though, I prefer a simple wireguard tunnel for anything external so I’ve never tried it.
Edit: unless that’s what you mean by tunnel, I was assuming you meant traefik or tailscale or one of the other solutions I see posted more often, but I think one or both of those use wireguard under the hood.
