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.

Anarch157a,
@Anarch157a@lemmy.world avatar

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.

Lifebandit666, (edited )

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.

mlfh, (edited )

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:


<span style="color:#323232;">192.xxx.x.47 plex.yourdomain.xyz
</span><span style="color:#323232;">192.xxx.x.53 snapdrop.yourdomain.xyz
</span>
Lifebandit666,

Excellent 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

rambos,

Its that simple to use different IPs just with DNS server:

DNS server


<span style="color:#323232;">192.xxx.x.47 -> plex.yourdomain.xyz
</span><span style="color:#323232;">192.xxx.x.53 -> snapdrop.yourdomain.xyz
</span>

But 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


<span style="color:#323232;">192.xxx.x.47:32400 -> plex.yourdomain.xyz
</span><span style="color:#323232;">192.xxx.x.47:8080 -> snapdrop.yourdomain.xyz
</span>
Lifebandit666,

I don’t know why you were downvoted for this, you’re right and I figured this out for myself last night when I decided to try figure it out at 1.30am after 3 beers.

I managed to get all my port 80 stuff sorted but my Arr stack for example needs something more, probably the dreaded nginx…

I’m having a look at Caddy now because I’ve never used it before, Nginx I didn’t like when I used it and I’ve recently heard the original developer has left the project and started a new one.

Rehwyn, (edited )

Nginx is a lot less painful if you use Nginx Proxy Manager. You get a nice GUI and can easily get SSL certificates with Let’s Encrypt, including wildcard certs. I’m running it in front of a docker swarm and 3 other servers, and in most cases, it takes me about 30 seconds to add a new proxy host and set it up with https using my *.domain.com wildcard cert. I also use it with Authentik as a forward proxy auth for SSO (since many containers out there don’t have the best security).

7Sea_Sailor, (edited )

If you dont fear using a little bit of terminal, caddy imo is the better choice. It makes SSL even more brainless (since its 100% automatic), is very easy to configure (especially for reverse proxying) yet very powerful if you need it, has a wonderful documentation and an extensive extension library, doesnt require a mysql database that eats 200 MB RAM and does not have unnecessary limitations due to UI abstractions. There are many more advantages to caddy over NPM. I have not looked back since I switched.

An example caddyfile for reverse proxying to a docker container from a hostname, with automatic SSL certificates, automatic websockets and all the other typical bells and whistles:


<span style="color:#323232;">https://yourdomain.com {
</span><span style="color:#323232;">  reverse_proxy radarr:7878
</span><span style="color:#323232;">}
</span>
Rehwyn,

I’ll check it out. I suspect configuration would likely be a little bit more complicated in my case because I’m using Authentik for proxy forward authentication and had also been using access control groups in NPM (both a LAN group and a WAN group containing Cloudflare proxy IP addresses, since currently all my publicly accessible domains proxy through Cloudflare).

7Sea_Sailor,

Caddy and Authentik play very nicely together thanks to caddy forward_auth directive. Regarding acls, you’ll have to read some documentation, but it shouldnt be difficult to figure out whatsoever. The documentation and forum are great sources of info.

BaalInvoker,

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 other zeroconf (you must find out what zeroconf each other system have, cause I don’t know) to recognize local hostnames as mDNS

I use avahi to discover my octopi.local in my network and it works like a charm

Lifebandit666, (edited )

I 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

BaalInvoker, (edited )

With AdGuard Home you can set your wife’s devices to bypass protection. Just set her devices to static ip and set a custom rule like:


<span style="color:#323232;">@@||*^$client=127.0.0.1
</span>

Where 127.0.0.1 must be changed for her ip address. This rule means:

@@|| = unblock
*^ = everything
$client = for this client

7Sea_Sailor,

AdGuard Home supports static clients. Unless the instance is being used over TCP (port 53, unencrypted), it is by far the better way to use clientnames in the DNS server addresses and unblock the clients over that.

For DoT: clientname.dns.yourdomain.com
For DoH: https://dns.yourdomain.com/dns-query/clientname

A client, especially a mobile one, can simply not guarantee always having the same IP address.

Lifebandit666, (edited )

Wow, I’m glad you speak Adguard, thanks for this. She does surveys for Amazon vouchers and buys Christmas presents and shoes with them, and the filters stop the surveys. She got quite mad with me.

rikudou, (edited )

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.

Dudewitbow,

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

Lifebandit666,

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

KairuByte, (edited )

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.

Lifebandit666,

Ace! Thanks. There’s so much to delve into in networking, it’s a bit daunting tbh.

That’s why I asked, when you know a little but not a lot it’s hard trying to figure out where to look.

At least by asking I have some ideas where to start poking my nose.

scrubbles,
@scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech avatar

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.whatever and 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…

Lifebandit666,

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.

scrubbles,
@scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech avatar

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.

KairuByte,

If not using DNS, how are you directing traffic to nginx?

scrubbles,
@scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech avatar

Was referring to using DNS to each individual service rather than one single DNS point for your entire proxy. I have *.my.domain pointed to my proxy which directs everything underneath it.

Lifebandit666,

Ok so what I need to do in my case is have my DNS direct *.crypt to my Nginx (when I get it set up) then have that direct all the bits that the star represents to the right IP/port?

scrubbles,
@scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech avatar

Not *.crypt. say you buy mycooldomain.crypt. you then point the domain service that domain and *.mycooldomain.crypt to your public Ip.

You would then forward the ports on your router (like 80 and 443) to your proxy. This will get your external users working.

Internally you’ll need to set up your local DNS so that it knows you are the mycooldomain.crypt. there are multiple ways based on what hardware and software You’re running, do some googling. For me in my local DNS then I say *.mycooldomain.crypt points to my local proxy DNS, so that it resolves inside the network.

So, external DNS points to public Ip, router/firewall forwards those ports to proxy. Internally your DNS will reach out to your router/DNS/whatever you use to ask what that domain is and it will respond with the local IP of the proxy.

Lifebandit666,

Ok that makes sense. I’m not trying to tie any of this to my external domain though, I just want to proxy Lan names at the moment.

I have a domain set up for home assistant though Cloudflare and I don’t want anything else to be externally accessible.

So what I’m currently trying to do is have radarr.crypt, Sonarr.crypt, plex.crypt, openwrt.crypt hit the correct lanIP:port

I can’t do that with just my DNS because that’s just for lanIP not port

So I’m trying to have the *.crypt go to the Nginx IP and have that proxy the name to the IP and port.

I’ve been prodding it all day and even had ChatGPT have a go at it but I’m getting nowhere.

And this is why I don’t like Nginx.

I have managed to get Nginx working and even got a pretty UI for it, but just can’t get it to proxy my IP addresses to names.

It ain’t a big deal, Heimdall does the job for now, just thought it would be a nice way to dip my toes in.

scrubbles,
@scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech avatar

Trust me, getting an external domain makes it easier. You can get one for like $5. I tried to do the internal thing too, but ssl just gets so complicated because you have to trust any internal certs. With a proxy you can have one cert source that your computers already trust because it’s be let’s encrypt. Just buy a cheap domain and you’ll thank yourself later.

Lifebandit666,

I already have one, I treated myself to my own .com domain for Chrimbo just gone and own it for the next 5 years

Bristlerock,
Bristlerock avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    Lifebandit666,

    Thanks, I’ve saved this comment for next time I try to do this

    Bristlerock,
    Bristlerock avatar

    This is how I do it. It works internally and externally, though it's more than OP needs. :)

    To add to what's been said (in case it's useful to others), it's worth looking at SWAG and Authelia to do the proxying for services visible to the Internet. I run them in a Docker container and it does all the proxying, takes care of the SSL certificate and auto-renews it, and adds MFA to the services you run that support it (all browsing, MFA-aware apps, etc).

    Another thing I like about SWAG's setup is that you select which services/hostnames you want to expose, name them in the SUBDOMAINS environment variable in Docker (easy to remove one if you take a service down, for maintenance, etc), and then each has its own config file in Nginx's proxy-confs directory that does the https://name.domain -> http://IP:port redirection for that service (e.g. wordpress.subdomain.conf), assuming the traffic has met whatever MFA and geo-whitelisting stuff you have set up.

    I also have Cloudflare protecting the traffic (proxying the domain's A record and the wildcard CNAME) to my public address, which adds another layer.

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