I disagree that it can’t be LG anymore since it’s still a basic TV so long as you don’t connect it to the internet. Use the TV as a TV and use an Nvidia Shield, Chromecast, etc to do your internet stuff.

Nice, glad you’re having fun with it.

Exposing things to the internet is a lot of fun, just keep in mind that there are bots out there just itching to break into your stuff. Use strong passwords. Use different passwords for every. single. website.

Tailscale is often recommended because it’s very secure. You don’t need to pay for your own domain name, either as far as I know.

For things that I expose to the internet (the Lemmy instance that I’m writing this from, for example) I like having a domain name. Especially when sharing it with friends since it’s what people are used to.

If you’re interested in going that route, each “thing” that you host gets its own sub domain. For example if the domain name you buy is called “kgrnd.com”, and you’re hosting a minecraft server – you might call it “minecraft.kgrnd.com”. Jellyfin might be jellyfin.kgrnd.com.

Starting from outside, sitting in a park bench looking at your phone – the steps that internet traffic goes through to reach your server is like this:

1. phone or device
2. internet connection
3. your domain registrar, which tells it where to send the traffic (to your house/server) using DNS records
4. your router (hopefully something relatively decent and up to date for security)
5. your reverse proxy, which your router is programed to send HTTPS traffic to (port forward 80 and 443 to your server)
6. the minecraft server, be it in Docker or whatever.
7. then back again all the way to your phone

A reverse proxy just decides "ok, here’s some traffic from minecraft.kgrnd.com, and I’ve been told that minecraft.kgrnd.com over on 192.168.2.32, port 25565.

Do not tell your router to forward traffic on port 25565. That is not secure. The only ports that you open (forward) on your router firewall are 80 and 443, and those both point to the IP address of your reverse proxy.

Reverse proxy’s come in various flavors. A lot of people like Caddy. I like Nginx Proxy Manager (NPM). Both handle SSL certificates for you which is very very nice.

The last problem to solve is the fact that your home IP address changes from time to time. This is pretty standard practice with non-business accounts. That’s where a dynamic DNS service comes into play. My router has a built in service to handle it, so when I set up my domain name DNS records to point to “my house”, I don’t tell it my IP address because that’s subject to change. Instead I give it what’s called a CNAME record which points to a web address that my router has provided me. If your router doesn’t have a feature like that, you’ll have to explore other options for handling dynamic IP addresses.

Once you have something up and running, you have to do 2 things –

1. At your domain registrar, add a CNAME record that points to your dynamic DNS address (however you’re handling that). Alternately, add an A record pointing straight at your IP address. This will break eventually when your IP address changes.
2. At your reverse proxy, add an entry telling it "when you see traffic coming from service.kgrnd.com, send it to the IP address of my server and port XXXXX.

Another thing that I like to do, which is a bit more advanced but in the end makes things simpler and more secure:

• If using Docker, set up your reverse proxy to run on a Docker network called “nginx” for example.
• Ever Docker container that you set up which you want to expose to the internet via Nginx Proxy Manager, manually assign it to the same network (otherwise Docker by default gives each thing its own network).

This is nice because you don’t have to tell docker to forward any ports. Whatever the default port is for the service your running, nginx can access it no problem because they’re on the same Docker network. For example if your Minecraft docker container is called “minecraft-minecraft-1” and has stuff on port 25565, you don’t need to know the IP address of Minecraft. In the NPM entry, you just point minecraft.kgrnd.com to minecraft-minecraft-1 and port 25565. Done. No exposing external ports to the docker container. Pretty cool.

1. Sure. Having more drives is typically done for reliability reasons and they’re set up in some sort of redundant file system like ZFS, BTRFS, or RAID. Having only one drive means when it fails (and it will) you’ll have some downtime while you replace the drive and restore backups.
2. Proxmox is great, and I recommend it. Proxmox gives you two important things: 1) A nice way to manage storage (this may not be applicable to you with just one drive, but if you decide to add more later you can explore the options 2) BACKUPS! You’re going to have lots of docker containers and stuff. Restoring docker containers on bare metal is tedious, because you’re dealing with all of the folders that you’ve set up as volumes, all of the compose files, etc. With proxmox, you run Debian in a virtual machine and have all of the Docker stuff in the VM. Your backup will be the entire VM, so restoring it is very simple.
3. I don’t have a good answer for this.
4. The best choice is whatever works best for you. Sort of a cop out answer, sorry. A lot of people like Tailscale (Headscale is another option), but the downside is you have to set it up on ever device you want to access stuff from. A reverse proxy like Nginx Proxy Manager or Caddy lets you use your own domain. They handle renewing certificates and everything in the background. It requires opening (forwarding) ports 80 and 443 on your router/firewall. Some see this as a security downside, but if everything is done using HTTPS then in theory it’s very safe.
5. I don’t have a good answer for this.

Vanilla nginx is still too far over my head, but Nginx Proxy Manager makes easy work of it.

A lot of people like Caddy but I’ve never tried it. The config files are much simpler and it auto-renews certificates (but so does Nginx Proxy Manager).

I enjoyed my quick visit to that place.

A while ago I decided that BTH only works well for 1 device (using wireguard at least) at a time.

I messed around and made different profiles (not sure of the actual name) for each device and that solved my problems.

Worth a shot.

I thought it was going to take a turn similar to how Cricket dated a dog that one time, but nope that guy was just raw doggin’ it all the time.

Open an IRA at any brokerage (Vanguard, Fidelity, etc) and you can buy whatever you want. Just because it’s a Vanguard account doesn’t mean you can’t buy Fidelity stuff.

I have no clue about the LLC stuff or why you’d want to do that. An IRA is just a type of account that comes with some tax benefits.

Edit: ok, I was unfamiliar with “Self-directed IRA”. That’s a different ballgame and is going to cost you money.

That’s pretty neat. I was expecting something basic like “pay it off every month and there’s no interest”, but this was much more interesting.

It’s a method that web pages use to make sure you didn’t make a typo in the number.

Are you familiar with Mikrotik? If you’re located in the USA, you can browse Streakwave, Roc-Noc, Baltic Networks and others to see about pricing.

I only did a little research and this one seems to fit your needs (8 PoE/PoE+ ports, low power consumption) https://mikrotik.com/product/css610_8p_2s_in

One downside to their more inexpensive switches is they run SwitchOS instead of RouterOS as their software. You can still accomplish tons of stuff, but some people have concerns that RouterOS has sort of been left to die without many updates in the works.

You can also use their routers as switches. I do that with the PoE version of the RB5009 https://mikrotik.com/product/rb5009upr_s_in. It’s more expensive than the switch I mentioned, but I like it for the form factor and that it runs RouterOS.

You seem to be tech savy enough so you can figure out how to configure it as a switch. Basically you just add all of the ports to Bridge.

Is it maybe because of physical distance? How far is your VPS from the Backblaze region? Check the bucket “S3 Region”. I’m stuck on west, for example, even though I live on the other side of the country. There’s a way to switch, but I haven’t had the need to bother with it.

Thanks for the info.

That environment isn’t suitable for a domestic animal.

I haven’t. What do people usually do with the bucketed mice? Drive them across the train tracks and release them?

I wish there was an easy compromise. I subscribe to an Owl community on Lemmy, so it’s safe to say I was already aware of the mouse poison problem when I decided on what to do. I’ve just been trying to reduce my guilt by telling myself the house mice are staying in the house when they croak.

It has also been on my list to stuff some copper wool into some spots where the mice might be getting in. If it’s not too hot today I’ll get on the ladder.

I believe (without much evidence) that the Barred owls visit our yard for frogs, toads, and voles. We live next to wetlands and have loads of toads.

The Atlantic is a US based publication.

We live in the woods, so we have mice, owls, and all sorts of other wildlife. I don’t want to hurt wildlife, but I’m definitely not going to tolerate families of mice in the attic. I also don’t have the time or energy to climb into the attic every day to check traps – so mouse bait it is.

My hope is that the mice are dying in or near the house, and not out in the open where an owl might nab them. I’ve found some indoors, and have smelled others. That’s good evidence to me that the house mice are staying in the house to die. I’ll look into MouseX like @just_ducky_in_NH@lemmy.world mentioned, though.

Self hosting a calendar isn’t too difficult. I use NextCloud personally, but as the saying goes “it’s overkill for your specific requirements”. Nothing wrong with overkill, though.

Another option might be LubeLogger. It’s designed to track car maintenance, but you can set up time based reminders. For example you can create a “vehicle” called Dishwasher and set a once a month reminder. The problem is notifications… LubeLogger only does email if you set it up. I hacked together Ntfy notifications but that was one of the more difficult things I’ve ever figured out. It’s possible, though.

I love MikroTik, but I don’t think it meets OP’s needs. RouterOS isn’t beginner friendly.

Why so little sleep?