Self-Hosted Main

> One perk that someone told me about is that you can use your domain to get around not having a static IP (because the DNS will compensate).

No this wont really help you with that. A domain name ('A' record in a DNS provider such as Cloudflaire) is simply a pointer to an IP address. If you configure this with a non-static address (e.g. your public IP provided by your ISP) then this will at somepoint change and therefore no longer resolve. You would then need to manually update the IP in the DNS record each time.

There are services you can run locally to automate this update (check on your router) called Dyanmic DNS. DDNS will basically call a configured endpoint to automate the change.

> If I were to get a Cloudflare domain name then what would be some other pros and cons?

Personally I set up an A record to point my domian `mydomain.com` to a local IP (19.168.1.x) which is running NGINX proxy manager. With a wildcard CNAME such as `*.mydomain.com` I can add all my local services in NPM with valid letsencrypt certificates.

Now I never need to use IP's/ports as I can:

- Access all my local services via valid SSL certs

- Manage them in a single place (NGINX proxy manager)

- Use nice looking URL's using subdomains (e.g `https://router.mydomain.com`)

- Same with email addresses. I can use `[email protected]` - which I have configured in Cloudflare to forward to my primary gmail account (Just add a `MX` entry).

One benefit for me that wasn't immediately apparent is a custom email, paired with something like proton mail and simple login I turned it into a catch all.

It's fantastic. Company asks for a email, sure. [email protected]. Now, I can sort anything that arrives to walmart@ right into the spam box. Doesn't matter what address they'd send it from.

Fucking. Brilliant.

it’s pretty sick. i got all my home services SSL terminated with subdomains that aren’t resolvable outside my network. I configured a nice ULA addresses doled out by my dhcp6 by modifying the ipv6 RA to solicit managed ipv6 dhcp and send updates to named so even my apple devices can reach out to them (apple devices tend to fallback to external DNS if AAAA dns records aren’t found)

You'd need to implement Dynamic DNS to update the records. DNS alone won't do that.

• good-looking domains instead of IPs
• tons of subdomains instead of ports
• universally recognized TLS certs via Let's Encrypt. DNS challenges are the way to go - you don't even have to expose your HTTP server
• dynamic DNS, again available via API
• [email protected] (better not to self-host, but to use an email provider)

Subdomains for easy external access to local web apps.

Cloudflare tunnels so I don't have to open any port in my network. You can do this even with the Cloudflare free tier. And the byproduct is DNS for free for your domain name, I actually moved the Cloudflare because DNS was getting too expensive with my domain name provider.

If you have dyn, just use dyn. Some people don't want to pay.

One thing that wasn’t mentioned: I can use *.internal.domain.com and not have that routed on public DNS (using my own DNS with pihole + unbound or adguard). Of course still valid certificate for that domain.

It feels good using a domain name I can type it and secondly *.domain.com IS publically routed, meaning all external services go there. The internal stuff I can only access via Tailscale (which automatically uses my dns).

I've recently set up hard coded local entries for router.domain and nas.domain but not got around to adding printer.domain yet. In theory it is quite possible to define static DHCP entries for a bunch of different containers with bridged network interfaces then add entries for individual services like filemanager.domain and mediastreamer.domain and downloader.domain and cctv.domain etc.

I get to see who verifies email addresses correctly with my @example.blue email addresses. Most people get it with minimal correction, but even Apple doesn't programmatically do it correctly.