Hey, folks. The Jellyfin and Komga media servers running on my NAS are going great locally. I invested in a firewall and some managed switches, and from preliminary VLAN tests, I’m confident that I’ve got what I need to section off the self hosted services from my primary network. I was hoping to get a recommendation for the next couple of steps.

I’ve got a mini PC running Bazzite that had been a portable console/fighting game setup that I’m ready to retire from that role so that it can serve as a server and reverse proxy. I’m not sure what OS to put on it. If I have to manage it entirely by command line, it will take 10 times longer for me to do anything I want to do, and I’d really prefer a GUI. That said, I know it also takes resources to power a GUI that I won’t be touching most hours of the day. I was curious what distro you folks might recommend for this purpose. In some of my research, I also came across Apache Guacamole, but I’m not sure if that requires a proper desktop environment to already be present in order to get that kind of remote access with a GUI. Am I overthinking this? Is this going to be just fine with a normal desktop distro installed on it? If normal desktop distros work just fine, I need something that can sit there without updating until I tell it to; since introducing snaps, this is something Ubuntu has been a pain about, so I might want something else.

The next thing I was curious about was order of operations for the reverse proxy. There are SSL/TLS certificates that are needed for HTTPS, but I need a domain for that, and a lot of tutorials just skip on past this step in the domain configuration screens where you “enter your DNS servers” as though I know why I’d need other DNS servers, where to get them, how to select them, etc. And ideally, I’d want to test that the reverse proxy is working locally with HTTPS and all before it’s exposed to the internet in the first place, so I’m not sure what order to do those steps in: DNS servers, buying a domain, getting certs, configuring reverse proxy.

As with most things, I’m sure this is far less complicated than it looks to me right now, and once it’s in the rearview, it will make a lot more sense, but I’d appreciate any advice folks here can offer.

  • atzanteol@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    2 hours ago

    I was curious what distro you folks might recommend for this purpose.

    This is a bit like going to an automotive forum and asking “what’s the best car to buy”. You’re going to get a lot of “I’m running <blank>” and people telling you their preferences, which is NOT the answer to your question. The answer to your question is that literally any of them would be fine for your purposes. If you’re happy with Bazzite then stick with Bazzite. There’s no reason to switch.

    If I have to manage it entirely by command line, it will take 10 times longer for me to do anything I want to do, and I’d really prefer a GUI.

    Then use a GUI. The extra memory used is trivial and your system will be way over-powered for a reverse proxy to a home network anyway. In Linux land there’s really no such thing as a “server distro” and a “desktop distro” for the most part. I use Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora as servers. They can all have desktops on them too.

    You may find, however, that as you manage more than one system it becomes tiresome/tedious to have to use RDP for remote administration and may start learning the CLI over time. Especially since it’s often a lot easier to give somebody a list of commands to run on a forum than to say “open your network manager, which is different on Gnome from KDE, click the button that says…”.

    I need something that can sit there without updating until I tell it to

    Are you going to update frequently? You want to be sure you’re keeping security patches up-to-date. Auto-patching can be very good unless you have the discipline to keep up with it.

    I need a domain for that, and a lot of tutorials just skip on past this step in the domain configuration screens where you “enter your DNS servers” as though I know why I’d need other DNS servers,

    You’ve got a bit of reading on how DNS works. But basically there are “root DNS servers” that everybody knows by IP address that then know about other DNS servers by IP and forward traffic to them to resolve names. When you register a domain you are asking one of those DNS providers to resolve your hostname to your IP address. You can see this a bit by running dig +trace some.host.name and it will show the requests made. Your DNS servers would be the ones where you register your domain.

    BUT your IP address may change. So you generally need a way to update it if it does. There are providers like dyndns.org and others (search for dynamic domain service or something) that will give you a sub-domain for free/cheap and tools to auto-update it. Something like “mysite.dyndns.org”.

    • ampersandrew@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      2 hours ago

      I’m not happy with Bazzite for this purpose. Its previous purpose was to be a game console, but I’m reassured by the recommendations for Debian.

      Then use a GUI. The extra memory used is trivial and your system will be way over-powered for a reverse proxy to a home network anyway.

      It will be more than just a reverse proxy, but I suspect it will still be more than powerful enough for the extras. Thanks.

      Are you going to update frequently?

      Yes, just so long as I’m the boss. I don’t want any downtime that I’m not in control of.

      Your DNS servers would be the ones where you register your domain.

      The tutorials I’d been looking at were showing them overriding the DNS servers at the domain registrar with servers from Cloudflare or elsewhere. Is that just because there may not be an automated way to update the IP dynamically with the domain registrar, but there is for Cloudflare?