this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2025
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How to use a domain I own to self-host services? (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 days ago by gedaliyah@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
38 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I'm not really sure how to ask this because my knowledge is pretty limited. Any basic answers or links will be much appreciated.

I have a number of self hosted services on my home PC. I'd like to be able to access them safely over the public Internet. There are a couple of reasons for this. There is an online calendar scheduling service I would like to have access to my caldav/carddav setup. I'd also like to set up Nextcloud, which seems more or less require https. I am using http connections secured through Tailscale at the moment.

I own a domain through an old Squarespace account that I would like to use. I currently have zero knowledge or understanding of how to route my self hosted services through the domain that I own, or even if that's the correct way to set it up. Is there a guide that explains step by step for beginners how to access my home setup through the domain that I own? Should I move the domain from Squarespace to another provider that is better equipped for this type of setup?

Is this a bad idea for someone without much experience in networking in general?

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[–] littleomid@feddit.org 9 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (6 children)

Three steps:

  1. point the FQDN to your network (Dynamic DNS).
  2. set up reverse proxy (Nginx, etc.)
  3. set up certificates (Certbot, etc.)

Optional step 4: harden with fail2ban and a firewall.

[–] bruce965@lemmy.ml 7 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

I would say this would be the proper way to do it (at least as a sysadmin), but since it's OP's first time I would simplify it to:

  1. Install CloudFlare ZeroTrust daemon on your local server;
  2. Set up reverse proxy such as Nginx (optional, the alternative is to use a different subdomain for each service, which might be easier);
  3. Point the FQDN to CloudFlare.

Let CloudFlare handle the certificates, DDoS protection, etc... Link if you'd like to give this setup a try.

[–] ag10n@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Cloudflare isn’t very self-host, unless you want/need to trust a third party I wouldn’t recommend this.

[–] bruce965@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 days ago

They provide decent defaults for all the not-so-straightforward configurations, and they provide a web UI to configure the rest. That's the sole reason I would recommend it to get one's feet wet without having to work too much.

If one is committed to do things "the right way" they could switch to Nginx and "proper" self-hosting later.

[–] brian@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

How would you go about using a different subdomain without something like a reverse proxy? Heck, in my head that's almost the only reason I use a reverse proxy

[–] bruce965@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago

Yeah, I'm afraid you have to use a reverse proxy to host multiple subdomains. The CloudFlare daemon is the reverse proxy.

[–] SheeEttin@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 days ago

Most web servers already use the Host header.

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