A reverse proxy will achieve what you're looking for, yes. I do precisely what you're describing. I use "local DNS" on my pihole, with CNAMEs for each service pointing to my server IP address. I'm running Caddy on the server, specifically this (because my services are running in Docker containers): https://github.com/lucaslorentz/caddy-docker-proxy
As far as a "dashboard" app, you have options there as well. I'm using Heimdall currently, but Homarr also looks pretty nice.
I'll keep that in mind, thanks.
Tangentially related: I've had this exact problem with quite a few games. Most recently, Subnautica: Below Zero. I often pause a game, go take care of a chore or something, then come back to having no controller input. Only recourse seems to be to exit the game and start it back up again. Using an 8bitdo Ultimate (non bluetooth) controller at the moment, Steam Deck connected to the official dock.
Anyone else have this issue? Any remedies you're aware of?
Steam Deck.
I've never owned a decent gaming machine, for various reasons. Cost was a big factor. Another was the fact that I was never a big "gamer". Very little desire to play the big, popular, AAA games in general. The games I did play, I played on a very old PC, and the performance was what you'd expect from low end hardware; but I just never had any desire to build my own gaming rig.
The Steam Deck is perfect for my use case:
I think I've probably played more new (to me) games since buying my SD than in all the years (decades) previous, and I love it.
Ha. I haven't been a regular listener for probably a couple years now. He's been saying that for a while, but I always assumed/guessed he was mostly joking. Has he stated officially that's when he'll be retiring?
Maybe not what you're looking for, but Security Now! seems to fit that bill. TWiT has a bunch of other shows as well, covering a range of topics. I can honestly say I've never encountered any bigoted hosts or guests on the shows I've listened to.
If you like Hollow Knight, check out the Ori games if you haven't already. They're on sale on Steam right now for super cheap. I didn't enjoy them as much as Hollow Knight, but they're a lot of fun in my opinion. Very satisfying gameplay.
I just finished Ori and the Blind Forest and it was a lot of fun. Really well done game in my opinion. Similar to Hollow Knight, if you've played that.
If you haven't played Hollow Knight, play Hollow Knight.
Honest question(s) from someone who's been using Linux as a daily diver for well over a decade:
What distro were you using as a daily driver that encountered "catastrophic" system failures? What sort of use case? Was this recent?
If you really want to tinker, you can certainly break your system if you don't really know what you're doing. I'm sure I encountered that in my early days of playing around with home servers and whatnot; but I can honestly say that I haven't had this experience at all with my "daily driver". I've been running Fedora for a couple years now on my laptop; and everything just works. I run updates (at my leisure) once every week or two. I can't remember the last time something just "broke". I certainly can't remember the last time (if ever?) I had to "reinstall the OS" due to a catastrophic failure.
OP listed two solutions they were considering, one of which explicitly mentioned using a reverse proxy. The other mentioned using a "dashboard app". Commenters have given useful advice regarding both.