There’s not too much to say on this approach, it’s easy to setup, but depending on the level of ownership you’re looking for, it may or may not be the correct route for you.
Self-Hosted via VPS
Reason you want to use a VPS as the gateway, is so that at no point is your home server exposed to the public. Instead, any potentially malicious actions (which is an inevitably when creating public facing services ) are directed at your VPS rather than your actual server.
There are a few different options, some examples are:
Both of these are designed to implement an access point (your VPS) and any number of devices to proxy (your homeserver). They are built upon wireguard, and are feature rich.
Personally, I opted for a more lightweight approach using selfhosted-gateway, which is definitely a bare bones Reverse Proxy over VPN, designed specifically for exposing docker containers on your homeserver. Much like the other options, it’s built upon wireguard VPN. Theres no UI (which is why imo it’s perfect for a tiny VPS), just a simple MAKE command thats run from your homeserver and generates the required docker compose files, then once spun up creates the link between your VPS and exposes the appropriate docker container.
I’d recommend creating a gateway service. You basically have two routes, managed gateways or self hosted using a rented virtual private server (VPS).
Managed
These are services that are managed by companies, that allow the setup of VPN tunnels with a public access point. Some examples are:
There’s not too much to say on this approach, it’s easy to setup, but depending on the level of ownership you’re looking for, it may or may not be the correct route for you.
Self-Hosted via VPS
Reason you want to use a VPS as the gateway, is so that at no point is your home server exposed to the public. Instead, any potentially malicious actions (which is an inevitably when creating public facing services ) are directed at your VPS rather than your actual server.
There are a few different options, some examples are:
Both of these are designed to implement an access point (your VPS) and any number of devices to proxy (your homeserver). They are built upon wireguard, and are feature rich.
Personally, I opted for a more lightweight approach using selfhosted-gateway, which is definitely a bare bones Reverse Proxy over VPN, designed specifically for exposing docker containers on your homeserver. Much like the other options, it’s built upon wireguard VPN. Theres no UI (which is why imo it’s perfect for a tiny VPS), just a simple MAKE command thats run from your homeserver and generates the required docker compose files, then once spun up creates the link between your VPS and exposes the appropriate docker container.