Thanks to this community I’ve learned and I’m feeling inspired. I’ve loved having an NAS for the last few years, but it’s woefully under powered for what I’m using it for these days.
So I’ve ordered some basic PC parts, gonna build a basic setup using an old CPU I got lying about and try the NAS OS I saw talked about on here recently.
TrueNAS looks like a good option with only slight fears it’ll go down the well known path to the dark side like so many free options before.
In any event, I’m looking forward to adding Nextcloud and Jellyfin, to trying out Docker and generally having more control over things.
Thanks again to you all for informing and inspiring.
I’ll be back if I get questions!
Don’t. Use a VPN like Tailscale or Wireguard. Tailscale uses the Wireguard protocol but it’s very easy to configure, and will automatically set up a peer-to-peer mesh network for you (each node on the VPN can directly reach any other node, without having to route through a central server).
The only things that should be exposed publicly are things that absolutely need to be - for example, parts of Home Assistant need to be publicly exposed if you use the Google Assistant or Alexa integrations, since Google and Amazon need to be able to reach it.
One thing to note: the NAT traversal doesn’t always work especially for symmetric NAT. If you want reliable p2p connections I would setup IPv6
Tailscale has several NAT bypass / hole punching methods for double NAT (including CGNAT) and symmetric NAT, but they don’t work in 100% of cases. https://tailscale.com/blog/how-nat-traversal-works
IPv6 is definitely a good solution since then you don’t have to deal with NAT at all. IPv6 is pretty easily doable in the USA (at long as you’re not using Starlink) but can be harder in other countries that don’t have as robust IPv6 infrastructure.