How do you guys set internal domains?
Say i dont want to type 192.168.1.100:8096 and want a url instead, say jellyfin.servername - how would I go about that? I don’t want it exposed online via reverse proxy. I don’t need certs. No port forwarding on the router.
How do I type ‘jellyfin.servername’ into a browser and being up the jellyfin dashboard?
If you have your own DNS server you can set a hostname there like ‘jellyfin.myserver’ and have that accessible from your internal network. If you want to do so on your PC you can edit your hosts file to add a custom entry. https://www.hostinger.com/tutorials/how-to-edit-hosts-file
Keep in mind you still need to specify the port with this method.
Yeah, how and where? In the docker compose? I have a dozem containers and is love if they were all a.server. b.server, c.server. How can I do this? Pihole DNS records don’t do anything at the port level.
Sorry I meant in your browser. Yes dns does not point to ports.
You would have to use some sort of reverse proxy that is only accessible from internal networks
Gotcha. I have nginx proxy manager on the go and I’ve heard caddy is simple, so i’ll see how I get on. Thanks for the advice.
Just to clarify a bit further. You browser doesn’t specify ports in the URL because HTTP and HTTPS have basically coopted the 80/443 ports. You could have a website running an HTTP server on another port like 3000. But then you’d need to specify the port in the URL since the browser - by default - is looking at 80/443 and not 3000.
You should be able to configure the port for your Jellyfin server. I’m not a Jellyfin user, but most applications allow you to pick a port to run it on. So you’ll have to change the port to port 80 and then expose that port on your docker container in the docker-compose file.
Edit: actually now that I think about it… You could just point your local port 80 to the docker container port. I forget the port mapping schema but it’s something like
ports: - 80:1234
You might have to flip the order of the ports. But basically that example above is trying to map port 80 to port 1234. If that fails, you might have port 80 being used by another application on your computer and you’d either have to shut that app down, pick a different port for that app or you’re back to picking a different port for Jellyfin
It’s the port that’s tripping me. How do I point jellyfin to that domain? It’s on docker on port 8096 - the hostname isn’t the problem, it’s the container.
Ah okay. You need some sort of reverse proxy.
I really like caddy. Using it with caddy-docker-proxy in docker-compose makes it quite nifty:version: '3.7' services: whoami: image: containous/whoami networks: - caddy labels: caddy: http://whoami.mylab.home caddy.reverse_proxy: "{{upstreams 80}}" networks: caddy: external: true
Just make sure to explicitly use ‘http’ instead of ‘https’. That way it won’t try to create certificates.
Have a pihole, but DNS doesn’t cover ports so it’ll take a bit more attention and learning on my end. Down the reverse proxies rabbit hole I go. Thanks for the advice.
I use a pi hole instance for this. I just point all the subdomains at my ngnix server and reverse proxy everything through that
You don’t need to expose it to the web to use a reverse proxy. You can use traefik, caddy, nginx, or any other reverse proxy to serve
IP:PORT
ondomain.tld
. You can use 80 or 443 as you’d like.If you’re using docker, it’s even easier. How are you hosting your jellyfin?
I use pihole running on an esxi server for dns. In pihole you can create local dns records which is exactly what you’re trying to do. It’s very lightweight, you can run it on about anything.
You can also do something like this
Thanks. It was the ports that were more of an issue. It’s one server with several containers and id like a local “url” for all of them, but looks like reverse proxies aster my only out, which is a shame because i’m dumb.
aa
The host isn’t really the issue. It’s the container. How do I access the container with a name rather than number.
aa
PiHole as your DNS resolver. LocalDNS mapping whatever hostname you want to whatever IP you want.
Because I use Nginx Proxy Manager internally - then most of my hostname point to the Nginx IP addressYou’ll need certs if you want to use a Chromecast in certain circumstances, btw.
Wolfangs Channel had a video about that a few weeks ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlcVx-k-02E
I didn’t try it myself yet, but judging from his other videos, he’s not a complete idiot, so I assume it’s solid advice.
Another option: you can enter local ip’s for your DNS entries. I have a lot of subdomain A entries that point to my local caddy container 192.168.1.132. Just ping paperless.cwagner.me to see an example.
For certificates, I use DNS validation.
I currently use a custom filter/rewrite in AdGuard Home (similar to pihole).
An alternative to running a central dns server is to use mDNS. You can install a daemon on each server that you want to access via hostname, and then clients know that ServerName.local domains should be resolved using mdns. They send out a dns query to a local multicast IP, the daemon on the servers receives the query and the appropriate one responds. By design it’s local only.
Running a reverse proxy then adding your IP to your router/other-DNS-server will make it easy ish. Just don’t pick a domain that is used by other people. If you have a(ny) domain you own then a subdomain you set in your router is fine/safe.
I have *.[house domain] point to a static IP set in my router. The IP is announced via BGP to point to running Traefik instances as a reverse proxy that points to the appropriate container. This also gives certs, but isn’t required.
Reverse proxy and local DNS. Just add the domains you want to your DNS and point them at the reverse proxy.
Thanks. It’s the reverse proxy part i’m scared of. For some reason theyve just never clicked with me.
I get that, they’re a bit confusing at first. I’d highly recommend looking at Caddy, it’s configuration is very simple. Really all you have to do is pick a domain name and point it at the correct port. If you’re only accessing locally you don’t even need to buy a domain.
I have a domain, but if I don’t have to use it, all the better. So with a reverse proxy, if i don’t want it accessible on the web, i can literally pick anything? I could call it “watch.tv” if i wanted?
You need to set up a local DNS server with a
.servername
zone and point your machines to it. You’d add an external DNS server like 1.1.1.1 as forwarder to allow internet traffic to still resolve.You’ll need a reverse proxy.
You should be able to use mDNS pretty easily. Some services (like Home Assistant) support it out-of-the-box. mDNS is what powers the
.local
domains (eghomeassistant.local
).