Introduction
With the VPN and remote access already configured, we can now start working on lab projects. The first thing I would like to achieve is deploying a simple web page. The most straightforward approach would be to install a web server such as Nginx or Apache and configure it to serve files from a specific directory.
However, since the goal of this project is to better understand modern infrastructure and self-hosting practices, I also want to experiment with Docker, reverse proxies, domain configuration, and basic network security. For this reason, I decided to use Docker containers to deploy my first simple web page.
I know that using a reverse proxy such as Nginx or Traefik would be a better and more scalable approach. However, I enjoy improving things step by step in order to better understand the purpose and necessity behind each upgrade. For now, exposing a simple HTTP service on port 80 is more than enough for a first iteration.
Docker test and port forwarding
Once the DDNS is configured, exposing a service to the internet becomes relatively straightforward. As with the VPN configuration, the first step is to access the router NAT/PAT settings and forward port 80 to the internal machine running Docker.
After that, Docker can be installed using a package manager such as apt. Once installed, we can pull the official nginx image and run it as a container.
Then we will install docker using a package manager such as apt, now we can pull the nginx image and just execute this simple command that will create and start a new container.
docker run --restart always -d -p 80:80 --name nginx-container nginx
--restart always: ensures the container automatically restarts after a reboot or crash-d: runs the container in the background (detached mode)-p 80:80: maps port 80 of the host to port 80 inside the container--name nginx-container: assigns a readable name to the container
As a result we have exposed the nginx container to the internet, and by using the unsecure HTTP 80 port and the correct DDNS url we can access the web, this is what we obtain using the web browser:
And if we try to access the web using the HTTP 443 port we obtain the following error, because the SSL/TLS certificate is not yet configured.
Buying my domain
The marcshomelab.ddns.net URL is quite ugly and not very professional, so I decided to buy a domain to improve it.
After looking at different providers, I chose Cloudflare. It offers many services, but for this project I’m only using the basic DNS management features. The domain I chose is marcgeremias.com, which is simple and easy to remember.
After purchasing the domain, the configuration process is quite straightforward. I created a CNAME record that points the domain to my DDNS address:
marcgeremias.com → marcshomelab.ddns.net
Simple Cloudflare configuration
For this first iteration, I decided to keep the Cloudflare configuration as simple as possible. At this stage, the objective is only to make the website accessible through my custom domain while understanding the networking components involved.
The DNS record is configured in DNS Only mode (grey cloud), which means Cloudflare only resolves the domain name to my server’s public IP address and does not proxy or inspect any traffic.
As a result, when a user accesses marcgeremias.com, the request travels directly to my home server:
Browser → Internet → Home Router → Docker Container
Because Cloudflare is not acting as a reverse proxy, features such as caching, DDoS protection, Web Application Firewall (WAF), and SSL/TLS termination are not being used.
For the same reason, SSL/TLS encryption is currently disabled. The web server only listens on port 80 (HTTP), so all traffic is transmitted unencrypted. This is obviously not recommended for a production environment, but it keeps the setup simple and allows me to focus on understanding the fundamentals before introducing additional layers of complexity.
In future iterations, I plan to enable Cloudflare’s proxy features, configure HTTPS certificates, and explore reverse proxy solutions such as Nginx Proxy Manager or Traefik in order to host multiple services securely under the same domain.