But I’m very afraid of exposing the server to the internet and it being hacked or such.
I see this sentiment a lot… and I don’t get it.
Your server is going to be secure almost by default. Add the firewall and only open the ports you actually serve, and the majority of your work is done.
But if you follow a decent hardening guide you’ll find many of those other little ways people can exploit the services you do leave open, and you’ll lock those down too.
Then at that point, you have dealt with 99.99% of the script kiddie / bot threats that will ever find you.
What is the source of the fear when regular Joe’s discounts themselves and say no I won’t expose my hardware? You know the cloud is just someone else’s computer, right?
I’ve been self hosting a publicly exposed domain which serves http, mail, etc for literally more than a decade. My logs are filled with background noise but my stuff is fine.
No tail scale, no cloud flare, my cloud is mine
Moral of my story - Don’t be scared, try to be smart and keep your stuff updated via automation
Yeah that’s what’s stopped me…I used to trip the light fantastic, but anymore, the thought of ego death isn’t liberating, and as I’ve gotten older my background anxiety (set) seems to only go in one direction. Kids, House, work, etc… it’s a little late for me to tune out and drop out