Custom Local Domains

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

jjakc reply

lemthony.com

Keep in mind you still need to specify the port with this method.

novarime reply

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.

jjakc reply

lemthony.com

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

novarime reply

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.

Captain Janeway reply

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

novarime reply

novarime reply

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.

plo reply

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.

novarime reply

Cheers. I appear to have something of a mental block with revese proxies. I've used them successfully, but couldn't definitively say I understood them enough to get on with things. I've always had some niche condition on my end that was slightly different to the guide or video I was watching which snafued the process.

I have nginx proxy manager currently up and running and set up wildcards, but no dice on actually mapping anything properly, and there are multiple layers where things can be misconfigured, so diagnosis takes time, which is hard to come by at the moment.

What this post has taught me, is that I need to just spend a weekend playing with reverse proxies enough til they're sunk in. Thanks again for the advice.

finn

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

novarime reply

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.

ilovetamako

lemmy.fmhy.ml

I use a pi hole instance for this. I just point all the subdomains at my ngnix server and reverse proxy everything through that

TheButtonJustSpins

infosec.pub

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 on domain.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?

asjmcguire

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 address

Cold Hotman

nrsk.no

novarime reply

The host isn't really the issue. It's the container. How do I access the container with a name rather than number.

Cold Hotman reply

nrsk.no

AggressivelyPassive

feddit.de

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.

StrayPizza

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.

dan

upvote.au

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 (eg homeassistant.local).

Badabinski

You'll need certs if you want to use a Chromecast in certain circumstances, btw.

kamin

lemmy.kghorvath.com

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.

priapus

lemmy.one

Reverse proxy and local DNS. Just add the domains you want to your DNS and point them at the reverse proxy.

novarime reply

Thanks. It's the reverse proxy part i'm scared of. For some reason theyve just never clicked with me.

priapus reply

lemmy.one

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.

novarime reply

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?

priapus reply

lemmy.one

Yep! If you have a local DNS server such as a pihole you could just manually add watch.tv to your local dns records and set the IP as your servers IP. If you don't have a local DNS server, you can just add it to your hosts file.

Once you do this, any requests to that domain will go to your reverse proxy, which if set up correctly will send you to Jellyfin.

baduhai

You'll need a reverse proxy.

novarime reply

lemmy.philipcristiano.com

Thanks. I got some reading/watching to do.

philipcristiano

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.

cwagner

lemmy.cwagner.me

nychtelios

rlyeh.icu

You can configure a local only DNS

Célia

pricefield.org

You can add an entry to your /etc/hosts file for the IP part, but this cannot remove the need to specify the port number as it is unrelated to the domain/IP

zikk_transport2

If externally available - i use domain. If local - by ip:port. I find it easier to rely on firefox bookmarks and their folders lol.

equidamoid

After much suffering with local zones (mainly due to stubborn devices ignoring dns servers coming via dhcp and retarded corporate vpn messing with resolv.conf) I just use xxx.local.mydomain.tld with a small script that parses the leases files and updates the data via cloud flare api.

zueski reply

I ended up doing a similar thing for the same reasons, too many things ignoring my local dns. I ended up creating a subdomain for my house where all the A records had internal ips. I gave out fixed leases to the things with names though instead of dynamic dns updates.

equidamoid reply

I have static ips for the server-ish things and few important devices too, but for the rest (swarm of shellys, esp32, etc.) I'm too lazy to maintain the list =)

dan reply

upvote.au

Using a real domain also lets you get Let's Encrypt TLS certificates for the subdomains, by using DNS challenges.

I do the same thing - I use xxx.int.example.com and xxx.vpn.example.com for internal IPs and VPN IPs respectively.

julia

lemmy.blahaj.zone

Theres a few ways to do that but this is the easiest way it to use a caddy reverse proxy & a local dns server (like pihole or adgarud home)

example caddyfile:

# you must set 'http://' or caddy may error when getting a ssl cert
http://jellyfin.servername.local {
  reverse_proxy 192.168.1.100:8096
}

Red Wizard 🪄 reply

lemmygrad.ml

I wouldnt use .local as that's also used by apples Bonjour service if I recall correctly. I use .internal which Google and Facebook currently use for microservice stuff. So the odds it ever becomes a tld are almost null.

novarime reply