I’m using Heimdall to easily access my self hosted stuff ATM. I would like for my family to use them too if they’re so inclined, but there’s no way they will be able to remember the IP addresses, I know I can’t!

Is it a DNS I’m looking for? If so, I’m already hosting a couple of instances of Adguard, can I just set it so that Plex is 192.xxx.x.47 and snapdrop is 192.xxx.x.53 and use that to resolve the request so my 13 year old can just type Plex into his browser and find it?

Or do I need something like Caddy or Nginx or something in between?

Thanks for any advice.

  • Anarch157aEnglish
    5•8 months ago

    I use Heimdall too, with a bunch of other things. One of them is Pihole.

    Pihole will not only help blocking ads at DNS level, it will also work as DHCP server and resolve localy configured addresses, like homepage.ourhome.

    Put it on your network and disable the DHCP feature in your WiFi router/firewall (you may need to explicitly set it to forward DHCP to Pihole).

    One warning, do not set up names like host.local. the TLD .local is reserved it will cause issues.

    • LifeBandit666OPEnglish
      5•8 months ago

      Awesome.

      Adguard and piHole share a lot of features and I’ve spent time with both of them. I liked phole a lot but I have kids and one feature I liked about Adguard was that I could set up groups (so the kids get a group and essential services get another) and I could in theory just switch off internet to the kids’ devices as a punishment, or even services like Fortnite or whatever.

      So that’s why I picked Adguard.

      Now before I bought my server pc I bought an old Nighthawk router/modem on eBay specifically because I could use it to replace my ISP router that was locked down (seriously, everyone in the building uses this ISP and all the WiFi bands are the same!) I can lock devices out of the WiFi with that now if I do desire, but honestly the threat is enough so far lol.

      First thing I did was send DNS to Adguard. I have run DHCP through Adguard before and it just jammed up and worked a bunch of times until I had to change it back or withstand ear bashings from my 10 year old because it kept killing his online gaming.

      So as far as I can see, I don’t have to use the DHCP feature to resolve the names to ip addresses, since the IP address resolves to the name via a domain name server, DNS, the Adguard, right?

      I was considering .Lan but I like your .ourhome idea. We live in an old church and have The-Crypt (it was gonna be de-crypt but I changed my mind last minute) as the WiFi address so .crypt is sounding good.