Security

DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) encrypts your DNS queries, preventing ISPs, network administrators, and attackers from monitoring which websites you visit. While public DoH resolvers like Cloudflare and Google exist, running your own gives you complete control over your DNS privacy, ad-blocking capabilities, and query logs. In this comprehensive guide, you’ll learn how to set up your own DNS-over-HTTPS resolver using AdGuard Home. 💡 This article contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more. Why Run Your Own DoH Resolver? Privacy and Control: When you use public DNS resolvers, you’re trusting third parties with metadata about every website you visit. Running your own DoH resolver keeps this data under your control. You decide what gets logged, how long logs are retained, and who has access to them. ...

Single Sign-On (SSO) is one of the most powerful security upgrades you can add to your homelab. Instead of managing separate logins for every service — Nextcloud, Jellyfin, Grafana, etc. — you authenticate once and access everything. Two solutions dominate the self-hosted SSO space: Authelia and Authentik. In this guide, we’ll compare both, walk through complete setup steps for each, and help you choose the right one for your needs. ...

Whether you’re securing remote access to your homelab, creating a private network between devices, or just want encrypted connections on public Wi-Fi, a self-hosted VPN is one of the most valuable tools in your infrastructure. But choosing the right VPN solution can be overwhelming — each option has different strengths, trade-offs, and ideal use cases. 💡 This article contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll compare three leading self-hosted VPN solutions: WireGuard, OpenVPN, and Headscale (an open-source Tailscale alternative). We’ll examine their architecture, performance, security features, configuration complexity, and real-world use cases to help you choose the right VPN for your needs. ...

AdGuard Home is a network-wide ad blocker and DNS privacy solution that works at the DNS level. Unlike browser extensions that only block ads in your browser, AdGuard Home protects every device on your network — including smart TVs, IoT devices, and mobile apps. It’s a powerful alternative to Pi-hole with a modern interface, built-in encryption (DNS-over-HTTPS, DNS-over-TLS), and advanced filtering capabilities. 💡 This article contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more. In this guide, I’ll show you how to set up AdGuard Home on Docker, configure DNS settings, add blocklists, and leverage advanced features like parental controls, safe search enforcement, and DNS rewrites. Whether you’re running it on a mini PC homelab, a Raspberry Pi, or a dedicated server, this setup will give you complete control over your network’s DNS traffic. ...

Protecting your self-hosted services from brute-force attacks, port scanning, and malicious traffic is essential. For years, Fail2Ban has been the go-to solution for Linux system administrators. But CrowdSec has emerged as a modern alternative with collaborative threat intelligence and Docker-first design. Which one should you choose for your homelab? 💡 This article contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more. In this guide, we’ll compare CrowdSec and Fail2Ban across key metrics: installation complexity, configuration flexibility, performance impact, community features, and real-world effectiveness. By the end, you’ll know exactly which intrusion prevention system fits your self-hosted infrastructure. ...

When you expose a server to the internet — whether it’s hosting your personal cloud, a website, or home services — security becomes critical. Default configurations are designed for convenience, not security. Without proper hardening, your server is vulnerable to brute force attacks, unauthorized access, and potential compromise. 💡 This article contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more. This comprehensive guide walks you through essential security measures every self-hoster should implement: SSH key authentication, two-factor authentication, firewall configuration, automatic security updates, and additional hardening techniques that will significantly reduce your attack surface. ...

When running privacy-sensitive applications through a VPN, one of your biggest concerns should be connection drops. If your VPN disconnects unexpectedly, your real IP address gets exposed—defeating the entire purpose of using a VPN in the first place. A VPN kill switch solves this problem by blocking all non-VPN traffic automatically. 💡 This article contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more. In this guide, we’ll build a robust, self-hosted VPN kill switch using Docker containers and iptables firewall rules. You’ll learn how to create an isolated network namespace where applications can only communicate through the VPN tunnel—if the VPN drops, all traffic stops completely. We’ll use qBittorrent as our example application, but the same approach works for any Docker container. ...

Keeping Docker containers up to date is one of those chores that sounds simple but quickly becomes a time sink when you’re running a dozen self-hosted services. Miss an update and you might leave a security hole open for weeks. That’s where Watchtower comes in — a lightweight container that monitors your running Docker containers, detects new image versions, and automatically pulls and restarts them for you. 💡 This article contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more. Watchtower has been a staple of the homelab community for years, and for good reason: it’s dead simple to configure, surprisingly flexible, and it runs entirely inside Docker itself. This guide covers everything from a basic one-shot update run to a fully configured, notification-enabled automatic update setup — including how to exclude containers you don’t want touched. ...

Self-hosting gives you complete control over your data and services. But with great power comes great responsibility — if your Nextcloud, Jellyfin, or Vaultwarden instance is misconfigured or exposed, you become an easy target. Security breaches in home servers are real: exposed ports get hit by scanners within minutes of going online. This guide covers the practical security layers every self-hoster should have in place in 2026 — from firewalls and HTTPS to authentication layers and intrusion prevention. You don’t need to implement everything at once, but each layer you add makes your setup significantly harder to compromise. ...

When you’re running a homelab, secure remote access is essential. Whether you want to access your self-hosted services while traveling, share resources with family, or simply keep your data off the public internet, a VPN is your gateway to privacy and control. Two solutions dominate the conversation in 2026: WireGuard and Tailscale. Both are modern, fast, and secure — but they serve different use cases and philosophies. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll compare both solutions, provide complete setup instructions, and help you decide which one fits your homelab. ...