Nginx Proxy Manager Guide

This is a self-hosting setup guide for configuring Nginx Proxy Manager and NetBird to access a self-hosted application through a reverse proxy and network connection. It is provided in the NetBird section of TechHutTV's public homelab repository, which contains homelab stacks, templates, and related resources.

Nginx Proxy Manager is a Docker-based web application with a graphical interface for managing Nginx reverse-proxy hosts and routing requests to services on a private network. It supports WebSocket connections, Let's Encrypt certificates including DNS-01 certificates and wildcard domains, automatic renewal, and multiple users with permissions to view or manage assigned proxy hosts. It requires a database.

AdGuard Home is a local DNS server that can be used as an alternative to Technitium in split-DNS homelab setups. In the described setup, local DNS records resolve a domain to a local reverse proxy at home rather than sending traffic to the public proxy and back through the internet.

Pi-hole is a network-wide DNS server and ad-blocking tool developed by the Pi-hole Team. It can run in Docker or on a supported Linux system, including a Raspberry Pi, PC, virtual machine, or NAS, and can serve as the DNS server for an entire network or individual devices. It blocks advertising and tracking domains before they are downloaded, including requests from mobile apps, smart TVs, and IoT devices. Pi-hole provides a web interface with query statistics, client activity, upstream-server information, query logs, local DNS configuration, and settings management. It includes a built-in DHCP server, group-based filtering, allowlists and denylists with regular-expression rules, automatically updated community blocklists, configurable privacy modes, and a REST API with built-in documentation. A VPN such as WireGuard can extend its DNS-based blocking to devices on mobile networks or public Wi-Fi.