I don’t have access to my router and my ISP charges for port forwarding (I think they might have a CGNAT setup?).
I’m trying to work around that since I want to start hosting some apps and game servers from my PC. I’m seeing a lot of talk about tailscale as a possible solution to this but honestly I’m a bit confused with all the options and whether this is actually the proper tool for the job.
Assuming it is, do I go the route of setting up a “tailscale funnel” or a “subnet”? Will other people have to install tailscale too if they want to join my servers? People also mention Netmaker or Cloudflared Tunnel, although it also seems like cloudflare doesn’t want their tunnels used for game and media traffic?
The more expensive option I guess would be just paying for protonvp premium since it offers port forwarding in that case, but I’m not sure about performance and whether it’s worth it, at that point I might just rent a server instead.
Hoping you folks at self-hosted have more ideas on how can I, well… self host instead of throwing money at the problem.
Tailscale funnels allow people on the internet to connect to a Tailscale domain and they will be connected to your server at home through a secure tunnel.
Tailscale subnets allow a device using Tailscale to expose devices that are not using Tailscale in their LAN to other nodes in the tailnet. So if for example you use Tailscale on your phone when you’re on vacation and you have a subnet on a PC at home also using Tailscale, you can reach a network printer on your LAN at home even if that printer is not running Tailscale.
There’s one more interesting thing you can do with Tailscale and that’s an exit node. When you make a Tailscale device an exit node it will let other Tailscale devices connect to the internet as if they were the first device. It’s useful when you’re away from home at a hotel or airport wifi and want a secure connection, because the connection will be encrypted due to Tailscale. Can also be used to appear at home when you’re traveling for whatever reason (trick Netflix in showing you the catalog from your home country, pretend to be at home when working remotely etc.) It acts like a VPN service in a way.
Tailscale requires each person be granted access, I.e. it’s private. (Edit:I didn’t know about Tailscale Funnel, which is more like Cloudflare tunnel)
Cloudflare Tunnel gives anyone on the internet access, but to my knowledge only covers HTTP traffic. If what you’re trying to do requires port numbers then I don’t think that will work.
In regards to media traffic, Cloudflare silently removed that section of their Ts & Cs, so hosting Jellyfin, etc should now be OK.
You might be able to use Tailscale on a cheap VPN to forward traffic to your setup, but it might be cheaper and easier to pay your ISP.
It’s worth pointing out that port forwarding happens on your router, but if you don’t have a public IP then it won’t work. Sometimes ISPs will give you a public IP if you just ask, sometimes they tie it to a static IP add-on and charge for it. It sounds like you might be in the latter case. It can vary by ISP, so if you live somewhere where you get a choice, you may find another ISP is a better deal (e.g. where I live some charge $15 a month for a static IP, some charge a one off $40 fee, and some you can just ask and they will give you a public dynamic IP for free. Others will give everyone public dynamic IPs).
My ISP says my IP is technically dynamic, but it hasn’t changed once in the 6 years I’ve had their service. But that’s for the best, since they’re the only choice for symmetrical gigabit and their only option for static IPs is for business accounts.
So I continue to trust that they won’t change it. Fingers crossed.
Dynamic IPs don’t change very often. Sometimes you can get a new one by restarting your router, which most people don’t do very often. But in my experience they stay the same if you don’t restart it.
If you do end up with a new IP occasionally, it’s typically not too hard to change things to the new one.
You can also just spend $10 on a domain name with a registrar that offers dynamic DNS. Offhand, both Namecheap and Cloudflare do. I have no idea what my public IP address is because my router just updates it automatically for me. Plenty of DDNS desktop clients around if your router can’t for whatever reason.
