Title. I looked at how to configure anything and found Caddy to be much easier to use. Aside from a lot of docker images integrating with it, why is everyone using it? Edit: I meant Traefik
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A reverse proxy like Caddy or Nginx is like a bouncer for your web services. It sits out front, deciding who gets in and where they’re allowed to go. It’s great for stuff you want to expose to the internet – like a website or web app – because it hides your actual servers, can handle HTTPS for you, and lets you set up some basic access rules.
A VPN is more like a secret underground tunnel between you and your server. Everything that goes through it is locked down to only members of the VPN. This is what you want when you’re dealing with private stuff you don’t want exposed to the open internet, like your home lab dashboard or some internal tools. The beauty of a VPN is that it works for everything–not just web traffic. SSH, file transfers, databases. All of it gets the same protection.
works for everything–not just web traffic. SSH, file transfers, databases.
Yup. I use it for sftp, ssh. I’ve never used in relation to a database. Is that for remote db? I am working on routeing mail through tailscale to a relay, since my host, for whatever reason, blocks mail ports and charges to have them turned on. I just wanted alert emails from a couple apps.
I am working on routeing mail through tailscale to a relay, since my host, for whatever reason, blocks mail ports and charges to have them turned on.
Should work fine. Your provider can’t stop you from opening ports unless its a shared environment and you don’t have permission/the port is already in use. Generally what they do is just block connections via a router/firewall. So if you use a VPN you’re sidestepping that issue. With the VPN in place, and the server online and running you should be able to connect via
{VPN_IP}:995, etc.For every technology there exists an equal, yet undoing technology.
First of all: not everyone can publish port 80/443 or even has a public IP.
I meant Traefik.
Because I don’t need a reverse proxy?
Also, as for ease of setup, with Tailscale I install an app and login. Done.
I meant Traefik, but I’m reading up on Tailscale now and it looks good.
I use both. Caddy on a VPS that reaches into my Tailscale network and proxies services hosted on a computer in my basement.
I’ll admit I’ve not tried Traefik yet, but I see Caddy as being to web servers (and reverse proxies), what WireGuard is to VPNs.
It does what it needs to well, with a minimal config file. And if I learn and get comfortable with Caddy, then I know it can do anything I will ever need of a web server down the line with no need for me to ever change setup.
I switched to Traefik as it has auto-configuring for containers for effortless deployment to any of your environments (dev, test, staging, production, etc.) either manually or straight from CI/CD.
The way it works is that you put any configuration in your compose file which is then picked-up by Traefik when its deployed - it reads the config, re-configures itself accordingly, and you’re done! So all your reverse-proxy config, cert config, etc. is all with the project so aren’t going to get out-of-sync.
Just keeps things really clean and simple. Plus it’s a great reverse proxy of course with tons of features, nice admin dashboard, logging, etc.
I spin a new service, add a few human understandable labels and traefik makes the connection automatically.
I have not tried Traefik, tho looking at what it does, it’s pretty amazing. Caddy seems to fit what I do, and as OP stated, Caddy is pretty easy to master, even tho it took me an embarrassingly long time to get it through my dim brain. Traefik does seem like a very polished app tho and is very integrated in with docker.
Others have already mentioned the question makes no sense but for others that are curious.
Headscale is a self hosted tailacale alternative and for a small number of devices plain wireguard is as well. I use plain wireguard on my router to allow LAN access from my mobile devices.
I want rock solid stability and simplicity since I use this for to debug issues if they crop up while I’m away.
