Many registrars let you buy a domain and set up dynamic DNS for it within their system so you can own a domain and get dyndns on it.
Otherwise you could accomplish it with a VPS but you’d only need the smallest one available because it would just need to run nginx to forward to your home ip (and a small tool to update that IP when it changes). So you could probably get something for less than $5/mo.
I see you got your answer, but I’m adding on for anyone else that comes across this.
For me, I learned the most when I had a disposable and replaceable system. When I was dual booted I was too scared to touch anything in case it fucked everything up. Once I started poking round on a Pi, LiveUSB, etc it was a lot easier to learn because I could always restart.
Id start there with something like Mint or Ubuntu. Then set it up in a way where you can easily replace your OS so you can reset it often and fuck around. Then just learn as you go.
It really isnt bad. I do most of my computer at home so I really only need a small cloud box to pipe things through when needed.
And I could reduce the B2 price a lot with some deduping of my data, but that’s an ongoing and painfully slow process since I was too reckless with my local backups in the past, so $7 to avoid that process is worth it.
And for electric I suspect it’s pretty low. I’m running 3 raspberry pi, a 4 bay NAS, and one micro PC and I live in an area with pretty cheap electric already. I think my gaming machine probably takes more power in a few hours than the rest of the system does in a day.
I largely run raspberry pis so my electric costs are likely minimal (I’ve never calculated it). Besides that:
PIA VPN: ~$4/mo
Digital Ocean Droplet + Backup snapshots: $7/mo
Domains: ~$25/year
Backblaze B2 backups: $7/mo
How long are folks planning to wait before migrating to something new? I suspect this is still safe for at least a few months before things fall out of date, right?
Or I guess it allows wire guard to update freely so it’s probably safe until something specifically breaks.
Just be careful you don’t get their “smarthome” line, at least for cameras. It doesn’t require Internet to operate, but it requires Internet for configuration and management.
I’m not sure if that’s the same with their doorbells, but it was true of their wifi cameras.
A Windows VM running Windows terminal, SSH’d back into the host, obviously.
Honestly I stick with whatever the default is and never had a problem that led me to find anything else.