I run horwood.cloud
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with the way I do it, you can also use NFS as a backend
If your router is setup to only allow in the ports with a service hanging off it, like SSH. Then a firewall wont add anything your router doesnt.
On the flip side, if your running any kind of VPS or directly accessible server, like a VPS or dedicated server. Then a firewall is required.
Now protecting your server from other things on your local network might something you want to do, think IoT stuff getting popped and being used to hack other things on the network
The morale of the store is, read the release notes to see what’s changing.
I don’t blinly update everything, but I do try to be on the more up to date end of things.
Case in point is nextcloud, that’s now on 31.0.0. I don’t ever jump to the latest untill the first point release is out, as nextcloud 31.0.1 is now out Wednesday night is nextcloud update time
As a homelabber and systems admin, I would start with learning how to use Linux on the command line.
It’s all well and good looking at docker, but if you don’t know how to move about or edit on the command line. Your going to get stuck real quick.
Once your happy doing simple tasks on the command line, I would actually look at running something like wordpress on a pi or VPS. That will help you understand how to connect services together, and cement your basic command line knowledge.
If you have your own domain and your DNS provider has an API, you can get a certificate for anything in your domain