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2025

  • in HomeLab
  • 5 min read

Self-Hosting Pangolin: My Simple Setup for Accessing Homelab

Problem

Anyone who self-hosts eventually hits the same problem - how do you expose services to the internet securely without complicating your entire setup? Sure, you can buy a static IP and forward ports, but that comes with cost, security risks, and the chance of exposing your whole network. I wanted none of that. I didn’t want to:

  • Open random ports on my router
  • Maintain reverse proxy configs
  • Expose my entire Kubernetes cluster
  • Deal with VPN or DNS hassles

So I started looking for a simpler, safer way.

Monitoring RPi using Grafana Cloud & Alloy

Problem

I have an old Raspberry PI 3 that I used during my college days for applications like drones and robotics. Recently, I decided to repurpose it to run a simple Pi-hole setup to block ads across my home network and devices. One day, my RPi unexpectedly froze, and I had no idea that my DNS requests were failing until I noticed connectivity issues. A reboot resolved the problem, but it made me realize the need for proactive monitoring. Since my router is configured to use Pi-hole as both the primary and secondary DNS (yes, I know I should have a better failover strategy but for now, it works fine), a failure like this can disrupt my entire network.