As I set up an increased number of FOSS applications, containers(Docker and LXD), and virtual machines built using multipass and LXD in my home lab environment, I started to realize the difficulty in remembering the different ports the applications and containers are running on. One of the solutions to address this problem was to have a Domain Name System for the local network which works for resolving local and external addresses with a reverse proxy to redirect calls based on DNS resolution so that one doesn't have to remember IP addresses and port numbers.
The below command lists the Docker Containers and ports the container are running on, the requirement is to create a domain for home setup homelab.net and access the containerized applications hosted using Domain URL e.g. appsmith.homelab.net excalidraw.homelab.net typesense.homelab.net nocodb.homelab.net etc.
# get container names and port numbers
docker container ls --format "table {{.ID}}\t{{.Names}}\t{{.Ports}}" -a
CONTAINER ID NAMES PORTS
cbb2ac402270 appsmith 0.0.0.0:9001->9001/tcp, 0.0.0.0:70->80/tcp, 0.0.0.0:444->443/tcp
c9875323b989 typesense_typesense-1_1 0.0.0.0:8108->8108/tcp
c453288c8496 excalidraw 0.0.0.0:3001->80/tcp
5be5d33f1f50 k8s-control-plane 127.0.0.1:34589->6443/tcp
4140d2fbf7d5 mysql_nocodb_1 0.0.0.0:8082->8080/tcp
e7310461bee9 mysql_root_db_1 3306/tcp, 33060/tcp
9b56c33d45d5 meilisearch_ms_1 0.0.0.0:7700->7700/tcp
9ac6a0e16b0e mongo2 0.0.0.0:20002->27017/tcp
2aaf01d2233f mongo1 0.0.0.0:20001->27017/tcp
860b521f97dc mongo3 0.0.0.0:20003->27017/tcp
d8ad1ec3cab8 rethinkdb_rethinkdb_1 0.0.0.0:28015->28015/tcp, 0.0.0.0:29015->29015/tcp, 0.0.0.0:8081->8080/tcp
The containers and applications running on the local home network as shown above do not have a public domain name, the option was to look for setting up a DNS server using DNSMasq and NGINX as a reverse proxy. The containers may not be the only use case scenario for local DNS server, there could be many others like accessing a local file share across devices; accessing applications from a mobile device, sharing a printer
The options to access container applications before implementing DNSMasq and NGINX
appsmith - http://localhost:70
excalidraw - http://localhost:80
typesense - http://localhost:8080
after implementation of DNSMasq and NGINX
appsmith - http://appsmith.homelab.net
excalidraw - http://excalidraw.homelab.net
typesense - http://typesense.homelab.net
Let us get started with the implementation steps for DNSMasq and NGINX. The below steps are performed on Ubuntu 20.04 - Debian-based distro.
Before starting the installation of DNSMasq, disable systemd-resolve which binds to port 53, the default port for DNSMasq
sudo systemctl stop systemd-resolved
sudo systemctl disable systemd-resolved
Step 1: Install DNSUtils, DNSMasq
sudo apt update && sudo apt install dnsmasq && sudo apt install dnsutils
Step 2: Create the DNSMasq configuration file
dnsmasq_conf="no-dhcp-interface=enp2s0f0
bogus-priv
domain=homelab.net
expand-hosts
local=/homelab.net/
domain-needed
no-resolv
no-poll
server=8.8.8.8
server=8.8.4.4"
sudo echo -e "$dnsmasq_conf" > /etc/dnsmasq.d/home-lab.net
sudo systemctl restart dnsmasq
Step 3: Add container DNS records in the file./etc/hosts. The records in hosts file will be used by DNSMasq for client responses
sudo nano /etc/hosts
# add the below records to the hosts file
#Container DNS records
# appsmith
192.168.20.113 appsmith
# excalidraw
192.168.20.113 excalidraw
# typesense
192.168.20.113 typesense
Step 4: Restart DNSMasq service
sudo systemctl restart dnsmasq.service
Step 5: Install NGINX
sudo apt update && sudo apt install nginx
Step 6: To enable reverse proxy feature, create a new NGINX configuration file in sites-enabled directory
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/homelab.conf
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
server_name typesense.homelab.net;
location / {
proxy_bind 192.168.20.113;
proxy_pass http://localhost:3000;
}
}
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
server_name appsmith.homelab.net;
location / {
proxy_bind 192.168.20.113;
proxy_pass http://localhost:70;
}
}
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
server_name excalidraw.homelab.net;
location / {
proxy_bind 192.168.20.113;
proxy_pass http://localhost:3001;
}
}
The proxy_pass argument will forward all incoming client requests to nocodb.homelab.net to respective app. The IP address and port number can be easily changed.
Step 7 reload nginx
sudo systemctl reload nginx
Top comments (3)
Now, this is what you call a fun project. Thank you for listing out the steps. :)
Cheers Nikhil :)
Good post. Very detailed. But If I need to change /etc/hosts, why this entire workaround? If always I need to change the hosts file, there is no reason to do all those stuffs. Maybe If I configure the DNS directly on network settings or directly on the router, would be a better choice, no?