My Internal Network Setup and Configuration

Prologue

For example, I have following services running in my local network.

• Git Server: Located at 192.168.1.100:80
• Jellyfin Server: Located at 192.168.1.101:8000
• NAS (Network Attached Storage): Located at 192.168.1.101:8010

Is there any good way to access them without typing ip address?

Yes. In this blog post, I'll walk you through how I set up my internal network.

Setting Up a Private DNS Server

The first step in our journey is to set up a private DNS server within our local network. For this, I chose AdGuardHome, which I deployed at 192.168.1.102.

With AdGuardHome, I was able to set up custom DNS resolutions. For instance:

• server1.cuora resolves to 192.168.1.101
• server2.cuora resolves to 192.168.1.100

However, if a service operates on a different port, we need to employ a reverse proxy, like nginx, to handle the traffic.

Setting Up a Reverse Proxy

I set up a proxy server at 192.168.1.103. This means that any requests to *.internal.cuora are directed to the proxy server at 192.168.1.103.

Nginx Configuration

Here's a brief overview of my nginx setup:

• For jellyfin.internal.cuora, traffic is directed to 192.168.1.101:8000
• For git.internal.cuora, traffic is directed to 192.168.1.100:80
• For nas.internal.cuora, traffic is directed to 192.168.1.101:8010

With this configuration, I can easily access all my internal services using domain names, making the entire process seamless and user-friendly.

Example Config

server {
    listen 80;
    
    server_name jellyfin.internal.cuora;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://192.168.0.180:8030/;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Port $server_port;
    }
}

don't forget to add a default nginx config

server {    
   listen 80 default; 
   server_name _; 
 
   root /usr/share/nginx/html;
 
   index index.html index.htm;
 
   location / { 
     try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
   } 
}

Settup Router

This part is quite easy. In DHCP setting, just set default DNS server to our own private dns server 192.168.1.102.

Network Structure

Done!