I would go for registering my own domain and then rent a small vps and run debian 12 server with bind9 for dns + dyndns.
If you don’t want to put the whole domain on your own name servers then you can always delegate a subdomain to the debian 12 server and run your main domain on your domain registrators name servers.

edit:

https://github.com/qdm12/ddns-updater

If your registrar is supported the ddns-updater sounds a lot easier.

Agreed - my use-case would be “24/7 server + gaming vm on demand with my monitor and peripherals connected to the gaming vm” and I doubt that is what most are going for.

The reason I mentioned my own build is because I consider putting all the components together to be a step up in complexity too, when compared to going pre-built. For someone who is comfortable with building their own PC I would definitely recommend doing that, the ability to tailor the hw to your needs is so much greater. :)

Hairpin NAT/NAT Reflection can make the experience of visiting the WAN IP from the LAN a different one then if you do it from somewhere else. Or what is your what?

First off, check that it is also true when using a device outside the LAN. Easiest would be to check with your phone with wifi off. You probably won’t get to the login.
If you do then it’s time to check firewall settings.

A DIY solution like your home server is great. I’m just adverse to recommending it to someone who need to ask such an open ended question here. A premade NAS is a lot more plug n play.

Personally I went with an ITX build where I run everything in a Debian KVM/qemu host, including my fedora workstation as a vm with vfio passthrough of a usb controller and the dgpu. It was a lot of fun setting it up, but nothing I’d recommend for someone needing advice for their first homelab.

I agree with your assessment of old servers, way too power hungry for what you get.

A simple way to ensure your selfhosting is easy to manage is to get a NAS for storage and then other device(s) for compute. For your current plans I think you’d get far with a Synology DS224+ (or DS423+ if you want more disk slots).
Then when the NAS starts to be not enough you can add an extra device for compute (a mini pc or whatever you want) and let that device use the NAS as a storage.
Oh and budget to buy at least one large USB Drive to use as a backup, even if your NAS runs a redundant RAID.

I also tend to fall back to Clonezilla. I don’t feel that the Rescuezilla GUI adds much.
Regarding compatibility both the latest Rescuezilla (since September 2024) and Clonezilla (Since July 2024) uses partclone 0.3.32 so they should once again be compatible.
https://github.com/rescuezilla/rescuezilla/releases

I don’t think you’ll find much use for more than 1 Gbit/s internet but if your desktop pc has a free pcie slot you can look at buying a 10Gbit/s pcie card and a 10Gbit/s network switch as your backbone for fun. You’ll rarely have use for it though.

I imagine you’re talking about bandwidth and that your 300MB is actually 300Mbit/s and all your Gs are Gbit/s.
The fastest ADSL I’ve heard of is 24Mbit/s downstream, aka ADSL2+/G.992.5. You don’t have ADSL.
I would guess that your “ADSL” is actually fiber and that your “Cable” is coaxial cable (same type that gives you cable tv).
If you wanna use more than 1Gbit/s your devices also need to support it. Even with WiFi 6 you will seldom reach 1Gbit/s so we’re talking CAT6 cables and a motherboard that supports at least 2.5Gbit/s.

https://guide.munin-monitoring.org/en/latest/tutorial/getting-started.html#adding-a-node

There are some unofficial Nagios Docker setups, such as https://github.com/JasonRivers/Docker-Nagios
Here’s their configuration doc: https://assets.nagios.com/downloads/nagioscore/docs/nagioscore/4/en/configmain.html
It isn’t all that pretty, see some examples at https://sourceforge.net/projects/nagios/ , but it allows for email alerts, multiple hosts (including managed network devices) and monitoring CPU / Memory / Disk space.

I’ve only ever run it as a full VM so I can’t give much thought on the docker container.

Just wanna shout out that Intel are supposed to have fixed their troubles with 13th and 14th gen cpus, I know Dell went out with a customer advisory in October to update the BIOS to fix said trouble.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/4/24262287/intel-13th-14th-gen-crash-raptor-lake-root-cause-fix

And Intel CPUs are great when it comes to transcoding just like the AMD X3D CPUs are king when it comes to gaming.

If you got another psu then that would probably be the simplest way to verify if its the psu or not.

1. Yes.
2. Separate VMs in separate VLANs for private and shared storage. Makes things a bit less convenient for you, but worth it imo.
3. Somewhere between $1000-$2000 I imagine.
4. RAID is great for minimizing downtime but is never a replacement for a backup. The 3-2-1 rule mentioned below is a good thing to follow.
5. Never grant higher permissions than necessary, never open more ports than necessary. If your gaming server VMs have no need to communicate with your Nextcloud servers then setup deny rules in your router firewall to stop that traffic from being possible and so on.
6. Get a proper physical firewall device that allows you full control. I usually use opnsense or pfsense as the software OS.