My bad, GOG is absolutely the gold standard for DRM-free ownership. Personally, I buy on Steam for the convenience and the Proton support but I still collect every free titles on GOG

It’s why I treat everything cloud-based as a rental now. If I can’t install it locally and back up the data myself, I don’t really own it.

The home server is an old, low-powered mini PC running Debian. It acts as the bridge between the WireGuard tunnel and my local LAN.

I’ve just finished migrating one of my AdGuard Home instances onto it today. Its role is now twofold:

Routing: It has ip_forward enabled and a bit of NAT (iptables/nftables) so that traffic arriving from the VPN can actually “hop” onto the local network to reach my other VMs and containers.

DNS: It provides ad-blocking for the tunnel. VPN clients point to this node’s internal WireGuard IP for DNS queries.

Technically, it’s just another WireGuard peer, but with AllowedIPs configured to advertise my 192.168.x.x subnet back to the hub (VPS2). This is what allows  VPS1 and my mobile devices to resolve and reach home services without a single open port on my router.

You’re right, and for a lot of people, one VPS is the sensible choice. I actually addressed this in the post:

"VPS1 is my web-facing server. It handles the public side of things. VPS2 is the VPN hub. At first glance, that probably looks unnecessary. Strictly speaking, it is unnecessary. I could have crammed WireGuard onto VPS1 and called it done. But splitting the roles makes the whole thing cleaner.

One machine serves public traffic. The other handles VPN duties. That means fewer networking compromises, fewer chances of Docker or firewall rules becoming annoying, and a clearer separation between the public-facing stack and the private tunnel. It also means I can change one side without poking the other with a stick and hoping nothing catches fire."

It’s not that I didn’t like it, I just wanted to back to basics! A simple config file on each machine, job done

Exactly that, VPS2 handles the WireGuard port and has no domain pointing to it, so it’s basically hiding in plain sight. VPS1 holds the domain and handles the web traffic.

I keep SSH open on both, but locked down (key-based auth + restricted to my IPs).

Your idea of using the provider firewall (Ionos in my case) as a “mechanical” lock is a good one, block it at the edge and only open it when needed. I’ve thought about doing that, but I’m generally happy relying on a hardened SSH config and the provider’s KVM if everything goes sideways.

Thank you for the heads up, turns out it was the custom html code in the code blocks causing the issue. Fixed now.

No, apt isn’t just a rename. apt upgrade largely replaces apt-get upgrade, but it’s a bit more aggressive: it may install new packages if required as dependencies (it still won’t remove packages). If an upgrade needs to remove packages to resolve dependencies, use apt full-upgrade (same as apt-get dist-upgrade).

dist-upgrade and full-upgrade are essentially the same command but yeah, I won’t be using apt upgrade again in the future! Like I said in my post, the joys of being self taught is that you learn by my making mistakes and that’s part of the “fun” 🤣

Glad you found it useful. I’m the same, I can’t stand those long posts that make you read a life story before getting to the commands, even worse when a page is riddled by ads or behind a paywall!

I figured if I’d missed it, a few other people probably had too.

I’ve not come across this with my non Debian based systems. Only use Debian for servers because it’s so stable, Arch and Fedora everywhere else!

Why?

Toss up between Star Trek First Contact and Snatch!

I don’t know if it has been audited or not to be honest but I know the source code is available on the Mega website.

I have not come across Cryptomator but that is now something I am definitely going to look into, I am always doing an audit on software I use and always looking to see what else is out there. Just because I use Mega at the moment doesn’t mean that is what I will be using in a year from now etc

Fossify messages. Not the most feature filled app, does only the basics but because I don’t use SMS as my main communication method it is more enough to receive the odd 2FA text

Since they publish their client-side source code (https://mega.io/developers), anyone can verify that the encryption actually happens locally on your device before a single byte is uploaded.

Unlike Google or Microsoft where you just have to hope they aren’t scanning your files for ads or AI training (which they are!) Mega’s transparency means if there was a backdoor in the client code, the FOSS community would have flagged it years ago, it gives independent researchers a chance to check the behaviour. As an offsite backup is crucial, for me Mega is one of the better providers, not saying they are perfect but good enough for now.

The two I use are Nextcloud and Mega. Nextcloud is my primary location and I have a script that runs daily to replicate the Nextcloud with Mega. I chose Mega because it has end to end encryption and Mega cannot see your data. They also cannot recover your account if you forget your password. They have had issues/controversy in the past but these days they are, in my eyes a solid choice. I also make use of their S3 bucket so that my Proxmox Backup Server can save offsite so technically Nextcloud is included in that as well!

I self host so the data in the cloud is stored on my own equipment, yes it is still technically online but it saves a copy locally so you only need an active connection to sync new items.

I regularly use multiple devices and having that sync is vital. Even at work, I cannot install software but I can install browser extensions. This means I can use my instance for both personal and work. I have also set up most of my family with access, all for free!

Which phone and message app are you using? I also don’t see a way to view photos or files and which camera app?

Obviously GrapheneOS is the best way to go for privacy but if you do stick to OEM Android then make sure you’re using apps like the Fossify suite. I use their apps with all contacts and calendar synced via davx and self hosted on Nextcloud.

What about KeePass, where is that data backed up?

I recently wrote about why the year of Linux might actually be a trap. Most users want control handed to them even if it means giving up their privacy. If Linux goes mainstream, it could lose what makes it special.

https://the.unknown-universe.co.uk/privacy-security/year-of-linux-trap/