Why a local reverse proxy is useful

Running a handful of services on a home network—Nextcloud, a media server, a personal blog—usually means each one gets its own internal port. If you want to reach them from the outside, you could open every port on your router and forward it to the correct machine. That works, but it exposes those service ports to the internet and forces you to juggle a bunch of NAT rules. A reverse proxy on a single entry point keeps all those ports hidden and gives you a tidy URL scheme.

I’ve been running a small home‑lab with Docker‑Compose for a few years. My first reverse‑proxy was Traefik because its automatic LetsEncrypt integration and simple docker‑compose.yml seemed perfect for a beginner. Over time, the stack grew: I added a GitLab runner, a Nextcloud instance, a self‑hosted mail server, and a few hobby services that required custom TLS settings. The moment I hit that point, the trade‑offs of Traefik became obvious.

Below is a walk‑through of the decision, the migration steps, and the practical differences I noticed. If you’re still on Traefik and wondering whether to switch, this should give you a clear picture.

The 30‑second Nginx start‑up mystery on an 8‑core ARM box

I had a clean 8‑core ARM server (Cortex‑A72, 4 GB RAM) running Debian 12. Nginx was the only service that took longer than a couple of seconds to come up. The log said “started” after 30 s, but the system was idle otherwise. I wanted to know why a stateless web server was so slow to boot on a modern CPU.

Pull the top 10 HTTP status codes from an Nginx access log with awk

When you’re running a small site or a homelab server, the access log is the first place you look for clues about what’s happening. A quick glance at the most frequent status codes can tell you whether a recent change broke something, if a bot is hammering your API, or if a mis‑configured rewrite is returning 404s for legitimate pages.
Below is a practical, one‑liner‑heavy walk‑through that shows how to extract the top ten status codes from a standard Nginx log using only awk. It covers common pitfalls, performance tricks, and a few security‑related notes that fit naturally into a daily‑use workflow.

Web servers are a cornerstone of the internet, serving web pages, APIs, and applications to users worldwide. For Linux systems, there are several robust and feature-rich HTTP server options, each catering to different needs and workloads. This post explores some of the most commonly used HTTP servers for Linux, their benefits, and key features.

Apache HTTP Server

Apache HTTP Server HTTP Server, commonly known as Apache, is one of the most widely used web servers in the world. Developed by the Apache Software Foundation, it is renowned for its flexibility, reliability, and extensive module ecosystem.