Having been made redundant and currently serving notice, I've been doing a few techie things to ensure I don't get bored... anybody else doing the same?

1. Deployed a Linux server - I had a Raspberry Pi 3 that was acting as a bit of a network server. This worked well, but I was always a bit suspicious that something so cheap my be liable to break. I was about to throw out an old mini-PC (Acer Revo RL50), when I realised that it would probably make a good replacement for the Pi, and I could just keep the Pi as a backup. So, I installed a new 250GB SSD into the Revo (that was a bit of a challenge!), and installed the latest Ubuntu 20.04 Server LTS. The only issue I had was trying to find a wired keyboard - as the wireless keyboard I use wasn't picked up during the installation routine - so I couldn't select anything The wireless keyboard worked fine after the install.

2. Installed Pi-Hole - This is an advert blocking system that was originally designed for the Pi. Once installed, you set your router DNS to point at the IP address where Pi-Hole is installed, and all adverts are then blocked before they actually get to your PC. So, no need for ad-blockers. Having checked, it seemed that Pi-Hole works just fine on Ubuntu (at least the 18.04 version). I downloaded the software and installed on my new Linux server, and 5 minutes later it was all up and running. Perfect.

3. Installed PiVPN - This is a VPN server solution for, you guessed it, the Raspberry Pi. Originally it was an implementation of OpenVPN. However, it now also supports WireGuard - which is a more "modern" VPN (so I'm told). I went for the OpenVPN install as it's what I'm used to, and I have OpenVPN clients on my Macs & Android devices that I know work fine.

One recent enhancement to the PiVPN installer is that it detects if you have Pi-Hole installed. If so, it sets the VPN up so that any requests go via Pi-Hole. This means that you get the added advantage of ad-blocking when you're at a remote location connected to the VPN. You used to be able to set this up manually, but it could be a bit tricky.

4. Installed Caddy 2 Webserver / Proxy - I currently have a NzbGet / Sonarr / Radarr setup on a Windows server. I've also got Jenkins / Nexus, and a personal website. All of these can be set up to use SSL - but it's a bit of a nightmare, and you have to sort out your own certificates etc. Rather than do this, I've deployed Caddy 2 to act as a reverse proxy. I point ports 80/443 on my router to the Caddy, and it then routes to the appropriate server port based on the HTTP domain (sonarr.mydomain.com, radarr.mydomain.com etc.). The beauty of it is that Caddy automatically downloads SSL certificates from LetsEncrypt for each domain, so everything is secure. When the certificates are due to expire, Caddy will automatically request replacements.

Now, if I try and hit http://radarr.mydomain.com it automatically redirects to the secured https://radarr.mydomain.com. It's an amazing piece of software, simple to setup and configure and it's free for personal use!

Any other recommendations?