Own domain for Jellyfin and privacy concerns

[dingleberrylover@lemmy.world]

Hi everyone,

a couple of friends and I have a Jellyfin server running which is exposed to the internet via a reverse-proxy and https by using a free dynDNS provider.

The setup is working fine besides the dynDNS provider. We constantly face connection issues, making the dynamic DNS functionality very unreliable.

So I started looking into possible solutions and one particular would be to buy an own domain which would only cost a few bucks each month. With this I could keep the current setup and would just need to change the domain (and possibly the SSL certificate).
I found a provider over which I could buy (rent?) a domain and which also provides dynDNS functionality. But I am not too sure if I understood this correctly:

• if I have an own domain, why would I need the additional dynDNS functionality? I would guess that I would just continue updating your server's IP address to the domain name like we are doing now
• can the provider over which I rent the domain with servers in my country actually see what our traffic is? Especially since we are streaming our movies etc.
• is there a better way of obtaining and setting up your own domain also in terms of privacy and reliability than with a bigger company offering such services?

Thanks a lot for your feedback!

[slazer2au@lemmy.world]

If you have a static IP where you host your jellyfin service you shouldn't need your dydns anymore.

a domain provider doesn't know what you are doing. It knows you want to access jellyfin.your.domain but has no clue what you are watching or the specific URLs you are going to.
Think of it like a library reference card, the library knows you want Encyclopaedia Britannica volume 12, but they don't know what you are actually looking up.

I have a domain with porkbun and dont have issues. When my reverse proxy needs a new certificate I do nothing because Traefik uses the porkbun API to do the Let's Encrypt DNS validation.

[huebe]

Quick answers to your three questions:

1. You still need DDNS if your IP is dynamic — the domain has to keep pointing at your changing home IP. (If your ISP gave you a static IP, you don't.)
2. Your DNS/domain provider only resolves the name to an IP; they can't see the stream itself — it's end-to-end HTTPS. They could log which hostname is queried, not the content.
3. The unreliable part you want to fix is the free DDNS, not the domain.

Full disclosure: I operate DNS Beacon. It does bring-your-own-domain + a reliable DynDNS2 endpoint + free auto Let's Encrypt on the free tier, GDPR-compliant German operator. https://dnsbeacon.com

Porkbun + this combo works well together.