I'm happy about a little bit of networking problem-solving I did earlier: I wanted to access my newly-installed media server on my home server through the wider Internet but I don't wanna expose my home IP because (1) it's dynamic and I don't wanna deal with dynDNS especially through my ISP-provided router (2) opsec reasons. usually I would install services that I expose to the Internet to my dedicated server with a public and static set of IP addresses but here it was a no-go because I don't want to put my media library on there (storage is limited and prohibitively expensive). so I tell myself let's proxy HTTP traffic to my home server! but how do I do that? and then I remembered wireguard is perfect for that! as long as one of the two peers can reach the other, they can communicate so I don't need any complex IP setup on the home server! with my wireguard configs written and systemd services enabled (let's not forget the keepalive packets otherwise the servers lose each other, pains of being behind a home router), my HTTP server can proxy the home media server no problem! it works super well! no need for special routing rules as this is just for point-to-point communication. as a bonus, I get to do secure TLS termination and don't have to deploy certificates to the home server: it just talks HTTP and that's it. and I can add other services with the same setup super easily too. this is what a VPN is for folks: pretending you have a magic infinite secure LAN for easy plumbing of services :D