Another Lemmy thread led me to thinking about getting a cheap VPS for my homelab. I’m double-NATted by my ISP, so I can’t do traditional port forwarding. I’d like to get a cheap VPS, install Tailscale on it, and access my homelab from anywhere without having to have Tailscale on every device I use (at work where I can’t install it, for example).
I found a cheap VPS company and the plan I was looking at gives 1000 GB bandwidth per month. Some of the things I want to access are media servers (Navidrome and Jellyfin). So if I set up the VPS with nothing but a reverse proxy and Tailscale, will all my Jellyfin traffic go through the VPS and count as bandwidth used?
Yes
Yes, twice (download from home to the server, and upload from the server to the client)
I do the same thing - I have a 3TB limit, but usually only use 300GB, sharing Jellyfin to a dozen or so users.
Edit: I’m sure there are plenty of good VPS providers out there, I personally have been using NerdRack for a few years now (got a VPS on special and the rate is locked as long as I keep it). Looks like they’ll do $11/year right now for a KVM VPS that’s sufficient.
Thank you for answering very clearly. That’s what I was expecting to hear. I was also looking at Nerdrack. It’s very interesting to hear your bandwidth numbers, I would only be serving to three users, so I’d likely be looking at much less than your 300 GB, which is very good to know!
I am thinking about trying my hand at Tailscale, and have been tempted to click through to the Server Host offering on the LowEndBox $2 list.
LEB Special – 2GB KVM VPS
There’s a smaller one in the $1 list, also with allegedly unmetered bandwidth.
Server Host LEB – 1GB KVM VPS
Can vouch for Racknerd.
Can confirm, but depending on the VPS, your traffic may only be metered in one direction. Mine only meters egress, not ingress, so it’s not too bad if I want to use my media server.
This would depend on whether the limit is defined as ingress or egress or both. For example AWS has free ingress traffic from the internet but there is a cost for egress traffic to the internet.
A better solution would be to find a unmetered service, which means that you have a fixed transfer speed (e.g. 500 Mbit) but have unlimited bandwidth. OVH offers this in their VPS products.