What I'm trying to do:

I've recently set up a home media server (Jellyfin, Radarr, Sonarr, etc) and would like to be able to give external access to the Jellyfin server to a few family members. Additionally, I'd like to establish an internally and externally accessible dashboard (probably using Homepage) that facilitates access to various services (e.g. Sonarr, Radarr, qBittorrent), as well as Frigate's dashboard, and allows access to a separate Home Assistant box's dashboard.

Ideal set up:

The dashboard would be accessible through https://dashboard.lemtrees.com/. Individual services would be accessible directly through https://.lemtrees.com/ (e.g. https://sonarr.lemtrees.com/). Access to this dashboard should be safe and secure, and accessible from anywhere (i.e. not just my phone or a pre-approved device) if possible. Access to this dashboard would facilitate access to the Home Assistant box's HA dashboard.

The external Jellyfin access needs to be rather simple, so ideally I could tell my family members to just install the Jellyfin app and point them to https://jellyfin.lemtrees.com/. It is my understanding that this traffic should not go through Cloudflare in order to not violate their TOS.

Current set up:

• Domain
  • I have a domain name I wish to use (not actually lemtrees.com) through Namecheap.
• Internal network config
  • Outside -> Comcast router (in Bridge Mode) -> Google Home wi-fi router
    • Wi-fi devices (e.g. phones)
    • 8-port Netgear switch (Ethernet devices)
      • "Media Server" PC
      • "Home Assistant" Intel NUC PC
      • Personal PC
      • Various device gateways (e.g. Philips Hue, Lutron Caseta)
    • (Note: The Google Home app is used to establish DHCP IP reservations / static IPs)
• "Home Assistant" Intel NUC PC
  • Home Assistant OS (handles home automation)
  • PiHole (currently used to resolve "mediaserver" as the correct IP address internally)
  • Updates a DuckDNS entry (which isn't presently used)
  • (Note: Home Assistant dashboard is not presently accessible externally but I would like it to be)
• "Media Server" PC
  • Runs Debian
  • Hosts media (one SSD for the OS/etc, multiple HDDs for media storage)
  • Runs Jellyfin server
  • Runs the *arrs, like Sonarr and Radarr
  • Runs NordVPN
  • Runs qBittorrent (network access bound to NordVPN)
  • (Note: Presently do NOT have Docker installed but will)
  • Frigate NVR
    • (Note: Not yet installed/configured, will get set up on Docker)
    • Will provide Wyze cam access and recordings
    • Will stream one Wyze cam to Twitch

What am I after?

Please recommend how to get from where I am to my "ideal set up". I've been reading and frankly just feel a bit overwhelmed. Lots of people want to make things complex just for the challenge of setting it up, but I do that kind of thing all day at work and here I just want to easiest to set up and maintain solution available.

Everything I read seems to have some reason why it won't work, but I may be misunderstanding some of them and especially how they work together. Cosmos Server seems to require that all of my apps be in Docker containers (which isn't the case), Tailscale seems to require that I set up a VPN for whoever wants to use it (not an option for family or for getting to my dashboard from a work PC), Authentik might work for the dashboard (but not all of the apps support SSO) but not for a Jellyfin server, etc. I'm still wrapping my head around setting up a reverse proxy, a VPN tunnel or Cloudflare or something (or just somehow using my NordVPN connection?), not needing to forward ports, etc.

I would greatly appreciate any assistance in wrapping my head around a straightforward way to get my "ideal set up" working.

I'm intending to set up a home media server PC for streaming to my TV (Jellyfin or Plex), which can also serve as a Home Assistant box. Over the last few months, I've picked up decent parts on sale (e.g. i5-12400, 32gb RAM, 4x 18TB HDDs, 1TB SSD), and they are all here. Presently I have Home Assistant running on an old Intel NUC, so I want to set up my media server PC to be able to take over Home Assistant duties when the NUC dies.

I'm a bit unsure here, so I am asking for advice on how to set all of this up with minimal fuss. A friend is encouraging me to just install Linux then Jellyfin/Sonarr/Radarr/SnapRAID/etc and simply buy a new NUC when the old Home Assistant box dies, and I'm inclined to go that route because frankly my work is mentally tiring and I don't have the willpower to fight a bunch of issues between software and systems I'm not familiar with. Having set up Home Assistant OS on the Intel NUC in the past, I have some limited experience with setting up Linux, using the terminal, etc, but frankly I really prefer a GUI and for things to be as simple as possible.

I would prefer to have some VMs/containers so that I can run Frigate and other processor intensive applications that the Home Assistant NUC can't handle, but worry that setting myself up to enable this in the future will be too much hassle in the short term. My hope is that someone can help reassure me that my intended approach is solid, and point me toward useful resources to minimize the hassle of setting this up.

I believe that I want to set up Proxmox, with two VMs to start (I will need to learn how to install and use Proxmox). On one VM, I'll install Home Assistant OS to be sure that it works, and then will leave it only until my current Home Assistant NUC dies. One the other VM, I'll set up my media server. In the future, I'll likely spin up a third VM for running Frigate.

On the media server VM, I'll install Jellyfin, Sonarr, Radarr, some kind of auto downloading/indexing software, and SnapRAID. Should these be installed directly on Linux, or should I be figuring out dockerized containers? With SnapRAID, I intend to keep one one of the four drives as the parity drive. Is there something I should be running that makes the remaining three drives look like one big drive and handles load balancing, or is that not necessary? Should the hard drive related things be on another VM for any reason? Are there good tutorials for setting up Proxmox to enable all of this without significant issues? As you can probably tell, here is where I start to get uncertain.

I'm intending to set up a home media server PC that will run Jellyfin/Sonarr/Radarr/SnapRAID/etc on one VM, and Home Assistant OS on another. I am seeking input and assistance from people who have similar setups who can advise on how to proceed with minimal hassle on my part.