I've been doing small hosting off and on for a while. Mainly for accessing files at home and the occasional Minecraft server. Not smart, as I've never used a specialized router. I used to use ddwrt, but now it's impossible to flash most consumer grade routers.
id like to learn more stuff about cyber security, host other stuff, maybe host a website, but I'm just a guy who lives in an apartment. I'm stuck with 1 Internet service that claims it will terminate my service if they find me to be hosting anything. They must be semi-lax with that rule, because i haven't gotten terminated for using ssh and cockpit.
Do you guys own a house, or are just fortunate enough to have access to an ISP that will let you host your own stuff?
I started with a Raspberry Pi 4 4GB running Home Assistant with a bunch of add-ons. Moved on to a mini PC running Proxmox with some VMs (one for Home Assistant) and LXCs (NGINX Proxy Manager, Docker, AdGuard Home, Jellyfin and more). With a 4-core 8-thread Intel CPU and 16GB of RAM, it's got enough power for my usage so far.
My router is a regular consumer-grade router, but it's been pretty good at reassigning the same IP address to each of my services. My ISP doesn't restrict my uploads and hasn't complained about my self-hosted services, but there's not much traffic as I'm the only one using them.
I'm also adding a NAS to the mix soon for more storage!