Route Domain To Immich On OpenMediaVault NAS: A Guide

by Aria Freeman 54 views

Hey guys! Ever wanted to access your Immich instance, hosted snugly on your OpenMediaVault NAS, from anywhere in the world? It's totally doable, and this guide will walk you through the process. We're going to dive into the world of networking, DNS, proxies, and all that good stuff. Don't worry, it's not as scary as it sounds! Let's get started.

Understanding the Challenge

Before we jump into the how-to, let's quickly break down the challenge. You've got Immich running on your OpenMediaVault NAS. That's awesome! But it's likely sitting behind your home router, happily doing its thing within your local network. To reach it from the outside world, we need to create a pathway. This involves a few key steps:

  1. Domain Name: You need a domain name (like yourdomain.com) that acts as the address people will type into their browsers.
  2. DNS (Domain Name System): We need to tell the DNS where your domain points to – specifically, your home's public IP address.
  3. Dynamic DNS (DDNS) (Optional but Recommended): Your home's public IP address might change from time to time. DDNS services automatically update your DNS records when this happens, ensuring your domain always points to the right place.
  4. Port Forwarding: We need to tell your router to forward incoming traffic on specific ports (like 80 and 443 for HTTP and HTTPS) to your NAS.
  5. Reverse Proxy: A reverse proxy (like Nginx Proxy Manager, which you've already got!) acts as a gatekeeper, directing traffic to the correct service (in this case, Immich) on your NAS. It also handles SSL/TLS encryption, keeping your connection secure.

Diving Deep into Networking Concepts

Networking is the backbone of this entire operation. At its core, it's about how devices communicate with each other. Your home network is likely a private network, meaning devices within it can talk to each other using private IP addresses (like 192.168.1.10). However, these private IP addresses aren't visible to the outside world. That's where your router comes in. Your router has a public IP address, which is how the internet sees your network. When someone tries to access your Immich instance, they'll be trying to reach your router's public IP address.

DNS, or the Domain Name System, is like the internet's phonebook. It translates human-readable domain names (like immich.yourdomain.com) into IP addresses (like 123.456.789.10). When someone types immich.yourdomain.com into their browser, the DNS system looks up the corresponding IP address and directs the browser to that address. This is crucial because remembering IP addresses is hard, but remembering domain names is much easier!

Proxies, especially reverse proxies, are essential for security and organization. Imagine your NAS as a building with multiple apartments (services). The reverse proxy is like the building's receptionist. It sits at the front door (your router) and directs visitors (internet traffic) to the correct apartment (service). In our case, Nginx Proxy Manager acts as the reverse proxy, directing traffic for immich.yourdomain.com to your Immich instance. It also handles SSL/TLS encryption, which is like having a security guard escort visitors to their apartments, ensuring their privacy and safety.

OpenMediaVault (OMV) is the operating system for your NAS, providing a user-friendly interface for managing your storage, services, and network settings. It's the foundation upon which you've built your Immich setup. Understanding OMV's capabilities is key to successfully routing your domain.

Setting Up Nginx Proxy Manager

You've already taken the first step by installing Nginx Proxy Manager (NPM) using Docker. Awesome! NPM is a fantastic tool for managing reverse proxies, SSL certificates, and more. Let's quickly review your docker-compose.yml snippet:

services:
  app:
    image: 'jc21/nginx-proxy-manager:latest'
    restart: unless-...

This tells Docker to pull the latest Nginx Proxy Manager image and restart the container unless you explicitly stop it. You'll likely have more configurations in your actual docker-compose.yml file, such as port mappings and volume mounts. Make sure you've mapped ports 80 and 443 to your host machine. These are the standard ports for HTTP and HTTPS traffic.

Now, let's talk about configuring NPM. Once the container is up and running, you can access the NPM web interface through your browser. The default credentials are usually [email protected] for the email and changeme for the password. Make sure you change these credentials immediately for security reasons!

Within the NPM interface, you'll be setting up a proxy host. This is where you tell NPM how to handle traffic for your Immich domain. You'll need to provide the following information:

  • Domain Name: Your Immich subdomain (e.g., immich.yourdomain.com).
  • Scheme: http or https (we'll aim for https with SSL).
  • Forward Hostname / IP: The internal IP address of your OpenMediaVault NAS (e.g., 192.168.1.10).
  • Forward Port: The port Immich is running on within your NAS (e.g., 8080).
  • SSL Certificate: You can either request a Let's Encrypt certificate (which is free and automatically renews) or provide your own.

Setting up the SSL certificate is crucial for secure communication. Let's Encrypt certificates are a great option because they're free and easy to use. NPM can automatically handle the certificate request and renewal process, which is super convenient.

Configuring DNS and DDNS

This is where we connect your domain name to your home network. You'll need to log in to your domain registrar's website (where you purchased your domain). Look for the DNS settings or DNS management section. Here, you'll be adding or modifying DNS records.

You'll need to create an A record. An A record maps a domain name (or subdomain) to an IP address. In this case, you'll be mapping immich.yourdomain.com to your home's public IP address. You can find your public IP address by simply Googling