For a future project, I'm going to try to run a CR home server on a residential internet plan with SPECTRUM/TIME WARNER. North American residents will understand the struggle lol.

This obviously doesn't apply to specific apps (minecraft, for example) but yeah.

One suggestion that might trip people up is making sure your ISP supports specific ports.

This was/is my biggest concern. I wish the guide went into more depth on which ports are needed for which services/apps and what is the job of each is. I know most of the folks on here see Cloudron as a place for "devs" but I see it as a "THE" place for the not-so-tech savvy, so having the simplest of things like port #'s explained in layman's terms is greatly appreciated!

As for the IP, I think I have a fake/shared ipv4 over ipv6 according to the results I got online but it's working regardless. Maybe this new addition had something to do with it: https://forum.cloudron.io/topic/6277/ipv6-support-on-cloudron-io?_=1641421150213

I want to thank the Cloudron team, app devs, and the entire community on here for creating such an amazing service and knowledge hub that I believe is key to help us noobs make the switch from big tech. THANK YOU!

1. Static IPv4
2. Port forwarding
3. Knowing how to install Ubuntu

At the end of the day a VPS is just a VM (or bare metal computer) running on a server elsewhere.

One suggestion that might trip people up is making sure your ISP supports specific ports. Most don't block ports (in Canada) but I know that residential Telus plans here block SMTP and IMAP ports unless you get a business plan. Generally speaking though you can go through fewer hoops getting mail working directly from cloudron instead of relying on something like Sendgrid, which for me kind of defeats the purpose of self hosting to begin with.

About the ports, there shouldn't be a problem. (FTP port ? I don't remember anything about this one though. Why is there an FTP ?)

If you want to be extra-safe, you can redirect the SSH port to another non-standard external port on the router, to avoid most basic scan tools

One last question though, is it safe to leave SSH, FTP, and SMTP ports open on the router?

Do I need to change anything here?

I opened ports 443, 80, 20/21, 22 so far.

I also noticed that when installing the apps, I would get the "cloudron is offline message" for 1-2 seconds and then it comes back online and finishes the app installs. Once installed, if I click on the app, it keeps "spinning" and never loads anything.

I'm running the server on an older laptop (i5 5th gen, 8gb ram, 120gb ssd). It shouldn't be a hardware thing.

Is there anything I need to do directly with my ISP? Perhaps they're blocking/limiting traffic?
BTW, when I said home server, it's actually at my office so the internet is on a business plan with an AT&T provided modem/router all-in-one unit. Currently, I have it shutdown and I closed off the ports on the router so I can't run any troubleshooting or provide the domain link to you.

Remember to port forward TCP ports from the router to the server when using non-HTTP(S) ports. For example, you might have to forward SSH ports for git to work when using Gogs, Gitea & GitLab.

The two apps I tried were Wekan and Uptime Kuma. I'm guessing there are other ports I need to open. If not, then I need to replace AT&T's router with a third party. I got a headache... shutting "my server" off for now

Edit: my main problems are:

1- when I google what's my ip, I get a ipv6 address but if I use a website to locate my ip, it shows an ipv4.
2- can't see my server ip in the router gui so I can't assign a static ip to it or attach port 443 to it.
3- i added a passphrase to encrypt the disk when installing ubuntu server 20.04. I think that might be problematic down the road after I fix the ip issues.