Part 2: Set Up Nginx Proxy Manager on Proxmox with Cloudflare DNS & pfSense

In Part 2 of this series, we’re setting up Nginx Proxy Manager (NPM) inside Proxmox so we can start exposing our local services with clean HTTPS URLs and valid SSL certificates.

This is where the home lab starts feeling real.

Instead of accessing Home Assistant with something like:

• http://192.168.1.20:8123

…we’ll be able to use:

• https://ha.domain.com

And because we’re using Cloudflare DNS validation, we can issue a wildcard certificate for our domain and keep everything secure and polished.

Why Proxmox Is One of the Best Hypervisors You Can Run in a Home Lab

There’s something incredibly satisfying about owning your infrastructure.

Not renting it.
Not trusting it to some mysterious black box.
Actually owning it.

That’s the spirit behind home labs, and it’s exactly why Proxmox VE has become one of the most powerful hypervisors available to builders, tinkerers, and serious self-hosters.

It’s fast.
It’s powerful.
It’s ridiculously flexible.

Building the Foundation: Where a Real Home Lab Actually Begins

Key principle:

Terminate TLS at a single reverse proxy.
Expose one entry point.
Keep everything else internal.

That’s discipline.

The Real Reason to Do It This Way

This isn’t about running Plex on better hardware.

This is about understanding:

• How packets move
• How identity works
• How segmentation reduces risk
• How public DNS interacts with private services
• How virtualization abstracts hardware

You can buy ecosystems.