🌐 Domain Setup Blueprint
Taking Sazabi Research Public

26 June 2026 · infrastructure networking howto

1. Buy a Domain

Get one from any registrar. For a personal project: Cloudflare Registrar (at-cost pricing), Namecheap, or Google Domains. Something like sazabi.io or paulresearch.com. Budget $10–50/year.

2. The Problem You'll Hit Immediately

192.168.31.73 is a private LAN IP. It's not routable from the internet. You have three paths.

Path A: Serve from This Machine DDNS + Port Forward

Set up DDNS — your ISP gives you a dynamic public IP. Install ddclient or use your router's built-in DDNS to map sazabi-research.com → your home public IP
Port forward on your router: port 80/443 → 192.168.31.73:8088
Let's Encrypt for HTTPS — run certbot on this machine
⚠️ Downsides: exposes your home IP, ISP might block port 80/443, dynamic IP is annoying

Path B: Reverse Proxy Through a Cheap VPS Better

Rent a $5/month VPS (Hetzner, Vultr, DigitalOcean)
Point DNS A record sazabi-research.com → VPS public IP
Run Caddy or nginx on the VPS as reverse proxy
Connect VPS to your home server via Tailscale or WireGuard tunnel → proxy to 192.168.31.73:8088
Caddy auto-handles HTTPS via Let's Encrypt
✅ Keeps your home IP hidden and gives you proper SSL

Path C: Cloudflare Tunnel Easiest · Recommended

Install cloudflared on this machine
Creates an outbound tunnel — no port forwarding, no public IP exposure
Cloudflare handles HTTPS, CDN, and DDoS automatically
Free tier is generous — perfect for this traffic level

3. DNS Setup

Regardless of path, the DNS config looks like:

Type	Name	Value
A	`sazabi-research.com`	VPS IP or Cloudflare proxy IP
CNAME	`www`	`sazabi-research.com`

If using Cloudflare Tunnel (Path C), Cloudflare handles DNS automatically.

4. Server Adjustments Needed Here

Switch bind from 0.0.0.0 to 127.0.0.1 if using Cloudflare Tunnel or a local reverse proxy — no need to expose the port externally
Optionally add basic auth if you want to keep it private (Cloudflare Access or nginx auth_basic)

5. Recommended Implementation: Cloudflare Tunnel

Step-by-step for Path C:

Buy domain from Cloudflare Registrar (or any registrar — then add the domain to Cloudflare for DNS management, free)

Install cloudflared on this machine:

wget https://github.com/cloudflare/cloudflared/releases/latest/download/cloudflared-linux-amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i cloudflared-linux-amd64.deb

Authenticate:

cloudflared tunnel login

Opens a browser → select your domain → authorized.

Create the tunnel:

cloudflared tunnel create sazabi-research

Configure ingress: Create ~/.cloudflared/config.yml:

tunnel: sazabi-research
credentials-file: /home/paul/.cloudflared/sazabi-research.json

ingress:
  - hostname: sazabi-research.com
    service: http://localhost:8088
  - service: http_status:404

Route DNS to the tunnel:

cloudflared tunnel route dns sazabi-research sazabi-research.com

Run as a service:

sudo cloudflared service install
sudo systemctl start cloudflared
sudo systemctl enable cloudflared

Result

✅ https://sazabi-research.com serves from this machine — with Cloudflare SSL, CDN edge caching, DDoS protection, and zero exposed ports. Your home IP stays hidden. All static pages cached globally.

Cost Summary

Item	Cost
Domain (Cloudflare Registrar)	$10–50 / year
Cloudflare Tunnel	Free
Cloudflare CDN / SSL / DDoS	Free
Total	$10–50 / year