I'm running a Raspberry Pi 5 at home as a lightweight web server. I put it behind `cloudflared` as to not leak my home IP address, and today I got to pay for it.
Should I just stop being paranoid about "leaking my IP address" and self-host it 100%? All I fear is that my family will have to live with degraded internet experience because some script kiddie targeted me for fun.
You have other options besides leaking your home IP. You could use a VPN like Wireguard or a WG product like Tailscale, which is what I do. My Tailnet IPs are in public DNS, too, because it doesn't matter, they're not routable publicly. You could also get a cheap VPS in The Cloud and proxy requests to your home.
I would honestly not want to ever get targeted for a ddos attack on my home network ip. It's 5 bucks to buy a stresser online. Maybe you can even find one for free. People used to do that for fun when skype was around since you could resolve people's IP addresses due to a bug in skype. The worst possible outcome is they disconnect your network or block your port forwarding privileges outside of your own network being down for your family. I wouldn't wish ISP support on anyone, much less ISP support that would rather just terminate you than help you protect your homelab server.
Should I just stop being paranoid about "leaking my IP address" and self-host it 100%? All I fear is that my family will have to live with degraded internet experience because some script kiddie targeted me for fun.