One of the key parts to setting up a home server is being able to reach it from the outside world. It doesn’t do much good if the only way to reach your website, cloud, server, etc., is from your own living room. There are many ways to accomplish this, but the cheapest and simplest way that I’ve found is with No-IP’s dynamic DNS services.
Just to be clear, I am not a spokesperson for No-IP, and I don’t get any money if you click on the link for their website, or if you sign up from here.
No-IP allows you to have up to three free dynamic DNS records that will point a website name that you choose to your home computer. Provided that your home computer is set up to tell No-IP where you are. Essentially, your computer (or router, depending on setup) will check it’s own IP address and send it to No-IP on behalf of your account (with your login credentials) and then No-IP will update it’s DNS record to your devices current IP address. It’s great, and I’ve been able to use it for years for free.
You can, of course, pay for service and get more addresses, better name choices, etc., etc. But for the simple price of free, it works great for a simple home server like I usually set up.
In my case, I actually changed my home Wi-Fi router’s software to DD-WRT, which is really great software and has options for Dynamic DNS by default. There are also DUC (Dynamic Update Clients) available for download from No-IP that you can install on your computer itself, which will do the same thing.
Linux – keep it simple.