I live in India, and getting a static IP at home isn’t straightforward. You usually have to go through customer care, sometimes upgrade to a more expensive plan, and even then it’s not always guaranteed. I wanted a simple setup to make one of my apps publicly accessible without paying a lot or dealing with all that.

So here’s what I did. I used Tailscale, AWS Lightsail, Docker, and Nginx Proxy Manager to expose my laptop to the internet, safely and securely. And right now, I’m running https://easyclientlog.com - next.js application and https://api.easyclientlog.com - ruby on rails application, using this exact setup.

Getting a Static IP

I signed up on AWS and went to Lightsail. Picked Mumbai as the region and selected the cheapest Ubuntu server. AWS gives you a static IP for free (in lightsail) as long as it’s attached to a running instance, and the server itself is free for the first three months.

This server acts like a relay. It’s the public-facing machine. I don’t run the actual app on it, it just receives the request and forwards it to my laptop at home.

Installing Tailscale and NPM

On that Lightsail server, I installed Tailscale and Docker. Then I set up Nginx Proxy Manager (https://nginxproxymanager.com/) using Docker, which is what handles the actual proxying.

Ports 80 and 443 are open to the public. Port 80 redirects everything to 443 for HTTPS. Then Nginx the forwards traffic to the Tailscale IP of my spare home laptop.

One important thing to note is that the admin panel of Nginx Proxy Manager runs on port 81, and I’ve kept that accessible only through the Tailscale network. That means even if someone knows the IP and port, they can’t open it unless they’re on my Tailscale network.

Running the App on My Laptop

On my laptop, I run both the frontend and backend in Docker containers. The frontend runs on port 4445 and the backend on 4446.

Nginx on the server is configured to route:

  • https://easyclientlog.com to my laptop’s Tailscale IP on port 4445
  • https://api.easyclientlog.com to port 4446

From the outside, it looks no different fom hosting it on public server. But everything is running on my personal laptop at home.

DNS and Domain Setup

I manage my domain through Cloudflare. It points to the static IP from Lightsail. Cloudflare also gives me basic protection, handles SSL, and helps with fast DNS updates. So if I ever recreate the server, I just re-attach the same static IP and everything keeps working.

Costs

There’s basically no cost involved apart from what I already pay for internet and electricity. The Lightsail server is free for three months. After that, I’ll probably just delete the server and spin up a new one and reattach the same static IP to avoid getting billed.

Being from India, power is another issue that I face. I choose a laptop as spare server for this purpose, and I got a small 5v ups for my ISP router as well.

Why This Works For Me

This setup works well for early-stage projects or side hustles where I don’t want to commit to cloud hosting costs. My laptop has 16 GB RAM and an i5 11th gen processor, which is enough to handle a decent amount of traffic before things start getting serious. It also allows me to experiment with a better set of tools which requires more processing power then a free hosting cloud provides.

The whole thing gives me a public-facing app with minimal cost, full control, and no extra noise.

If you’re curious, you can check it out live at:

Currently what you see at https://easyclientlog.com is a static site. If you want to try out the app, feel free to register at https://easyclientlog.com/register. It’s still in active development. You can also sign up for the waiting list to get notified when the stable version is released.