Published May 12, 2026, 1:30 PM EDT Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek, Joe has been writing about technology since starting his career in 2018 at KnowTechie. He's covered everything from Apple to apps and crowdfunding and loves getting to the bottom of complicated topics. In that time, he's also written for SlashGear and numerous corporate clients before finding his home at XDA in the spring of 2023. He was the kid who took apart every toy to see how it worked, even if it didn't exactly go back together afterward. That's given him a solid background for explaining how complex systems work together, and he promises he's gotten better at the putting things back together stage since then. DNS is the most powerful thing in your self-hosted empire , keeping your network safe while making it easier to access your apps. Along with some pertinent firewall rules , it lays the groundwork for a resilient home network, but there's a gotcha that most aren't talking about.…