Trying to set up local DNS with AdGuard & NginxProxyManager

September 28, 20241 yr

Hi everyone,
I'm using Unraid for a few months now and am so far very happy with it. As a next step in my learning process I'd like to set up a local DNS so I won't have to remember IP addresses or port numbers anymore for using several services. The wikidocs docker container will serve as a placeholder for these services here, they are all accessible via http. But I'm obviously doing stuff wrong since I can't get it to work as I intend to (maybe my intention is nonsensical?). Your help would be much appreciated.

This is my current network setup (screenshot attached):

192.168.178.1 - FRITZ!Box 7590 AX Router
default DNS server: 192.168.178.11
192.168.178.10 - Unraid server, v6.12.13
192.168.178.11 - AdGuard docker container
DNS rewrite: *.home.arpa -> 192.168.178.12
192.168.178.12 - NginxProxyManager docker container
proxy host: wikidocs.home.arpa -> http://192.168.178.22:80, http only, public
192.168.178.22 - wikidocs docker container

My goal is to reach the wikidocs service by typing wikidocs.home.arpa into my browser. Currently I get an ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED error.
Via http://192.168.178.22:80/ I can use the wikidocs service from my testing machine without any issues.

I tried to follow various tutorials and guides throughout the last days and weeks without success. Here are some thoughts and stuff I tried:

from my testing machine (Windows):

tracert wikidocs.home.arpa

Tracing route to wikidocs.home.arpa [192.168.178.12]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.178.12
Trace complete.

so at least AdGuard seems to be working fine?

the NPM logs don't show any entry at matching times, the proxy host specific logs are empty (i. e. size 0 bytes)
from the NPM docker container's console, I can ping 192.168.178.11 as well as 192.168.178.22, but not wikidocs.home.arpa
Before using NPM I tried the swag docker container, but switched to NPM since several people in various locations recommended to switch to NPM for ease of use
I tried enabling Host access to custom networks in the Unraid docker settings as is suggested in the unraid docs, screenshot attached

I have the feeling I'm missing fundamental docker network knowledge here, but I'm not sure this is the issue.
Currently all docker containers are in the 'Custom: br0' docker network. I tried using a custom docker network as is suggested in some guides. However, no one seems to mention the network driver to be used; I tried one setup with 'bridge' network driver and one with 'macvlan' network driver, both without success, same symptoms as above.

I think I want AdGuard on its own IP address since it has so many ports configured and I don't want to fiddle too much with them (i.e. break things), rather assign IP addresses for various services if I have the choice. I think/hope this is not the issue; I've seen other people doing so as well. When putting NginxProxyManager into a 'bridge' docker network (i.e. onto unraid server's IP addr) I can't access it's web UI anymore (reassigning the unraid server's http(s) ports accordingly, trying all NPM's ports, both those in the docker overview as well as those in the container's detail-view-configuration, as they seem to differ; screenshot attached) - so in my last tests I left NPM on its own IP address as well.

As of now I'm clueless and pretty lost how to make this work, don't know where to start narrowing down the problem. Any help is appreciated.