I've been running a home server and Tailscale is magic. My firewalls have no open ports. The tailnet is a virtual network that assigns IP addresses to approved devices that you authenticate to join.

I use it in 3 ways:

1. My phone connects to my home network by joining the tailnet. I can play music and movies from my home server when I am away. No struggles with configuration. 2. A dedicated mini pc at home is on a smart plug. I keep it powered off mostly. I can turn the plug on remotely and power the mini pc. It runs "tailscale --advertise-routes" which then exposes every device at my house to the tailnet. No open ports, but suddenly my phone thinks that it is back at home with all my home PCs. 3. I take my laptop with me and use "tailscale serve" which serves as a pipe. I can pipe my home movies to a smart TV at your house. Just install the jellyfin app, and browse for servers, and my server in my house appears in the list at your house.