yes, it’s mostly things like games or software

though, I have seen more & more reports of people finding malicious disguised LNK files in their downloads and torrents, which will run some arbitrary command if you open that: Windows does not ever show the LNK extension, so a file could be named “<whatever>.mkv.lnk”, and you would only know if you checked the “file type” column in Explorer (which would read “Shortcut” instead of something like “Matryoshka file”), or when you see the cmd.exe window flicker open and close.

bonus edit: LNK is the native file extension that Windows uses to link app shortcuts, such as the shortcuts on your desktop.

This might also become a hassle since basically all residential connections (likely of OPs friends) have dynamic IPs - if someone wants to join while OP is away, but their IP has changed since their last connection, now they have to wait on OP to update the firewall rules.

Apart from getting your MSA token stolen, there’s not really much that can get around server login (yet). All online-mode logins pass through Microsoft (part of the reason why Xbox service outages seem to affect Minecraft so much).

If your friends all individually seem to stay within some certain IP ranges (ex, first handful digits always stay the same, 12.34.56.xx), then I’d say go ahead with whitelisting them fully (ex, 12.34.56.xx --> 12.34.56.0/24, CIDR notation). If they jump around unpredictability, I would stick with the username-based whitelisting and online-mode-only.

as long you are only forwarding Minecraft’s 25565 port from your router to your server machine, it should be fine. Just make sure to keep Online mode on, use the whitelist, and get your plugins from trusted sources. Otherwise I wouldn’t worry too much.

I see others recommending VPN solutions like zerotier for your friends to connect to; I don’t personally feel like this is necessary, and (in my experience), making your friends do more technical setup than just connecting to the server is often a big turn-off.

Bonus: If you ever take a peek at your server logs while it’s running (and exposed to the Internet, if you avoid said VPN solutions), you might notice a lot of weird connections from IPs and usernames you don’t recognize. These are server scanners and threat scanners that look for vulnerable servers to connect to and exploit. This is normal and you’ll be fine as long as you keep that whitelist and stay up-to-date on developments in the server admin space.

I’ve acknowledged that, while convenient, my (small) setup is still a burden that I would be asking someone to take. If your friends don’t already share your passion or knowledge for Linux/Docker/the intricacies of <whatever you may be running>, I doubt they’d be willing to take on what you leave them.

My friends had a family member who had a giant setup of Raspberry Pi’s that did Pi-hole, Home Assistant, F@H, among many other services and machines (there were like 6 Pi s!). They passed some time ago, and there’s just no one in the family who was willing to take on the responsibility to learn how to manage everything that was going on—services have been slowly degrading/going down since then.

Those who rely on your services will just go back to using Google Drive, watch-anime-free.org.ru, and pressing “Open LAN world” in the Minecraft client. I don’t think it’s okay, but if you’re out of the game, you won’t be there to object.

That is to say, if you DO have friends that are knowing and willing, you need to leave plenty of good documentation. I haven’t been one to write much of anything, and I’ve already fucked up my shell profiles again because of no documentation, but I can give some general pointers:

• What runs where?
• Why are things configured in certain ways? (ie “$GameServer gets 4gb because going over creates GC stutters”, “$IP is blocked because of telemetry”, “$File is symlinked to /dev/null to effectively delete/override a rule from $SomewhereElse”)
• List rules and their exceptions. (ie “Service ports are numbered this way because it looks nice”, “Except $Port because it conflicts with $SystemService”)
• List things even if they’re from personal preference (ie “Service ports are numbered this way because it looks nice”, tells user that these are effectively meaningless and things shouldn’t break by changing these, barring common sense)

Basically, leave meaningful comments that explain why something is the way that it is. You should be able to use this documentation yourself as reference material. Keep this documentation updated regularly, as frequently quoted “bad documentation is worse than no documentation” (or something like that)

(sorry if this last section in particular doesn’t make much sense, I haven’t slept in $hours. feel free to ask for clarification!)

if your sister’s by your server in-person, maybe you could guide them to graphically install something like Rustdesk (edit: graphical remote access, wayland isn’t well supported so make sure it’s running over Xorg), give you the access code & have them manually accept the connection so you can get back in.

You’ll be stuck streaming your terminal window and sending laggy keystrokes though whatever connection you have now (until you can get ssh running), but it’s better than nothing.

The docs say jellyfin-ffmpeg is only needed on Debian distros, like Debian itself or Ubuntu, other distros like Fedora should be able to use their respective ffmpeg packages. https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/installation/linux#ffmpeg-installation

Is there a reason you can’t have root on your VPS? Maybe you could ask to have Jellyfin and ffmpeg installed by an admin?

If your willing to try it, you could unpack the .deb file with dpkg -x <jellyfin-ffmpeg-for-your-distro.deb> <unpack dir> and stick the resulting directory (directories?) in Jellyfin’s PATH, but I’ve never tried this myself and I don’t know how well this could work.

Not to defend musk, but it’s not from one specific font. The logo is just Unicode char 1D54F, a blackboard bold X/“MATHEMATICAL DOUBLE-STRUCK CAPITAL X”

learning to use tone correctly and actively thinking about it (as opposed to passively using it like others do) can definitely be tiring since it’s basically an exercise to your mind. the only way to get to the “passive use” state is to do it until it doesn’t get tiring anymore.

however, the stressed->blunt part does sounds like a normal response, since that tone seems to convey your emotions at that time. if you’re feeling stressed alot for this to be common, i would also try to manage stress better, like cutting up tasks into easily manageable parts (but don’t cut them too small, as that can make them unmanageable and hard to keep track of!) and giving yourself time to destress by doing things you like to do (video games, shows, videos, music, … hobbies in general, …), but also don’t overdo it and leave you actual responsibilities behind

(remember that this comment, like most here, comes from experience, not study so might not work for you or need tweaking)

people interpret tone as emotion, where a more serious tone conveys that you might be mad about something they think (true or not) they are not at fault for; a playful tone makes that “load” lighter and doesn’t sound as “accusing” (for lack of a better word).

it’s just a byproduct of language and culture that can be as difficult to overcome as it can be understood. lots of things could be easier if everyone changed, but when’s the last time everyone agreed on something?

(at least this is what I’ve come to understand)

edit: also!! comments like “you are not responsible for others” are only half-true. while you shouldn’t be bearing the weight of others, you can’t ignore it completely! people come to expect a certain level of comradery when close to them. if you act without care to others, they will become distanced since they may not see you caring for their mental/emotional well-being (as one should, including you and I!).

a certain amount of care is required to keep eachother comfortable, this amount can vary and requires experimentation if you’re not already accustomed. it’ll be scary but it’s the best way forward (in my option)