I’d really like to get started with this stuff but finding the technical requirement exhausting.
Trying to install privoxyvpn- “simply add the proxy to your browser and ensure the configuration is correct” (no help as to what this means, or how to do it and following the basic instructions just renders my browser unable to connect - googling the error message gives me replies like “simply make sure you read the logs” (no description of how to get to the logs or how to read them)
hearing I need a proxy and a reverse proxy, install SWAG — “first, point the A name at your server and the CNAME at the A and then install the SSL certificate - but be sure to pick between directories and subdomains if you have fewer than 20 domains in your account.”
Like what the fuck does any of this mean?
Then I hear if I have a proxy it might interfere with the reverse proxy and both might interfere with the VPN and vice versa.
How does one even get started?
Hey OP. I’m a bit late to the party, but I figure I’ll throw in my two cents.
Generally speaking, you’re going to want a VPN (I suggest Mullvad), a torrent client (I suggest qBitTorrent), a NAS (for storing data), a movie server (Jellyfin is great), and something that can connect to your streaming server.
I suggest Mullvad as a VPN because 1. it’s a no log service, 2. you can pay for your subscription using Monero (a type of private/anonymous crypto), and 3. it has a “Lockdown mode” which will block any traffic from your PC that isn’t routed through your VPN preventing IP leaks.
I suggest qBitTorrent as a torrent client because it has an advanced setting that allows you to specify which network interface is used for torrenting. You’ll want to set that to the virtual network that Mullvad creates so that even if for some reason your VPN goes down, your torrent client won’t leak your IP.
For actually hosting movies you’ll want to store them somewhere. Network attached storage is good for this. I built my own using a raspberry pi, and it’s separate from my torrenting PC, but there’s no reason you couldn’t also configure your torrenting PC to also be a NAS. If you don’t want to think too hard about a NAS, there are companies like Asustor make premade network storage.
For actually hosting movies you’ll want something like Jellyfin running on a computer that has access to where your movies are stored. Again, Jellyfin can run on the same computer that’s running your NAS, and your Torrent client. It can all be the same computer. This step may require some configuration on your part. You may want to give your Jellyfin server a static IP so that your devices will automatically reconnect if your router resets.
Finally, you’ll want to actually watch your movies. I have Roku boxes in my house, so my setup for this was downloading the Jellyfin app, and then typing in the local IP address of my Jellyfin server. You don’t necessarily need an external box for this, Android TVs can install the Jellyfin app.
And that’s a kind of high level example setup. There’s other things that you can do that’ll make your setup more secure like properly configuring wireguard in mullvad to obfuscate your traffic so that your ISP won’t know that you’re torrenting through a VPN, or encrypting your NAS data, but that’s something you should decide if it’s worth doing.