So I was looking into getting port forwarding set up and I realized just how closed-off the internet has gotten since the early days. It's concerning. It used to be you would buy your own router and connect it to the internet, and that router would control port-forwarding and what-have-you.
Now, your ISP provides your router, which runs their firmware, which (in my case) doesn't even have the option to enable port forwarding.
It gets worse - because ISPs are choosing NATs over IPv6, so even if you install a custom firmware on your router without it getting blacklisted by your ISP, you still can't expose your server to the internet because the NAT refuses to forward traffic your way. They even devise special NAT schemes like symmetric NAT to thwart hole punching.
Basically this all means that I have to purchase my web hosting separately. Or relay all the traffic through an unnecessary third party, introducing a point of failure.
It's frustrating.
I like to control my stuff. I don't like to depend on other people or be in a position where I have to trust someone not to fuck with my shit. Like, if the only thing outside my apartment that mattered to my website was a DNS record, I'd be really happy with that.
Edit: TIL ISPs in the US don't have NATs
Edit 2: OMG so much advice. My knowledge about computers is SO clearly outdated, I have a lot of things to read up on.
Edit 3: There's definitely a CGNAT involved since the WAN ip in the router config is not the same as the one I get when I use a website that echos my IP address. Far as I can tell ~~my devices don't get unique IPv6 addresses either~~. (funnily enough, if I check my IP address on my phone using roaming data, there's no IPv6 address at all). It's a router/modem combo, at least I think since there's only one device in my apartment (maybe there's a modem managing the whole complex or something?). And it doesn't have a bridge mode, except for OTT. Might try plugging my own router into it, but it feels like a waste of time and money from what I'm seeing. Probably best to just host services over a VPN or smth.
Edit 4: Devices do get unique IPv6 addresses, but it's moot since I can't do anything but ping them. I guess it wouldn't be port forwarding but something else that I would have to do that my router doesn't support
What do you need to do, why do you need a public IP?
Well, I don't need it, not really. It's just I'm finally in a position where I'm not stressed about things like rent and healthcare, and I'm realizing I wanna fuck around with hosting my own websites. Possibly a lemmy instance, I was toying with the idea of developing a P2P social networking protocol that federates with lemmy. But also the idea of building my own websites so I'm not dependent on others for my income, or just making it easier for people to download stuff that I'm the only seeder of.
Definitely not a need. My rent is paid, my food is healthy, healthcare is cheap. So now I can worry about stuff like this that ultimately doesn't matter
You can rent a server in a data center. Hetzner is pretty good... unless it thinks you're a "risky customer" and bans you.