it’s not like I have thousands of containers running

I feel you. I have ~20 container files (some are multiple containers in one file, e.g. db and web server) and I seldom have to do changes to them. Once properly configured, I don’t really have to do anything.

Do you want to expose port 80/443 and set up a reverse proxy or do you want to use a VPN tunnel? You could just use SSH to port 80 and 443 like so: ssh -L 80:<local-server-ip>:80 -L 443:<local-server-ip>:443 <username>@<domain>

I expose port 80/443 and use Caddy as a reverse proxy together with Authelia to protect anything that I deem needs an extra layer of security. I followed this guide: https://caddy.community/t/securing-web-apps-with-caddy-and-authelia-in-docker-compose-an-opinionated-practical-and-minimal-production-ready-login-portal-guide/20465

Once setup, it is easy to remove or add a backend to Caddy and Authelia. This way does mean that you sometimes need to log in twice, but that is a small price to pay if your backend app does not support SSO (like n8n community edition).

A very simple way to set up file access is to use SSHFS, mounting the drive via SFTP. It may not be as fast as other protocols but it is simple and requires minimal setup on your server.

https://github.com/winfsp/sshfs-win
https://github.com/libfuse/sshfs

Everything was .md files on the backend, which was nice. Should make automation simple (but time consuming since you most likley have to create it yourself). The only reason I stopped using it was because I didn’t really need it.

Have a look at Tasks.md. I’ve used it before and I liked it. You can customize the CSS as well.

Have you considered replace the name with input from stdin? So instead of name=synapse you could do name=$1 and have one script to use for all containers.

How do you manage your containers?

If you like compose files: https://www.composerize.com/

docker run -it --rm -v <your-data-path>:/data -e SYNAPSE_SERVER_NAME=<your-public-address-subdomain> -e SYNAPSE_REPORT_STATS=no matrixdotorg/synapse:v1.136.0 generate:

name: <your project name>
services:
    synapse:
        stdin_open: true
        tty: true
        volumes:
            - <your-data-path>:/data
        environment:
            - SYNAPSE_SERVER_NAME=<your-public-address-subdomain>
            - SYNAPSE_REPORT_STATS=no
        image: matrixdotorg/synapse:v1.136.0
        command: generate

docker run -d --restart=always --name synapse -e SYNAPSE_REPORT_STATS=no -v <your-data-path>:/data -p 8008:8008 matrixdotorg/synapse:v1.136.0:

name: <your project name>
services:
    synapse:
        restart: always
        container_name: synapse
        environment:
            - SYNAPSE_REPORT_STATS=no
        volumes:
            - <your-data-path>:/data
        ports:
            - 8008:8008
        image: matrixdotorg/synapse:v1.136.0