After trying out Cosmos Cloud (and it not working for the clients), I’m back at square one again. I was going to install Docker Desktop, but I see it warns that it runs on a VM. Will this be a problem when trying to remote connect to certain services, like Mealie or Jellyfin?
Docker Desktop on Linux?
English

Wouldn’t this be insecure? Is that what the reverse proxy thing is for - to keep it safe?
Also, is it possible to make it so the name is simpler? I bought a domain name just in case.
Is there a place I can learn about ports and networking more? Something like Khan Academy but for networking?
Ah sneaky. You added a question.
The answer to is there somewhere you can learn about this? Yes and no. You will ultimately learn by doing for this stuff.
Comptia network+ study guides will have all this knowledge and more.
If you’re all in, Hack The Box is a freemium platform (think codecademy but less hand-holdy) that isn’t designed to teach you this, but will absolutely teach you this in the process. It is a platform for offensive and defensive cybersecurity. These things are covered as afterthoughts in bigger pictures, but it will (at least for folks who learn by doing) force you to familiarize yourself with it implicitly.
Otherwise as far as IPs and ports and containers, I can tell you all you need to know, because it ain’t much. It feels confusing/overwhelming at first but everything individual slice of this stuff is pretty simple. It’s just an absurd amount of knowledge. Just take baby steps and learn what you need to know to get done what you seek.