Setting up a homelab in Greece is a nightmare. "Why?" you may ask. I'll tell you.
Internet Service Provider
Everyone knows Greece has bad internet. But the real pain isn't the speed, rather it's the customer service. Port forwarding basically never works. You have to call their hotline, wait on hold for 40 minutes, and beg them to open the ports for you. And even when they say they've opened them half the time they still don't work! At the time I'm writing this, I've got XMPP, SMTP, and IMAP ports supposedly open and only about half of them actually function.
Power Costs
Electricity prices have gone to hell lately, so I had to downsize my homelab to a small HP Compaq 8300 Elite. Not a huge deal since it doesn't draw much power, but still worth mentioning.
Conclusion
Fuck Cosmote!!! (Telekom/T-Mobile for non-Greeks) I really enjoyed wasting hours of my life calling a hotline for some ports. I'm not even sure if I'll continue with this homelab or not. Moving into a new apartment soon, I know damn well I'm not using cosmote again. (or i'll just pay for the business plans for static ip too ngl)
Update 20-05-2025: I got XMPP working but seems like port forwarding is being filtered on E-Mail ports so ig no email (yet)
Update 11-04-2025: I just switched to a vps lmao