i have used gate for my internal and external, works very well and i do exactly what you are asking and separate different versions and modpacks by name https://github.com/minekube/gate
would be a good idea to test the backups on 7, and double check the release notes, they hold just about every caveats. The 7to8 upgrade was not horrible, if you have backups, you could always attempt the upgrade after taking backups, then if successful take new backups, test, then install new drives and restore. depends on how paranoid you feel.
If this was a production system, that is probably the change plan i would follow, but in production I would also be able to migrate VMs. I am not nearly as careful in the home environment.
what about that doesn’t work? just because you don’t know how doesn’t mean not possible.
https://developers.cloudflare.com/dns/manage-dns-records/how-to/managing-dynamic-ip-addresses/
https://github.com/ddclient/ddclient#using-ddclient-with-dhcpcd
https://openvpn.net/community-resources/configuring-openvpn-to-run-automatically-on-system-startup/
it looks like there is a bedrock branch, but i personally have no experience with bedrock.
see this issue for more details: https://github.com/minekube/gate/issues/11