Maybe I’m using the wrong terms, but what I’m wondering is if people are running services at home that they’ve made accessible from the internet. I.e. not open to the public, only so that they can use their own services from anywhere.
I’m paranoid a f when it comes to our home server, and even as a fairly experienced Linux user and programmer I don’t trust myself when it comes to computer security. However, it would be very convenient if my wife and I could access our self-hosted services when away from home. Or perhaps even make an album public and share a link with a few friends (e.g. Nextcloud, but I haven’t set that up yet).
Currently all our services run in docker containers, with separate user accounts, but I wouldn’t trust that to be 100% safe. Is there some kind of idiot proof way to expose one of the services to the internet without risking the integrity of the whole server in case it somehow gets compromised?
How are the rest of you reasoning about security? Renting a VPS for anything exposed? Using some kind of VPN to connect your phones to home network? Would you trust something like Nextcloud over HTTPS to never get hacked?
I’ve got a very similar setup now. Only recently adopted tailscale and was previously port tunnelling over SSH to access anything on the local network. SSH is still open, and am just waiting a bit to see if theres any cases where I need it before closing that out too.
Short story: If you don’t need stuff open to the general public, just having Tailscale will probably cover you.
Ya my paranoia only allows me to expose Wireguard to access everything. I sleep better at night knowing that’s the only thing exposed. Too many instances of major companies getting hacked who have dedicated security teams to manage that. I am one person, learning to manage my own stuff in my free time.
The only port I open is for wireguard. That way I can access all services on my LAN. Wireguard is also very secure and requires keys based authentication so is hard to brute. It also allows me to secure myself if I ever need to join WiFi or an untrusted network
@housepanther@effingjoe Unless you’re running a router/firewall on the edge that can act as a reverse proxy, you kind of need to port forward to a reverse proxy if you’re behind NAT.
You could use a VPS as a proxy and set up a VPN tunnel between the home server and the VPS to avoid port forwarding altogether. I do this for my mastodon and lemmy instances. My home server is of course behind NAT but there’s no need for any kind of port forwarding. I should know because I have none configured.
For lots of things I self host that I wanna expose, I’ll just open a random port like 6952 and then reverse proxy w/ nginx on my web server. Not sure how secure it is, but it works
Ports are probed and scanned constantly so a random port doesn’t make so much difference. I would use a strict firewall with the server IP whitelisted.
Ever since I moved to a ridiculously high port I haven’t had any access attempts on my server. 6952 won’t do shit, but if you’re between 40000 and 65000 you probably won’t get anything.
Can they see what you are hosting on that port, though? Like say I want to open ssh to my server from the internet (I don’t do this and I wouldn’t unless it was temporary), but I don’t want to open it on port 22 because that’s too obvious. Are there bots that just try every protocol until they find one that your server responds to? Or is there a way to dig up information on what is being exposed behind that port?
I’m somewhat like you, in that I recognize I’m not a network guru. My home server with containers, as well as a few other devices are blacklisted from accessing the internet at my router. When i have needed outside access I have one machine with wireguard and some ip forwarding/masqurade etc so I have one connection in but can see the LAN for logging into stuff “locally”.
The only pain is non internet access devices losing sync with a time server.
I only have my (non default) ssh port exposed. I just use an ssh tunnel to access all my services. I don’t know if this is a good idea or not, but it works for me.
I should install fail2ban. I already have everything else covered. I’ve only heard of fail2ban, not very familiar with it. Is it necessary if password login is disabled? Can you brute force ssh keys? I really appreciate your advice.
I definitely recommend you do your own research into this. Brute forcing ssh keys should be practically impossible. Is it necessary to install fail2ban with password login disabled? Not sure, I’m of the opinion that it won’t hurt, just one more line of defense. It’s pretty easy to setup.
I’m hosting an email server on a VPS that has fail2ban in it. A lot of ports are open but only wireguard and knockd are listening.
For remote server management, I would use wireguard for regular ssh access, but when I need to configure the wireguard I can just disable/reenable the wireguard-only ssh firewall rule using port knocking, there is also the option of using the serial console on the VPS web ui but it is slower.
Honestly, I’m not sure myself if my public facing services face a DoS attack. Well, there’s always an option of using Cloudflare. With that being said though, I think in your case you should just use a free “VPN” like Tailscale or ZeroTier.
I am unsure if I can ELI5 those without also ELI5-ing about Computer Network, VPN and Firewall.
They are VPNs. Like a regular network, they connect your devices through their network. They may put Firewall rules to allow you to talk to X networks (any specified networks). That also means the VPN may not allow you to connect to the internet through their network. Now the difference between ZeroTier and Tailscale and other VPNs for accessing the internet is that ZeroTier and Tailscale only permit your traffic to your other devices that are bound to your account and not to the internet (your other internet data won’t go through zerotier/tailscale). This configuration is great because you have a virtual and secluded network that you can connect to from anywhere via the internet using ZeroTier/Tailscale networks (with your virtually local IP on ZeroTier/Tailscale).
I open 443 and 80 on my router and forward it to a reverse proxy.
I have a couple of service that are exposed but most of them make sense only when I’m home so I whitelist private IP address on my reverse proxy.
If you do.your basic security such as updating your servers and services and not having dumb password, you shouldn’t be afraid. Think about it, all of the services that you use is exposed on the internet. I did work for big company and they don’t do much more than what you would probably do, except maybe having some automated monitoring that flag weird stuff. But hey, aside from bots, I don’t think Russian hackers are interested in your stuff. Stay low profile with your exposed things and it’s gonna be alright. Make sure you backup.
For services that need to be public facing (Mastodon, Lemmy, Gitea…) I’m renting a VPS. Services that are only for personal use run on my home server and are only accessible through Wireguard, with the VPS acting as a “bridge” whenever I’m outside of my home network.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don’t control.
Rules:
Be civil: we’re here to support and learn from one another. Insults won’t be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.
No spam posting.
Don’t duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.
Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).
I am not exposing any ports online. I do not trust myself
Instead, I am using Tailscale (Wireguard)
I’ve got a very similar setup now. Only recently adopted tailscale and was previously port tunnelling over SSH to access anything on the local network. SSH is still open, and am just waiting a bit to see if theres any cases where I need it before closing that out too.
Short story: If you don’t need stuff open to the general public, just having Tailscale will probably cover you.
Ya my paranoia only allows me to expose Wireguard to access everything. I sleep better at night knowing that’s the only thing exposed. Too many instances of major companies getting hacked who have dedicated security teams to manage that. I am one person, learning to manage my own stuff in my free time.
The only port I open is for wireguard. That way I can access all services on my LAN. Wireguard is also very secure and requires keys based authentication so is hard to brute. It also allows me to secure myself if I ever need to join WiFi or an untrusted network
I think many of us are using reverse proxies, and opening port 443 (https) and maybe port 80 (http).
Port forwarding can be a recipe for disaster. I’d much rather make use of reverse proxying.
@housepanther @effingjoe Unless you’re running a router/firewall on the edge that can act as a reverse proxy, you kind of need to port forward to a reverse proxy if you’re behind NAT.
You could use a VPS as a proxy and set up a VPN tunnel between the home server and the VPS to avoid port forwarding altogether. I do this for my mastodon and lemmy instances. My home server is of course behind NAT but there’s no need for any kind of port forwarding. I should know because I have none configured.
At that point why don’t you just run it in the vps and save the hop.
For lots of things I self host that I wanna expose, I’ll just open a random port like 6952 and then reverse proxy w/ nginx on my web server. Not sure how secure it is, but it works
Ports are probed and scanned constantly so a random port doesn’t make so much difference. I would use a strict firewall with the server IP whitelisted.
Ever since I moved to a ridiculously high port I haven’t had any access attempts on my server. 6952 won’t do shit, but if you’re between 40000 and 65000 you probably won’t get anything.
That’s security through obscurity and one should never rely on this strategy alone
If it’s your only form of security then it’s bad. But if it’s on combination with other measures then it’s a good thing.
I wouldn’t let anyone who hits my ip/port directly into my openvpn. But not having china and russia bomboarding me with requests is nice.
Can they see what you are hosting on that port, though? Like say I want to open ssh to my server from the internet (I don’t do this and I wouldn’t unless it was temporary), but I don’t want to open it on port 22 because that’s too obvious. Are there bots that just try every protocol until they find one that your server responds to? Or is there a way to dig up information on what is being exposed behind that port?
nmap will try. https://nmap.org/book/man-version-detection.html
I forward 443 to my reverse proxy.
No, all of services are reverse-proxied through a WireGuard tunnel connected to my cloud VPS.
I’m somewhat like you, in that I recognize I’m not a network guru. My home server with containers, as well as a few other devices are blacklisted from accessing the internet at my router. When i have needed outside access I have one machine with wireguard and some ip forwarding/masqurade etc so I have one connection in but can see the LAN for logging into stuff “locally”. The only pain is non internet access devices losing sync with a time server.
I only have my (non default) ssh port exposed. I just use an ssh tunnel to access all my services. I don’t know if this is a good idea or not, but it works for me.
Security through obfuscation is never a good idea. Best practices for exposing ssh (iirc):
All of those are pretty easy to do, and after that you’re in a really good place.
I don’t see a problem with ssh tunneling to access services, as long as the ssh server is secured correctly
I should install fail2ban. I already have everything else covered. I’ve only heard of fail2ban, not very familiar with it. Is it necessary if password login is disabled? Can you brute force ssh keys? I really appreciate your advice.
I definitely recommend you do your own research into this. Brute forcing ssh keys should be practically impossible. Is it necessary to install fail2ban with password login disabled? Not sure, I’m of the opinion that it won’t hurt, just one more line of defense. It’s pretty easy to setup.
I have ports open for Wireguard and Plex. So far, no issues that I’m aware of. Time will tell
I’m hosting an email server on a VPS that has fail2ban in it. A lot of ports are open but only wireguard and knockd are listening.
For remote server management, I would use wireguard for regular ssh access, but when I need to configure the wireguard I can just disable/reenable the wireguard-only ssh firewall rule using port knocking, there is also the option of using the serial console on the VPS web ui but it is slower.
Honestly, I’m not sure myself if my public facing services face a DoS attack. Well, there’s always an option of using Cloudflare. With that being said though, I think in your case you should just use a free “VPN” like Tailscale or ZeroTier.
Can you eli5 both of those? Tailscale and zerotier…
I am unsure if I can ELI5 those without also ELI5-ing about Computer Network, VPN and Firewall.
They are VPNs. Like a regular network, they connect your devices through their network. They may put Firewall rules to allow you to talk to X networks (any specified networks). That also means the VPN may not allow you to connect to the internet through their network. Now the difference between ZeroTier and Tailscale and other VPNs for accessing the internet is that ZeroTier and Tailscale only permit your traffic to your other devices that are bound to your account and not to the internet (your other internet data won’t go through zerotier/tailscale). This configuration is great because you have a virtual and secluded network that you can connect to from anywhere via the internet using ZeroTier/Tailscale networks (with your virtually local IP on ZeroTier/Tailscale).
Thanks!
I open 443 and 80 on my router and forward it to a reverse proxy.
I have a couple of service that are exposed but most of them make sense only when I’m home so I whitelist private IP address on my reverse proxy.
If you do.your basic security such as updating your servers and services and not having dumb password, you shouldn’t be afraid. Think about it, all of the services that you use is exposed on the internet. I did work for big company and they don’t do much more than what you would probably do, except maybe having some automated monitoring that flag weird stuff. But hey, aside from bots, I don’t think Russian hackers are interested in your stuff. Stay low profile with your exposed things and it’s gonna be alright. Make sure you backup.
Exposed is the right term. Other than my Wireguard VPN port, everything I have exposed is HTTPS behind Authelia MFA and SWAG.
I’m tempted to switch Wireguard for Tailscale, as the level of logging with WG has always bothered me. Maybe one day.
Heaps
For services that need to be public facing (Mastodon, Lemmy, Gitea…) I’m renting a VPS. Services that are only for personal use run on my home server and are only accessible through Wireguard, with the VPS acting as a “bridge” whenever I’m outside of my home network.
I have one for OpenVPN and that’s it.
Openvpn to connect to the network, 80 and 443 for static websites, that’s it.
Email gets delivered by a VPS via a different port, ssh acces via vps as well. No initial connections from an ip not from the my country as well.