62

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?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] iliketrains@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] vd1n@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

Can you eli5 both of those? Tailscale and zerotier...

[-] iliketrains@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

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).

this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
62 points (95.6% liked)

Selfhosted

39677 readers
364 users here now

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:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS