Selfhosted

60934 readers

890 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:

Detailed Rules Post

Be civil.
No spam.
Posts are to be related to self-hosting.
Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or readme if you're providing a link.
Submission headline should match the article title.
No trolling.
Promotion posts require active participation, with an account that is at least 30 days old. F/LOSS without a paywall has exceptions, with requirements. See the rules link for details. Tags [CBH] or [AIP] are required, see the links in Rule 8 for details.
AI-related discussions and AI-involved promotional posts have additional requirements for tagging, as noted in Rule 7 and the AI & Promotional Post Expanded Rules post, and find example disclosures here.

Resources:

selfh.st Newsletter and index of selfhosted software and apps
awesome-selfhosted software
awesome-sysadmin resources
Self-Hosted Podcast from Jupiter Broadcasting

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

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS

curbstickle@anarchist.nexus

curbstickle_lw@lemmy.world

Are you exposing any ports on your home server? (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 years ago by fhein@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

98 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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

[–] zib@kbin.social 4 points 3 years ago (1 children)

I have https open along with a non-standard port for ssh. Just for fun, I have the standard ssh port open, but redirecting to a Raspberry Pi running a honeypot. It's fun to mess with foreign bots trying to access my network.

[–] FarraigePlaisteach@kbin.social 1 points 3 years ago (1 children)

Do you see much activity there?

I know that they say that security through obscurity doesn’t work, but to me (a novice) it sounds like a good idea to route the default port to a dummy server.

[–] zib@kbin.social 2 points 3 years ago

I do see a decent amount of activity on it. Full disclaimer, I am not a security expert. I know just enough to be dangerous. But, I see at least a few connection attempts from different IPs about every day. The top 3 countries of origin are China, Russia, and Brazil (based on the reverse DNS, but it's possible some are using VPNs to hide their origin). My impression is they're all bots that just go through a list of IP addresses, attempting to connect to the standard ssh port, then guessing the username and password. What I've found is they usually go through a list of likely ssh ports until one of them connects. Having the default port open to only the honeypot means they usually establish the connection, then leave it at that, so my real ssh port never gets hit. I kinda think of it like scambaiting, where I'm just wasting time they might otherwise spend trying to break into someone else's real ssh server.