this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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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?

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[–] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was able to reduce that to just SSH by having my Wireguard host on a VPS and connecting out from home. Running SSH on 443 is a neat idea.

[–] Manifish_Destiny@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Running ssh on 443 doesn't do anything unfortunately. A proper port scan will still detect such a common protocol.

[–] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's more about gaining access from inside a network that doesn't allow outbound on 22. For the web to work it would need 443 so connecting out on 443 might work

[–] Manifish_Destiny@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Sure, just don't mistake port switching for actual security.

[–] somedaysoon@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I think you may be still missing the point because it was never implied that the port change is for security; the security is in disabling password authentication and only accepting key based authentication. The reason I put it on 443 is because it is a port that is usually allowed by firewalls and doesn't get as much attention. So if I am on a network that is blocking access for standard VPN or SSH ports then it might just be enough for me to bypass it. And it's traffic on a port that is going to see a lot of other encrypted traffic going across it, so it looks more natural then just popping some other random ports that could potentially raise an alarm.

[–] Manifish_Destiny@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I'm not missing any point. It should be clear to people who don't understand security that running a protocol on a different port doesn't mean shit for safety. "Because it doesn't get as much attention" wouldn't mean anything to any enterprise firewall the moment it's not an http header.

[–] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Absolutely. Though putting it on 443, which is regularly port scanned as well, is the opposite of security through obscurity.