this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
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110
What steps do you take to secure your server and your selfhosted services? (lemmy.selfhostcat.com)
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
50 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Inspired by this comment to try to learn what I'm missing.

  • Cloudflare proxy
  • Reverse Proxy
  • Fail2ban
  • Docker containers on their own networks

Another concern I have is does it need to be on a separate machine on a vlan from the rest of the network or is that too much?

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Disable password authentication on SSH

Enable firewall and block all ports you're not using(most firewalls do this by default)

Switch to a LTS kernel(not security related, but it keeps things going smooth... Technically it is safer since it gets updated less often so it is a bit more battle tested? Never investigated whenever a LTS kernel is safer than a standard one)

Use Caddy to proxy to services instead of directly exposing them out

HTTPS for web stuff(Caddy does it automatically)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 20 hours ago

Caddy or any other (reputable) reverse proxy. I think Nginx Proxy Manager would be best for beginner thanks to GUI.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This and fail2ban

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Anything else?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago (2 children)

There are ip lists that let you iptables drop all traffic from China and Russia.

Strongly recommend.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

My UDM has this capability. I've blocked quite a few countries that it logged as trying to get into my network. Great little internet cylinder.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I was auto banning all countries but my own but now I’m hosting one resource that has an audience including Chinese…

Good advice outside of this use case! :)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

Yeah, there were other countries to ban, but those 2 cut my attacks down 90%.

Also consider a honeypot that triggers when anyone tries to ssh it at all.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago

Dropping instead of blocking might technically be better because it wastes a bit more bot time and they see it as "it doesn't exist" rather than an obsticle to try exploits on. Not sure if that is true though.

For me:

  • ssh server only with keys

  • absolutely no ssh forwarding, only available to local network via firewall rules

  • docker socket proxy for everything that needs socket access

  • drop non-used ports, limit IPs for local-only services (e.g. paperless)

  • crowdsec on traefik for the rest (sadly it blocks my VPN IPs also)

  • Authelia over everything that doesn't break the native apps (jellyfin and home assistant are the two that it breaks so far, and HA was very intermittent so I made a separate authelia rule and mobile DNS entry for slightly reduced rules)

  • proper umask rules on all docker directories (or as much as possible)

  • main drive FDE with a separate boot drive with FDE keyfile on a dongle that is removed except for updates and booting to make snatch-and-grabs useless and compromising bootloader impractical

  • full disk encryption with passworded data drives, so even if a smash and grab happens when I leave the dongle in, the sensitive data is still encrypted and the keys aren't in memory (makes a startup script with a password needed, so no automated startups for me)

For more info, I followed a lot of stuff on: https://github.com/imthenachoman/How-To-Secure-A-Linux-Server

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This, but I prefer nginx.

And no real need for tailscale or cloudflare. If you do not like to depend on a third party service, either port forward and ddns or an external vps+wire guard if you have gcnat

[–] [email protected] 1 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

This is a valid solution but honestly how is using VPS not depending on third party?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 18 hours ago

It is, but you are free to switch at any time provider, there is no technological lock in like with cloudflare or tailscale (i know there is a free self hostable version, not talking about that).

So just rent a new one and switch your wireguard there.