Inspired by this comment to try to learn what I’m missing.
- Cloudflare proxy
- Reverse Proxy
- Fail2ban
- Docker containers on their own networks
If I need remote access, I just log into NPM and I have certain URL’s created for Plex, or Sonarr, Radarr etc. No issues so far.
They aren’t on the internet mainly.
My router (opnsense) has a wireguard server which is how I access things when out of the house.
I do have a minecraft server for my friends and I, but that VM is on its own network isolated from everything else.
Fail2ban config can get fairly involved in my experience. I’m probably not doing it the right way, as I wrote a bunch of web server ban rules — anyone trying to access wpadmin gets banned, for instance (I don’t use WordPress, and if I did, it wouldn’t be accessible from my public facing reverse proxy).
I just skimmed my nginx logs and looked for anything funky and put that in a ban rule, basically.
Some I haven’t yet found in this thread:
- rootless podman
- container port mapping to localhost (e.g.
127.0.0.1:8080:8080) - systemd services with many of its sandboxing features (PrivateTmp, …)
I assume #2 is just to keep containers/stacks able to talk to each other without piercing the firewall for ports that aren’t to be exposed to the outside? It wouldn’t prevent anything if one of the containers on that host were compromised, afaik.
It’s mostly to allow the reverse proxy on localhost to connect to the container/service, while blocking all other hosts/IPs.
This is especially important when using docker as it messes with iptables and can circumvent firewall like e.g. ufw.
You’re right that it doesn’t increase security on case of a compromised container. It’s just about outside connections.
OK, yah, that’s what I was getting at.
Containers can talk to each other without any ports exposed at all, they just need to be added to the same docker network.
I was getting more at stacks on a host talking, ie: you have a postgres stack with PG and Pgadmin, but want to use it with other stacks or k8s swarm, without exposing the pg port outside the machine. You are controlling other containers from interacting except on the allowed ports, and keeping those port from being available off the host.
You can do that by joining the containers to the same docker network, you don’t need to expose ports even to localhost.
I put up a sign that says, “No hackers allowed plz”
How has that been going?
“All your containers are belong to us.”
One thing I do is instead of having an open SSH port, I have an OpenVPN server that I’ll connect to, then SSH to the host from within the network. Then, if someone hacks into the network, they still won’t have SSH access.
I do the same, but with Wireguard instead of OpenVPN. The performance is much better in my experience and it sucks less battery life.
Tailscale and being at my house is the only two ways in so I feel those are pretty good for me.
- Fail2ban
- UFW
- Reverse Proxy
- IPtraf (monitor)
- Lynis (Audit)
- OpenVas (Audit)
- Nessus (Audit)
- Non standard SSH port
- CrowdSec + Appsec
- No root logins
- SSH keys
- Tailscale
- RKHunter
in the context of the comment you referenced:
Definitely have the server on its own VLAN. It shouldn’t have any access to other devices that are not related to the services and I would also add some sort of security software.
If you have a public service that you expect to have multiple users on you definitely should have some level of monitoring whether it is just the application logs from the forum that you want to host or further have some sort of EDR on the server.
Things I would do if I was hosting a public forum:
- Reverse proxy
- fail2ban
- dedicated server that does not have any personal data or other services that are sensitive
- complete network isolation with VLAN
- send application logs to ELK
- clamAV
And if the user base grows I would also add:
- EDR such as velociraptor
- an external firewall / ips
- possibly move from docker to VM for further isolation (not likely)
use a cheap vlan switch to make an actual vlan DMZ with the services’ router
use non-root containers everywhere. segment services in different containers
Just tailscale really.
My services are only exposed to the tailscale network, so I don’t have to worry about otger devices on my LAN.
A good VPN with MFA is all you really need if you are the only user.
Default block for incoming traffic is always a good starting point.
I’m personally using crowdsec to good results, but still need to add some more to it as I keep seeing failed attacks that should be blocked much quicker.I expose some stuff through IPv6 only with my Synology NAS (I am CGNATED) and I have always wondered if I still need to use fail2ban in that environment…
My Synology has an auto block feature that from my understanding is essentially fail2ban, what I don’t know is if such a feature works for all my exposed services but Synology’s.
My new strategy is to block EVERY port except WireGuard. This doesn’t work for things you want to host publicly ofc, like a website, but for most self host stuff I don’t see anything better than that.
My new strategy is to block EVERY port
Wow! All 65535 +/-, in and out? That’s one way to skin a cat.
ez pz:
#!/usr/sbin/nft -f table inet filter { chain input { type filter hook input priority raw; policy accept; iif "lo" accept ct state established,related accept iif "enp1s0" udp dport 51820 accept iif "enp1s0" drop } chain forward { type filter hook forward priority raw; policy accept; iif "lo" accept ct state established,related accept iif "enp1s0" udp dport 51820 accept iif "enp1s0" drop } chain output { type filter hook output priority raw; policy accept; } }
I do this too. Took me a little effort to set things up, but now its so easy.
I don’t put it on the Internet.
I have automatic updates enabled and once in a while I scan with Nessus. Also I have backups. Stuff dying or me breaking it is a much greater risk than getting hacked.
I agree - I don’t expose anything to the internet other than the WireGuard endpoint.
I’m only hosting services that my immediate family need to access, so I just set up WireGuard on their devices, and only expose the services on the LAN.
I used to expose services to the internet, until one of my #saltstack clients was exploited through a very recent vulnerability I hadn’t yet patched (only a week or so since it was announced). I was fortunate that the exploit failed due to the server running FreeBSD, so the crontab entry to download the next mailicious payload failed because wget wasn’t available on the server.
That’s when I realised - minimise the attack surface - if you’re not hosting services for anyone in the world to access, don’t expose them to everyone in the world to exploit.
TBF if you want, you can have a bastion server which is solely whitelisted by IP to stream your content from your local server. It’s obviously a pivot point for hackers, but it’s the level of effort that 99% of hackers would ignore unless they really wanted to target you. And if you’re that high value of a target, you probably shouldn’t be opening any ports on your network, which brings us back to your original solution.
I, too, don’t expose things to the public because I cannot afford the more safe/obfuscated solutions. But I do think there are reasonable measures that can be taken to expose your content to a wider audience if you wanted.
I don’t expose anything to the internet other than the WireGuard endpoint.
This is the way
Is Nessus free for personal use?
For up to 16 endpoints or something like that, yes.
