Safely exposing services to the Internet

2026-06-17 12:02 UTC

Hi all, I'm looking at exposing some self-hosted web-based services externally so that some relatives can access them and would appreciate some advice. Vikunja is the starting point (mostly to facilitate my spouse and I using it when away from home) but in future I want to set up Immich or similar to replace Google Photos, and that in particular will need to be shared with friends and family (especially so that immediate family can have camera uploads on automatically). I understand that ideally I'd use SSH, a VPN, or tailscale or similar (although I don't have experience with tailscale), but that's not going to be feasible. Most of the family will not be able to set up those connections themselves (which means I would need to) and several are far enough away that it is impractical for me to provide on-site support or do it myself. Even if I could get a VPN or similar deployed on all their devices, I suspect that they're going to struggle with needing to connect to it just to upload or view photos, then disconnect afterwards to resume using the Internet -- I really need this to "just work" for them. So this brings me back to safely exposing these services to the outside world. My network architecture complicates this a little, so for context: Modem/router has basic firewall and points to a Raspberry Pi for DHCP. I already have No-IP set up with a domain name so that I can SSH into my LAN when away from home. RPi runs Pi-hole + dnscrypt, acting as DHCP and DNS server for the network. I want to use nginx as a reverse proxy running on this RPi, as I have experience with it and it can add SSL using certbot. The router would be configured to use port forwarding to direct external traffic for ports 80 and 443 to the RPi. Vikunja is hosted on a separate Raspberry Pi (with other things like Shiori) I have not yet determined where Immich or similar is going to go. I have existing home server that I use for backups and important family stuff, but I really don't want this to be vulnerable to the outside world. If I were to install Immich here, I'd need it to be well-isolated from the rest of the system. The other option is to get a NUC or similar, which is what I am leaning towards as the less stressful option. So my main questions are: Beyond fail2ban and my router's firewall, what else can I do to protect my network once I open ports 80 and 443? How do I handle fail2ban configuration when the services are on different devices to the nginx proxy? I understand the best place to put fail2ban would be on the Pi running nginx (since it's the access point to the outside world), but that it also needs to read the logs from Vikunja, etc. to be effective. Where would you put Immich in my network architecture? Any other tips/recommendations for making this easy to use for my less tech-inclined friends and family would be much appreciated as well. Thanks.

Replies (6)

@chrash0@lemmy.world 2026-06-17 14:31

i have a VPS offsite to act as a gateway. it’s just a small piece of a machine somewhere in my region that routes requests to my home network via Tailscale. this has a few benefits: i don’t have to worry about my ISP changing my IP. my VPS has more stable IPs. i don’t have to expose ports directly to the internet. Tailscale authenticates the connection. plus i have Caddy routing the whole system. i use subdomains like foundry.chrash.net, jellyfin.chrash.net, etc. another benefit of Tailscale to point out is that you don’t need local IPs to be static either; Tailscale will allow you to access your machines by hostname or another static IP. this helps to decouple your local topology from your service network.

Open ##3398766
@early_riser@lemmy.world 2026-06-17 15:23

Since you’re just sharing things within a small group, I think it’s safe to give out your IP or a domain pointing to it. However, you need to put your services behind a DMZ. Make a separate VLAN on your network and put the Pis behind it. Make sure traffic from your private LAN can enter the DMZ but nothing from the DMZ can go to your LAN unless it’s return traffic for a session started in your LAN. If a machine in your DMZ is compromised, it shouldn’t affect your LAN.

Open ##3399618
@wltr@discuss.tchncs.de 2026-06-17 14:40

I’d suggest you to investigate either Tailscale or similar solutions. I’m using Tailscale, and it’s really easy to set up. It can automatically connect to the VPN when you access their resource, and the internet works as well. So technically, they can be connected all the time. That’s much safer than the alternative of just opening a port, and dealing with things like CGNAT. The alternatives to Tailscale I know about are Headscale (which you need self-hosting), Netbird, WireGuard. At least, but there are more. And search for tunnels as well. You could utilise Cloudflare Tunnel, but I wouldn’t go that way. I’d suggest testing waters with Tailscale as it’s the easiest, and tweak from there. They have a YouTube channel which helps at starting, I found it just recently. (I use them for a year or two now.)

Open ##3399756
@dil@piefed.zip 2026-06-18 18:31

Make a new gmail or something everyone can access and then have them login through tailscale, its automati after doing it once, then they copy your devices ip, go http:ip:port eveytime and if your app is exposed over local networks it should work. Just safer than actually exposing over the web. Downside is shared gmail account ofc.

Open ##3431651
@phoenixz@lemmy.ca 2026-06-18 15:24

Make sure everything is behind a VPN, like tailscale. Then you setup your router to only forward the tailscale ports, and that will be the only possible attack vector As long as tailscale is safe, you should be safe

Open ##3431667
@hirihit640@sh.itjust.works 2026-06-17 12:21

I recommend proxmox. One VM for sensitive private data and backups, one VM for stuff exposed to the internet

Open ##3484197