I run a load of containers on a NAS, and reverse proxy them through synology’s inbuilt reverse proxy settings.
Essentially, I’d like to harden my security, and not really sure how best to do it.
Seeing people recommend nginx proxy manager, I’ve tried to set this up but never managed to get the certificates to work from letsencrypt (“internal server error” when trying to get one). When I finally got it working a while ago (I think I imported a cert), any proxy I tried to setup just sent me to the Synology login page.
I’ve tried to setup the VPN that comes with Synology (DSM 7+), but I must have set it up using the local IP address. It only works when I’m on my LAN, and not from an external network. Which is kind of the point, lol. I would like to use VPN to access the home network when out and about.
I’ve set random, long, unique passwords for everything I want to access, but I am guessing this is not the most secure, after seeing so many people use and recommend vpns.
I have tailscale, which is great for ssh-ing onto my Nas from the outside world. But to access my services, is a VPN the best way to do it? And can it be done entirely myself, or does it require paying for a service?
I’ve looked at authentic - pretty confusing at the outset, and Isee few evenings of reading guides ahead of me before I get that working. Is that worth setting up?
Does anyone have any advice/guides/resources that might help?
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I have tailscale, which is great for ssh-ing onto my Nas from the outside world. But to access my services, is a VPN the best way to do it?
The main point about Tailscale that I see people on here often get wrong is that they compare it to a “classic” hub-and-spoke VPN, when in fact it is an end-to-end zero trust encrypted mesh network. End-to-end does not mean machine-to-machine, it means user to service. So in your case, you should place one tailscale node in each pod (collection of containers that make up one service) as a sidekick. That way, a user need to authenticate in order to even open a network connection for a specific service, which is a very secure solution.
You don’t need to create a separate Tailscale node for each service. One Tailscale container, with its docker network interfaced with any container that needs it. Not sure what you’d gain by having multiple nodes in a scenario like this with a single user.
If you are just looking for a way to SSH into your machines from outside your network, you can setup a more recent VPN or Wireguard yourself. If you have a Raspberry Pi lying around, using PIVPN makes things super easy. You can have both OpenVPN as well as Wireguard running if you want, using the same script. If that is the only thing you like to do, then there is no need to reverse proxy your servers and expose them. Just having a VPN or Wireguard connection should be enough to access your servers when outside of your network. It is recommended to have a fixed IP btw, to find your VPN/Wireguard server easily.
Also, you can leave all your servers locally (and not exposing them) when you can reliably setup a VPN/Wireguard connection. That is the most secure I guess.
Yeah, I definitely like the idea of leaving all services running locally, and connect to my VPN when needing to tinker/access.
I do have a couple of raspberry pi’s, but I prefer to run stuff on the Nas, I only use the pi’s as clients to stream from.
I’m gonna go lookup the difference between openvpn and wireguard :) And I have a dynamic DNS setup, that’s basically the same as a fixed IP, right?
Thanks!
I setup openvpn on my network originally + duckdns on a dynamic IP in 2021/2022. It’s an “older” protocol but I felt it was easier to setup since it’s been around longer and the tools just make it easy.
Wireguard has speed advantages but being newer, takes more work to see those speed advantages. There’s a docker container called wg-easy that I’ve heard mixed things about (speed in a docker container vs easy to setup).
I used tail scale when I rebuilt my VPN server because I was originally using Oracle Linux (wanted to learn it more but went back to Ubuntu).
If you can get certificates working, wireguard shouldn’t be too difficult. I prefer VPN over exposing multiple ports/protocols for a family or small userbase. If you’re sharing libraries or other services with extended family, I’d probably expose those to the Internet and work on hardening/having that server in a demilitarized zone + certificate based authentication and MFA on any public admin accounts.
Fyi, you don’t need a raspberry pi to use PiVPN, it actually works on all Ubuntu based distros and even Alpine Linux, you can just install it in a VM on your NAS.
Ah. VMs. I (stupidly?) set my storage array to use ext4, and apparently it needs to be a btrfs to be able to use VMs. I cba to rebuild it at the moment… so I just use docker for everything
Ext4? What do you run on your NAS?
This comes into the design and requirements for your services.
If they need to be public ally available to more than just you, you’ll want a reverse proxy and appropriate firewall rules. You’ll also need to make sure things stay updated and security hardening is done on the servers and the proxy.
If you just need yourself to access things and they don’t need full access from public internet, you want a VPN. Tailscale is pretty easy. Wireguard is a bit of work to set up, but can make for a good always on VPN for your devices to connect back into your home network to access what you want.
There are certain things like SSH that you really don’t want publically accessible over the internet. Even with fail2ban and all the security hardening, it’s just a headache and pointless traffic you’ll deal with as people try to get in anyway.
I always highly recommend Twingate.
Tailscale allows you to access your lan. You should be able to do anything you can do on lan…? Right? Maybe it’s set up wrong somehow?
Seeing people recommend nginx proxy manager, I’ve tried to set this up but never managed to get the certificates to work from letsencrypt (“internal server error” when trying to get one). When I finally got it working a while ago (I think I imported a cert), any proxy I tried to setup just sent me to the Synology login page.
I think WebStation is causing this. I just investigated my Synology NAS and discovered that the default web portal is redirecting ports 80 and 443 to the synology login portal (which lives in ports 5000 and 5001 depending on whether you use SSL or not.)
From your text I understand you are not a really tech savvy person and yiu are really struggling with all the service and configuration involved.
If you want a simple tip, stick to tailscale, it is a vpn and will protect all your services because you will not have access from internet. It is pretty safe and the configuration is trivial.
The obvious drawback is that you won’t have internet access without installing the vpn, which depending the use case can be a deal breaker.
Honestly, a proper configured nginx with certificates and strong password are reasonable secure when there is not any misconfiguration. But if you are in doubt stick to tailscale.
Good luck :)
I’m… a little offended by that! 🤣
Lmao I would be too! You’re self hosting services behind a reverse proxy and familiar enough with docker to set that up, but you’re clearly not a very tech savvy person…! Haha. There’s levels to everything, I guess. Weird gatekeep though, perhaps lost in translation
Oooops, that was not certainly the intention.
Clearly I need to work in my communication skills. My apologies if I really upset you
I don’t like Tailscale. Use a reverse proxy (nginx proxy manager makes this simple) and secure your services with fail2ban and/or crowdsec. This way you do not have to rely on Tailscale relay or their clients to connect to your services from anywhere.
