What is everyone doing? SELinux? AppArmor? Something else?
I currently leave my nextcloud exposed to the Internet. It runs in a VM behind an nginx reverse proxy on the VM itself, and then my OPNSense router runs nginx with WAF rules. I enforce 2fa and don’t allow sign-ups.
My goal is protecting against ransomware and zerodays (as much as possible). I don’t do random clicking on links in emails or anything like that, but I’m not sure how people get hit with ransomware. I keep nextcloud updated (subscribed to RSS update feed) frequently and the VM updates everyday and reboots when necessary. I’m running the latest php-fpm and that just comes from repos so it gets updated too. HTTPS on the lan with certificates maintained by my router, and LE certs for the Internet side.
Beside hiding this thing behind a VPN (which I’m not prepared to do currently), is there anything else I’m overlooking?
Yikes! I’d avoid leaving any services externally exposed unless they’re absolutely necessary…
Tailscale+Headscale are pretty easy to implement these days. Since it’s effectively zero trust, the tunnels become the encrypted channel so there’s an argument that HTTPS isn’t really required unless some endpoints won’t be accessing services over the Tailnet. SmallStep and Caddy can be used to automatically manage certs if it’s needed though.
You can even configure a PiHole (or derivative) to be your DNS server on the VPN, giving you ad blocking on the go.
Talescale is awesome but you gotta remember that Talescale itself is one of those services (Yikes). Like all applications it’s potentially susceptible to vulnerabilities and exploits so don’t fall into the trap of thinking that anything in your private network is safe because it’s only available through the VPN. “Defence in depth” is a thing and you have nothing to lose from treating your services as though they were public and having multiple layers of security.
The other thing to keep in mind is that HTTPS is not just about encryption/confidentiality but also about authenticity/integrity/non-repudiation. A cert tells you that you are actually connecting to the service that you think you are and it’s not being impersonated by a man in the middle/DNS hijack/ARP poison, etc.
If you’re going to the effort of hosting your own services anyway, might as well go to the effort of securing them too.