Hi there, I’ve been reading up on selfhosting for a couple of weeks now and I got my feet wet with a couple of things.

However, before really getting serious with it, I feel I need to get down the basics and make sure that my server will not end up a security hazard. My final goal would be to self-host my socials (Mastodon, Lemmy, Matrix) - just for myself.

What basic security do I need to have in place, considering these services? I’ll be running this on a VPS and so far I consider the following: disable password login (login with ssh key only) then set up nginx, fail2ban, and a basic firewall. I’d try to close all ports that are not required for the services I run. I’ll also change ssh port from 22 to something else and close port 22 as well.

Would this be a sufficient basis, or am I missing something crucial?

Bonus question: do you know of good tutorials to learn the above stuff? I’ve been following the guides on DigitalOcean (e.g. https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-protect-an-nginx-server-with-fail2ban-on-ubuntu-20-04) and they seem decent enough - but I think I’ll need to get into more depth than that :)

  • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.world
    1·
    1 year ago

    Your plan is solid. The important thing is that you configure those things correctly, but you’re following guides so that should be ok. It’s on a VPS so there’s no threat to your home network, and none of those services pose a significant risk to you even if they were compromised so there’s no reason to go overboard.

    If I had any further advice to give it’d be:

    • Change any default usernames and passwords that any of your apps/databases use.

    • Use randomly generated passwords for all service accounts. So that if you do find yourself compromised, they don’t then know a password that you’ve reused somewhere else (like your email account).

    • Run those services using something like Docker with no access to each other.

    • Utilize your VPS provider’s cloud firewall if they have one. If you’re paying for a cheap VM, it shouldn’t need to deal with all the general firewalling from the internet. VPS providers often have free cloud firewalls you can offload that work to.