I’m not really sure how to ask this because my knowledge is pretty limited. Any basic answers or links will be much appreciated.
I have a number of self hosted services on my home PC. I’d like to be able to access them safely over the public Internet. There are a couple of reasons for this. There is an online calendar scheduling service I would like to have access to my caldav/carddav setup. I’d also like to set up Nextcloud, which seems more or less require https. I am using http connections secured through Tailscale at the moment.
I own a domain through an old Squarespace account that I would like to use. I currently have zero knowledge or understanding of how to route my self hosted services through the domain that I own, or even if that’s the correct way to set it up. Is there a guide that explains step by step for beginners how to access my home setup through the domain that I own? Should I move the domain from Squarespace to another provider that is better equipped for this type of setup?
Is this a bad idea for someone without much experience in networking in general?
Exposing services over the public internet is not without risks, you might consider getting more knowledge before doing it
Every service you expose should require authentication and may need to handle bots
To gain knowledge about reverse proxies and dns without much risk exposure, you could start by setting up your custom domain name on your private tailscale network, here is an example of how you could do it
Now if you really want to expose services on the internet because you have devices that you don’t want to connect to your tailscale network, you could use tailscale funnel, but only with your ts.net custom subdomain that they provide you, not with your own domain
There is an open issue to support custom domains https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale/issues/11563
I’m waiting for this to get resolved, in the meantime I have a vps with a reverse proxy connected to a tailscale container, that serves my services from my home network, so that I dont need a static IP or open a port in my home router
- Consider getting a VPS to play around with to learn how this stuff works before you expose your data to the internet.
- Learn about how DNS works. You will create an A record (and possibly also an AAAA recordy) for your domain pointing to your home IP (or VPS).
- If SquareSpace does not let you set records (and will only allow you to use Squarespace-hosted services) you will need to migrate your domain to another provider. I like gandi.net.
- Learn how your router does port forwarding. You will forward port(s) for the calendar service from your router to your home PC. (Or learn how to do firewalls on your VPS.)
- Before you actually connect to it with credentials over the internet, set up SSL/TLS certificates with LetsEncrypt.
Consider getting a VPS to play around with to learn how this stuff works before you expose your data to the internet.
Highly recommend this, especially when exposing your local server to the internet when you may still be a bit green with the security aspects of self hosting. Small VPS for under $30 a year are dime a dozen really, and well worth the price for the education you can get from them.
Even now, I have a small VPS that I regularly test things on before I put it on the production server.
The educational route I took was Hurricane Electric’s free IPv6 online course. It taught me a bunch of networking principles. When you finish the course (and get “sage” status), you get free lifetime DNS access. This includes dynamic DNS that automatically updates when your IP address changes.
Because of this, I can self-host on a basic residential plan without paying for any additional services.
The easiest way to do this is through Tailscale. It is a super easy to set up Wireguard VPN Mesh that allows you to access your self-hosted services without exposing them to the public internet.
Here is a great article to get you started: https://tailscale.com/kb/1017/install
They also have an awesome YouTube channel with great tutorials to help you get started. https://www.youtube.com/@Tailscale
Note: while this way not directly answer OP’s specific question, I believe they will get the outcome they are looking for: external access to self-hosted services
Tailscale the end.
Three steps:
- point the FQDN to your network (Dynamic DNS).
- set up reverse proxy (Nginx, etc.)
- set up certificates (Certbot, etc.)
Optional step 4: harden with fail2ban and a firewall.
I would say this would be the proper way to do it (at least as a sysadmin), but since it’s OP’s first time I would simplify it to:
- Install CloudFlare ZeroTrust daemon on your local server;
- Set up reverse proxy such as Nginx (optional, the alternative is to use a different subdomain for each service, which might be easier);
- Point the FQDN to CloudFlare.
Let CloudFlare handle the certificates, DDoS protection, etc… Link if you’d like to give this setup a try.
Cloudflare isn’t very self-host, unless you want/need to trust a third party I wouldn’t recommend this.
They provide decent defaults for all the not-so-straightforward configurations, and they provide a web UI to configure the rest. That’s the sole reason I would recommend it to get one’s feet wet without having to work too much.
If one is committed to do things “the right way” they could switch to Nginx and “proper” self-hosting later.
How would you go about using a different subdomain without something like a reverse proxy? Heck, in my head that’s almost the only reason I use a reverse proxy
Yeah, I’m afraid you have to use a reverse proxy to host multiple subdomains. The CloudFlare daemon is the reverse proxy.
Check out Nginx Proxy Manager https://nginxproxymanager.com/
Create some subdomains and use Nginx Proxy Manager to generate SSL certs and point to your self hosted applications.
It depends on your motivations and security requirements.
If you’re already hosting Home Assistant, there is an add-on for CloudFlared which will take care of most of everything for you, using CloudFlare secure tunnels.
It even does simple subdomain reverse proxy, to serve your other services.It requires that you use CloudFlare for your DNS entries, and it won’t secure your host for you (they do offer some free services to help a little), and you still end up depending on a cloud service provider so it’s not pure self hosting.
But it’s free, you’re still mostly in control, and it’s less likely to catastrophically mess up your netsec if you’re a beginner.If you want to expose it publically for others to use consider using Cloudflare for easy setup and avoiding exposing your home IP. If you want to use it for yourself you can access it with Tailscale and forward traffic to certain ports based on the subdomain using Nginx Proxy Manager.
On your DNS provider, make an A record with your IP address, AAAA record with your IPv6 address. If these addresses change often, either setup a dyndns (your DNS provider needs to support this) or pay for a Static IP from your ISP. Firewall the hell out of your network, have a default deny (drop) new inbound rule, and only open ports for your service. Use an nginx reverse proxy if possible to keep direct connections out of your service, and use containers (docker?) for your service(s). Don’t forget to setup certbot and fail2ban. You need certbot to auto update your certs, and you need fail2ban to keep the automated login hacker bots from getting in.
That’s the minimum. You can do more with ip region blocking and such, as well as more advanced firewalling and isolation. Also possible to use Tailscale and point the DNS A record to the Tailscale IP, which will eliminate exposing your public IP to the internet.
If I use Tailscale as described, how will a request connect to the tailnet? Is there anything you can link that explains how to do this?
When you put your server’s tailscale IP in the dns, anything that looks up that dns gets the tailscale IP. You only need to connect the devices you want to have connect to the server to the same tailscale network, and your system will handle the routing.
Okay, that makes sense. Would that help to set up NextCloud or other services that require https?
It doesn’t really help with connecting my calendar to an external scheduling app that is not based on my device.