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Is it practically impossible for a newcomer selfhost without using centralised services, and get DDOSed or hacked?

I understand that people enter the world of self hosting for various reasons. I am trying to dip my toes in this ocean to try and get away from privacy-offending centralised services such as Google, Cloudflare, AWS, etc.

As I spend more time here, I realise that it is practically impossible; especially for a newcomer, to setup any any usable self hosted web service without relying on these corporate behemoths.

I wanted to have my own little static website and alongside that run Immich, but I find that without Cloudflare, Google, and AWS, I run the risk of getting DDOSed or hacked. Also, since the physical server will be hosted at my home (to avoid AWS), there is a serious risk of infecting all devices at home as well (currently reading about VLANS to avoid this).

Am I correct in thinking that avoiding these corporations is impossible (and make peace with this situation), or are there ways to circumvent these giants and still have a good experience self hosting and using web services, even as a newcomer (all without draining my pockets too much)?

Edit: I was working on a lot of misconceptions and still have a lot of learn. Thank you all for your answers.

kylian0087 ,

If you are afraid of being ddosed which is very unlikely. Cloudflare has free ddos protection. You can put some but not all things behind their proxy.

Also instead of making things publicly available look in to using a VPN. Wireguard with “wireguard easy” makes this very simple.

VLANs do not make you network magically more secure. But when setup correctly can increase security a load if something has already penetrated the network. But also just to streamline a network and allow or deny some parts of the network.

poVoq ,
@poVoq@slrpnk.net avatar

This is nonsense. A small static website is not going to be hacked or DDOSd. You can run it off a cheap ARM single board computer on your desk, no problem at all.

BearOfaTime ,

What?

I’ve popped up a web server and within a day had so many hits on the router (thousands per minute) that performance tanked.

Yea, no, any exposed service will get hammered. Frankly I’m surprised that machine I setup didn’t get hacked.

poVoq ,
@poVoq@slrpnk.net avatar

Don’t leave SSH on port 22 open as there are a lot of crawlers for that, otherwise I really can’t say I share your experience, and I have been self-hosting for years.

jjlinux ,

Am I missing something? Why would anyone leave SSH open outside the internal network?

All of my services have SSH disabled unless I need to do something, and then I only do it locally, and disable as soon as I’m done.

Note that I don’t have a VPS anywhere.

poVoq ,
@poVoq@slrpnk.net avatar

Some people want to be able to reach their server via SSH when they are not at home, but yes I agree in general that is not necessary when running a real home server.

jjlinux ,

Yeah, I guess I’ve never needed to do that. That may change as I’m thinking of moving all my services from UnRaid to ProxMox to leave UnRaid for storage only.

I guess that’ll bring me back here soon enough.

JustEnoughDucks ,
@JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl avatar

Then use Wireguard to get into your local network. Simple as. All security risks that don’t need to be accessed by the public (document servers, ssh, internal tools, etc…) can be accessed via VPN while the port forwarded servers are behind a reverse proxy, TLS, and an authentication layer like Authelia/authentik for things that only a small group needs to access.

Sorry, but there is 1 case in 10000 where a home user would have to have publicly exposed SSH and 9999 cases of 10000 where it is not needed at all and would only be done out of laziness or lack of knowledge of options.

MigratingtoLemmy ,

How do you reach into your server with SSH disabled without lugging a monitor and keyboard around?

jjlinux ,

My firewall, server, NAS and all my services have web GUIs. If I need SSH access all I have to do is enable it via web GUI, do what I need to, disable again.

If push comes to shove, I do have a portable monitor and a keyboard in storage if needed, but have not had the need to use them yet.

Oisteink ,

Lol

Count042 ,

I’ve been self-hosting a bunch of stuff for over a decade now, and have not had that issue.

Except for a matrix server with open registration for a community that others not in the community started to use.

Auli ,

Yes my biggest mistake was leaving a vps dns server wide open. It took months for it to get abused though.

MangoPenguin ,
@MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I can’t say I’ve seen anything like that on the webservers I’ve exposed to the internet. But it could vary based on the IP you have if it’s a target for something already I suppose.

Frankly I’m surprised that machine I setup didn’t get hacked.

How could it if all you had was a basic webserver running?

possiblylinux127 ,

What class of IP was it?

Omgboom ,

You left stuff exposed is the only explanation. I’ve had services running for years without a problem

octopus_ink ,

I have servers on Digital Ocean and Linode and also one in my basement, and have had no problem. I do have all services behind NPM (not to suggest it’s a panacea) and use HTTPS/SSH for everything. (not to suggest HTTPS/SSH are either) My use case could be different than yours - my immediate family are my only consumers - but have been running the same services in those locations for a few years now without issue.

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