How Do You Securely Expose Your Self-Hosted Services Eg Plexjellyfinnextcloud To The Internet

# Securing Self-Hosted Services: A Practical Guide for Your Homelab Infrastructure

Welcome to this comprehensive guide on securing your self-hosted services such as Plex, Jellyfin, Nextcloud, and others in your personal homelab infrastructure. This article will focus on implementing secure exposure strategies while maintaining optimal performance.

Prerequisites:

1. Operating System: Ubuntu Server 20.04 LTS or higher
2. Docker CE Version: 5.0.8 or later
3. Docker Compose Version: 1.29.2 or later

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Step-by-Step Solution

1. Install Docker and Docker Compose

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com/ | sh
sudo usermod -aG docker ${USER}
systemctl enable --now docker
wget https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/1.29.2/docker-compose-Linux-x86_64 -o /usr/local/bin/docker-compose
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

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2. Create a Docker Compose File (e.g., docker-compose.yml)

In this example, we will create a basic Nextcloud configuration. Replace nextcloud, username, and password with your desired service name and credentials. Adjust the configurations according to your specific self-hosted services.

version: '3'
services:
  nextcloud:
    image: nextcloud
    container_name: nextcloud
    restart: always
    environment:
      MYSQL_DATABASE: nextcloud
      MYSQL_USER: ${MYSQL_USER}
      MYSQL_PASSWORD: ${MYSQL_PASSWORD}
      MYSQL_HOST: db
    ports:
      - 80:80
      - 443:443
    networks:
      - home-network

  php:
    image: php:7.4-fpm
    container_name: nextcloud_php
    restart: always
    volumes:
      - ./data:/var/www/html
    environment:
      WWW_DATA: /var/www/html
    networks:
      - home-network

  db:
    image: mysql:8.0
    container_name: nextcloud_db
    restart: always
    environment:
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: ${MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD}
      MYSQL_DATABASE: nextcloud
    volumes:
      - dbdata:/var/lib/mysql
    networks:
      - home-network

volumes:
  dbdata:

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3. Configure Network Settings

Update your router’s settings to allow traffic only from the IP address of your server on ports 80 and 443.

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4. Set Environment Variables

export MYSQL_USER=yourusername
export MYSQL_PASSWORD=yourpassword
export MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=root_password
docker-compose up -d --build

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5. Troubleshooting and Optimization

In case of any issues, check the logs using docker-compose logs. To optimize performance, consider enabling caching solutions like Redis or Memcached.

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Conclusion

By following these steps, you can securely expose your self-hosted services on the internet while maintaining optimal performance. Remember to keep your systems updated, monitor for potential vulnerabilities, and adhere to best practices in security and DevOps. Happy homelabbing!