Would I be compromising on the security of my local network and all the devices on it?

I have a ton of local-only self hosted services, some may have personal data that I would not be compromised of affected.

Now of course, I can work on securing those local services from each other, but still, the idea of opening up a port to the public seems incredibly insecure to me. Is there a way to host services publicly from a local network without compromising on security?

I know I could host on a cloud provider or VPS, but for certain things I’d prefer to keep it local (especially for things that may violate VPS providers’ terms of service, like media apps)

  • @[email protected]
    2•2 years ago

    What’s the effective difference security-wise between just opening a port and using a tailscale funnel to proxy the traffic on that same port?

    • Atemu
      2•2 years ago

      I see two reasons:

      1. It’s a reverse proxy but at a lower layer (not exactly sure whether it’s L3 or L4). Nobody knows your actual IP address, only Tailscale and they’re not telling.
      2. It does not require any port to permanently be exposed to the internet from your network/firewall. No amount of scans of the IPv4 range can find that port because it’s simply not open.