Hello all! Yesterday I started hosting forgejo, and in order to clone repos outside my home network through ssh://, I seem to need to open a port for it in my router. Is that safe to do? I can’t use a vpn because I am sharing this with a friend. Here’s a sample docker compose file:
version: "3"
networks:
forgejo:
external: false
services:
server:
image: codeberg.org/forgejo/forgejo:7
container_name: forgejo
environment:
- USER_UID=1000
- USER_GID=1000
- FORGEJO__database__DB_TYPE=postgres
- FORGEJO__database__HOST=db:5432
- FORGEJO__database__NAME=forgejo
- FORGEJO__database__USER=forgejo
- FORGEJO__database__PASSWD=forgejo
restart: always
networks:
- forgejo
volumes:
- ./forgejo:/data
- /etc/timezone:/etc/timezone:ro
- /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
ports:
- "3000:3000"
- "222:22" # <- port 222 is the one I'd open, in this case
depends_on:
- db
db:
image: postgres:14
restart: always
environment:
- POSTGRES_USER=forgejo
- POSTGRES_PASSWORD=forgejo
- POSTGRES_DB=forgejo
networks:
- forgejo
volumes:
- ./postgres:/var/lib/postgresql/data
And to clone I’d do
git clone ssh://git@<my router ip>:<the port I opened, in this case 222>/path/to/repo
Is that safe?
EDIT: Thank you for your answers. I have come to the conclusion that, regardless of whether it is safe, it doesn’t make sense to increase the attack surface when I can just use https and tokens, so that’s what I am going to do.
Yes, as safe as SSH can be. Why not use https with cloudfare tunnels? For SSH, depends on security config and ofuscation measures… Like disabling root login, use encryption keys instead of plain password, pick a “hidden” port number, and so on. There were many posts here and all over the web about this. I would add either crowdsec or fail2ban to the mix… That’s prettt much all that there is.
I am still very much a noob to self-hosting, but I am not the one managing this ssh port, forgero is. Is there not any difference between the two? I think you can only access the forgejo ssh if you have a matching private key for one of the user’s public keys…
(And although it surprised me too, I couldn’t find information about the safety of specifically this online)
Git works fine over https though, no need to increase the attack surface by enabling SSH access in Forgejo.
There’s a lot of wrong advice about this subject on this post. Forgejo, and any other Git forge server, have a completely different security model than regular SSH. All authenticated users run with the same PID and are restricted to accessing Git commands. It uses the secure shell protocol but it is not a shell. The threat model is different. Anybody can sign up for a GitHub or Codeberg account and they will be granted SSH access, but that access only allows them to push and pull Git data according to their account permissions.
Opening ports on your router is never safe ! There’re alot of bots trying to bruteforce opening ports on the web (specially ssh port 22)
With SSH I would disable the password authentication a only used key based authentication. Also disable root access. (Don’t know how it works with forgero though)
I would recommend something like wireguard, you still need to open a port on your router, but as long as they don’t have your private key, they can’t bruteforce it. (You can even share the wireguard tunnel with your friend :))
Also use a reverse proxy with your docker containers.
There are a lot of things you could do to secure everything, but If you relatively new to selfhosting, there’s a steep learning curve and a lot of time needed to properly secure everthing up. You could be safe by doing nothing for a few months but as soon as someone got into your system, you’re fucked !
But don’t discourage yourself, selfhosting is fun !
The reason why I am asking this question is because I think that the ssh port I am opening only has access to my repos (which means that even if I somehow get hacked the damage is minimal) and it doesn’t accept any keys aside from mine and my friend’s, which we set up through the web interface :).
I have wireguard setup and I’d also thought about sharing a tunnel with my friend, but it seemed much more hasslesome than simply opening the port, not to mention the fact that if anyone wanted to join too I’d have to do that again.
It is exactly because I am afraid of getting fucked that I am asking this and being careful. For now, my idea is to only open the port when someone is about to use it, since I am not absolutely sure that it won’t somehow accept a request from a person with less than noble intentions. (either that, either simply use tokens)
Reverse proxying was also my intention at first, but I just couldn’t get it to work with cloudflare for some reason!
Thanks for the insight!
Opening ports on your router is never safe !
This is both true and highly misleading. Paranoia isn’t a replacement for good security.
I would recommend something like wireguard, you still need to open a port on your router, but as long as they don’t have your private key, they can’t bruteforce it.
The same is true of ssh when using keys to authenticate.
You’re right, but only if you are an experienced IT guy in enteprise environnement. Most users (myself included) on Lemmy do not have the necessary skills/hardware to properly configure and protect their networking system, thats way I consider something like wireguard way more secure than opening an SSH port.
Sure SSH key based configuration is also doing a great job but there is way more error prone configuration with an SSH connection than a wireguard tunnel.
You’re right, but only if you are an experienced IT guy in enteprise environnement. Most users (myself included) on Lemmy do not have the necessary skills/hardware to properly configure and protect their networking system, thats way I consider something like wireguard way more secure than opening an SSH port.
But it doesn’t help to just tell newbs that “THAT’S INSECURE” without providing context. It 1) reinforces the idea that security “is a thing” rather than “something you do” and 2) doesn’t give them any further reference for learning.
It’s why some people in this community think that putting a nginx proxy in front of their webapp somehow increases their security posture. Because you don’t have “direct access” to the webapp. It’s ridiculous.
Sure SSH key based configuration is also doing a great job but there is way more error prone configuration with an SSH connection than a wireguard tunnel.
In this case it’s handled by forgejo.
If your forgejo host needs to connect to the outside world, you can open the port for incomming traffic only for related and established traffic. That way when somebody wants to connect to your port as a new connection it will fail. So when somebody has bad intentions, it will not work unless you’ve already connected to them in the first place. You need to permit outgoing traffic from forgejo if you block outgoing traffic.
I see, only allowing established traffic to connect sounds like something that could work. But I don’t know how I can do this, do you have some pointers :)?
Blocking outgoing traffic and having to whitelist forgejo seems a bit extreme though
Blocking outgoing traffic isn’t needed. But was mere a headsup if that is something you’ve alread setup. What router do you have? Usually when you open a port there is a dropdown menu or checkboxes for what kind of connection the port opening is allowed.
Just make sure to keep the machine updated.
