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.

adr1an
link
fedilink
English
15M

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.

@gurapoku@lemmy.world
creator
link
fedilink
English
2
edit-2
5M

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)

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.

poVoq
link
fedilink
English
45M

Git works fine over https though, no need to increase the attack surface by enabling SSH access in Forgejo.

@gurapoku@lemmy.world
creator
link
fedilink
English
25M

That’s also a possibility, yes. Probably what I should do, taking the rest of the answers into account

Create a post

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don’t control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we’re here to support and learn from one another. Insults won’t be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it’s not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don’t duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

  • 1 user online
  • 129 users / day
  • 423 users / week
  • 1.16K users / month
  • 3.85K users / 6 months
  • 1 subscriber
  • 3.68K Posts
  • 74.2K Comments
  • Modlog