this post was submitted on 27 May 2024
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

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)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

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