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] 21 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

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

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

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.