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16 hours agoA reverse proxy is the traditional safe route. Use a web server like Apache, nginx or caddy, and setup to reverse proxy all your services through port 443, and use let’s encrypt and certbot to generate and manage TLS certificates.
I host around 15 public facing web services this way using nginx.
Just be aware, this is very public facing so server security and hardening is important. Things like strong passwords, disabled root, use ssh keys instead of passwords, setup fail2ban, setup crowdsec etc.
The more modern safer way is not to truly expose to full public and use things like tailscale or cloudflare tunnels. But this relies on 3rd party servers and I’m not a fan of that, but it does bring benefits.
im on a basic uk isp, with no fancy router, just the isp provided one. i have a fully exposed web server, im even hosting a lemmy server. Thats my domain, radiantfig.fyi, totally public, has been for nearly 2 years now. From that you can get my servers IP address. My IP is dynamic, changes roughly every 6 weeks. I have a ddns script that updates my server IP address to my domain name provider automatically. I have certbot running updating my TLS certs with lets encrypt, and if a cert dies or fails or is compromised, my server will refuse to serve. Everything is behind an nginx reverse proxy through port 443. I also have an ssh port open on a random port. Have fail2ban setup fairly aggressively to prevent brute force attacks, and have crowdsec which also kind of does the same but in a slightly different way. the internet requires ip addresses. to protect your ip address you have to give somebody elses. that somebody is a 3rd party you have no control or say on the decisions they make. i must have over 20 individual services that are public facing. 3 fully federated, lemmy, forgejo and matrix. Im as secure as any other website. nothing is unhackable, no matter how far down the rabbit hole you go. its all just layers of difficulty.
The important thing is dont listen to random internet people about security. dont listen to me. dont listen to anybody who tells you they know best. do your own research, understand the options, the risks, the compromises. only then do you put anything up. but if you are going to anxious or worried about your server and data, no amount of security guarantees you safety, so be warned.