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What's the real danger of opening ports? (feddit.it)

submitted 3 days ago by dontblink@feddit.it to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

52 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Some services run really good behind a reverse proxy on 443, but some others can really become an hassle.. And sometimes just opening other ports would be easier than to try configuring everything to work through 443.

An example that comes to my mind is SSH, yeah you can use SSLH to forward requests coming from 443 to 22, but it's so much easier to just leave 22 open..

Now, for SSH, if you have certificate authentication or a strong password, I think you can feel quite safe, but what about other random ports? What risks I'm exposing my server to if I open some of them when needed for a service? Is the effort of trying to pass everything through 443/80 worth it?

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[-] sfjvvssss@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

I tested WAFs in the past, also ones from the big players and while they might block some cheesy stuff on the application layer, as long as they are not heavily tailored towards your application, they stop bein effective against most manual stuff.
Everything lower than application layer ist not a WAF btw, so I am not sure if you mean WAF or some Firewallish stuff.

Just stick to best practices and expose only what you really need to expose. When putting third parties in front of your stuff this als has data protection implications. If using it makes you feel better okay but it should not feel you more secure if you expose vulnerable stuff.

this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2025

108 points (100.0% liked)

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