The selfhosted guys are correct with that. Of course its not a magic pill, but it can help to minimize the attack surface immensely with little effort.
Edit: while open ports can easily be enumerated, a reverse proxy often requires knowledge of the right server name. In tls1.3 those are not transferred in clear. Depending on your thread scenario you might want to consider doh/dot etc.
Reverse proxies can require client certs, which lift the security benefit to something like a vpn. Even basic auth adds a high threshold to attackers and is simple even for random users to work with. All this is functionality many services don’t offer natively - as they assume a reverse proxy anyway I guess.
As if a proxy blindly passing traffic directly to a backend server “reduces attack surface” in any meaningful way. 🙄
Edit: Guy edits his post with a bunch of stuff and assumes I’ve read it later. I can’t eyeroll enough…
You’ve increased your “attack surface” by adding a second application to the stack. Proxies aren’t magic, they are also targets.
Sure - you can do those things on a proxy. How many people here are? And why are those things never suggested when people here say “use a reverse proxy”? Because they think the proxy is the security.
Sorry - which part of your comment added anything of value? “can help to minimize the attack surface”? 99% of the time a proxy just passes traffic through. Unless you’re talking about a WAF which is a) a different thing and b) NOT what any home gamers are talking about when they recommend nginx, traefik, etc. to newbs.
The selfhosted guys are correct with that. Of course its not a magic pill, but it can help to minimize the attack surface immensely with little effort.
Edit: while open ports can easily be enumerated, a reverse proxy often requires knowledge of the right server name. In tls1.3 those are not transferred in clear. Depending on your thread scenario you might want to consider doh/dot etc.
Reverse proxies can require client certs, which lift the security benefit to something like a vpn. Even basic auth adds a high threshold to attackers and is simple even for random users to work with. All this is functionality many services don’t offer natively - as they assume a reverse proxy anyway I guess.
See what I mean?
As if a proxy blindly passing traffic directly to a backend server “reduces attack surface” in any meaningful way. 🙄
Edit: Guy edits his post with a bunch of stuff and assumes I’ve read it later. I can’t eyeroll enough…
Did you just add ‘blindly passing traffic’ to your statement? Did you read my comment about can help?
Move on, joker.
Sorry - which part of your comment added anything of value? “can help to minimize the attack surface”? 99% of the time a proxy just passes traffic through. Unless you’re talking about a WAF which is a) a different thing and b) NOT what any home gamers are talking about when they recommend nginx, traefik, etc. to newbs.
Lol
Enjoy your “security”. 🙄