What’s your go too (secure) method for casting over the internet with a Jellyfin server.
I’m wondering what to use and I’m pretty beginner at this
Wireguard.
Nginx in front of it, open ports for https (and ssh), nothing more. Let's encrypt certificate and you're good to go.
I would not publicly expose ssh. Your home IP will get scanned all the time and external machines will try to connect to your ssh port.
fail2ban with endlessh and abuseipdb as actions
Anything that's not specifically my username or git gets instantly blocked. Same with correct users but trying to use passwords or failing authentication in any way.
Youve minimized login risk, but not any 0 days or newly discovered vulnerabilites in your ssh server software. Its still best to not directly expose any ports you dont need to regularly interact with to the internet.
Also, Look into crowdsec as a fail2ban replacement. Its uses automatically crowdsourced info to pre block IPs. A bit more proactive compared to abuseipdb manual reporting.
I have the firewall of my VPS reject any IP range except the ones I’m on frequently, that is mobile, home and work. Sucks when you travel, but otherwise works alright.
Still exposes ports to some people on the same mobile or home internet service networks…
We have it open to the public, behind a load balancer URL filtering incomming connection, https proxied through cloudflare with a country filter in place
I access it through a reverse proxy (nginx). I guess the only weak point is if someone finds out the domain for it and starts spamming the login screen. But I've restricted access to the domain for most of the world anyway. Wireguard would probably be more secure but its not always possible if like on vacation and want to use it on the TV there..
This is the biggest weakness of Jellyfin. Native OIDC support would really be a no brainer at this point.
Its very easy to deploy fail2ban for Jellyfin: https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/post-install/networking/advanced/fail2ban/
I see everyone in this thread recommending a VPN or reverse proxy for accessing Jellyfin from outside the LAN. While I generally agree, I don't see a realistic risk in exposing Jellyfin directly to the internet. ~~It supports HTTPS and certificates nowadays, so there’s no need for outside SSL termination anymore.~~ (See Edit 2)
In my setup, which I've been running for some time, I've port-forwarded only Jellyfin's HTTPS port to eliminate the possibility of someone ending up on pure HTTP and sending credentials unencrypted. I've also changed the Jellyfin's default port to a non-standard one to avoid basic port-scanning bots spamming login attempts. I fully understand that this falls into the security through obscurity category, but no harm in it either.
Anyone wanna yell at me for being an idiot and doing everything wrong? I'm genuinely curious, as the sentiment online seems to be that at least a reverse proxy is almost mandatory for this kind of setup, and I'm not entirely sure why.
Edit: Thank you everyone for your responses. While I don't agree with everything, the new insight is appreciated.
Edit 2: I've been informed that infact the support for HTTPS will be removed in a future version. From v10.11 release notes:
Deprecation Notice: Jellyfin’s internal handling of TLS/SSL certificates and configuration in the web server will be removed in a future version. No changes to the current system have been made in 10.11, however future versions will remove the current system and instead will provide advanced instructions to configure the Kestrel webserver directly for this relatively niche usecase. We strongly advise anyone using the current TLS options to use a Reverse Proxy for TLS termination instead if at all possible, as this provides a number of benefits
Anyone wanna yell at me for being an idiot and doing everything wrong?
Not yell, but: Jellyfin is dropping HTTPS support with a future update so you might want to read up on reverse proxies before then.
Additionally, you might want to check if Shodan has your Jellyfin instance listed: https://www.shodan.io/
It feels like everything is a tradeoff and I think a setup like this reduces the complexity for people you share with.
If you added fail2ban along with alert email/notifications you could have a chance to react if you were ever targeted for a brute force attempt. Jellyfin docs talk about setting this up for anyone interested.
Blocking IP segments based on geography of countries you don't expect connections from adds the cost of a VPN for malicious actors in those areas.
Giving Jellyfin its own VLAN on your network could help limit exposure to your other services and devices if you experience a 0day or are otherwise compromised.
If it’s just so you personally can access it away from home, use tailscale. Less risky than running a publicly exposed server.
I use a wire guard tunnel into my Fritz box and from there I just log in because I'm in my local network.
Tailscale
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