this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
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Hello,

Some time ago, I started self-hosting applications, but only on my local network. So far, it's working fine, but I can't access them as soon as I go outside (which is completely normal).

For the past few days I've been looking for a relatively secure way of accessing my applications from outside.

I don't need anyone but myself to have access to my applications, so from what I've understood, it's not necessarily useful to set up a reverse-proxy in that case and it would be simpler to set up a VPN.

From what I've seen, Wireguard seems to be a good option. At first glance, I'd have to install it on the machine containing my applications, port-forward the Wireguard listening port and configure my other devices to access this machine through Wireguard

However, I don't have enough hindsight to know whether this is a sufficient layer of security to at least prevent bots from accessing my data or compromising my machine.

I've also seen Wireguard-based solutions like Tailscale or Netbird that seem to make configuration easier, but I have a hard time knowing if it would really be useful in my case (and I don't really get what else they are doing despite simplifying the setup).

Do you have any opinions on this? Are there any obvious security holes in what I've said? Is setting up a VPN really the solution in my case?

Thanks in advance for your answers!

(page 2) 39 comments
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[–] JohnSmithon@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

1 pangolin 2 whatever is already on your router 3 wireguard

Pangolin also does RP with traefik so it's a win win

[–] phillipp@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 day ago

I’m in the same boat and currently run WireGuard to access my services. However the more I extend my stack of services, the more I have use-cases to expose certain services to friends and family. For that I’m currently looking into using Pangolin.

[–] damnthefilibuster@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (3 children)

You got two options which I’ve tried -

  1. A solution like tailscale or zerotier. Simple setup, easy to turn on and just go. Tailscale is newer and has a nicer interface and features like using an actual VPN like Mullvad as an “endpoint” (or whatever they call it). Their Mullvad connection also basically gives you a discount as they charge only $5 for the vpn instead of €5. The catch is that Mullvad charges you that price for 5 devices. So if a sixth device connects to the VPN through tailscale, you get charged $10 for that month.
  2. A cloudflare tunnel with zero trust on top. More work to setup. But makes it easy to access your apps without any vpn. They’re basically exposed to the internet at that point, but locked in behind cloudflare’s authentication. You can literally set it up for one or two email IDs. Yours and a family member’s. Much simpler for others to wrap their heads around. But some people dislike cloudflare for some reason or the other.
[–] nfreak@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The variant version of number 2, which is more work to set up of course, is Pangolin on a VPS. Basically serves the same purpose but skips Cloudflare entirely.

I'm in the process of setting up Pangolin and Headscale on a VPS to expose a small handful of services and to replace my wg-easy setup. Currently chaining wg-easy through a gluetun container, so with a single VPN connection I get LAN access and protect my outbound traffic, but I can't for the life of me get the same setup working on wg-easy v15, so I'm going to give tailscale/headscale a try with a gluetun exit node.

[–] damnthefilibuster@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

haven't looked at Pangolin, but thanks for the info! I might explore it in the future if my current setup gives me any issues.

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[–] studentofarkad@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

For the vps, will you go with a provider like digital ocean?

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[–] Tywele@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I use the built-in Wireguard feature of my Fritzbox to connect to my home network.

[–] waterproof@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

Good point, I did not check if my router has already some built-in system that could let me connect to my home network with trusted devices from outside

[–] Bort@hilariouschaos.com 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] mumblerfish@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

I would recommend this too. This was the easiest to setup. I only had an issue with docker compose which made the pihole not being accessible while on wireguard. Once I put the pihole and wg-easy on the same docker network it started working.

[–] UltraMagnus0001@lemmy.world -4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

My Asus router has a a few nice ones

[–] UltraMagnus0001@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago
  • pretty much any modern asus routers with a mesh setup and if you run merlin it has more security features.
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