I’ve been researching different ways to expose Docker containers to the internet. I have three services I want to expose: Jellyfin, Omnivore (Read-it-later app), and Overseerr.

I’ve come across lots of suggestions, like using Nginx with Cloudflared, but some people mention that streaming media goes against Cloudflared tunnel TOS, and instead recommend Tailscale, or Traefik, or setting up a WireGuard VPN, or using Nginx with a WireGuard VPN.

The amount of conflicting advice has left me confused. So, what would be the best approach to securely expose these containers?

  • 𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍@midwest.socialEnglish
    1·
    4 hours ago

    @shimitar’s advice is what I’d go with.

    Ideally:

    1. Set up a Wireguard subnet. Test it thoroughly, including restarting the server a couple of times.
    2. Close all ports except your Wireguard ports in your server firewall. Do this manually first (not persistent) and test.
    3. Make the firewall changes permanent.

    Then, it kinda doesn’t matter what else you do on the server, although you can fuss around with locking things down more.

    Caveats:

    • you won’t be able to use LetsEncrypt with this
    • accessing your services from an Android phone will be futzy, because Android is too stupid to be able to use more than one VPN at a time. Unless you don’t use a VPN on your phone, in which case it won’t be an issue.
    • you’ll only be able to access your server from computers/systems in your Wireguard subnet, so make sure you include multiple devices in the config from which you can ssh

    Wireguard is super easy to build VPN networks with, and there are tools (e.g. dsnet) to make it even easier.