Jellyfin over the internet
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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
wrote last edited by [email protected]Jellyfin has a whole host of unresolved and unmitigated security vulnerabilities that make exposing it to the internet. A pretty poor choice.
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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.
Fail2ban isn't going to help you when jellyfin has vulnerable endpoints that need no authentication at all.
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If your reverse proxy only acknowledges jellyfin exists if the hostname is correct, you won't get discovered by an IP scanner.
Mine's on jellyfin.[domain].com and you get a completely different page if you hit it by IP address.
If it does get found, there's also a fail2ban to rate-limit someone brute-forcing a login.
I've always exposed my home IP to the internet. Haven't had an issue in the last 15 years. I'm running about 10 public-facing services including NTP and SMTP.
Please to see: https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/5415
Someone doesn't necessarily have to brute Force a login if they know about pre-existing vulnerabilities, that may be exploited in unexpected ways
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Wireguard.
wrote last edited by [email protected]and a local reverse proxy that can route through wireguard when you want to watch on a smart tv.
its not as complicated as it sounds, it's just a wireguard client, and a reverse proxy like on the main server.
it can even be your laptop, without hdmi cables
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Why would you need to expose SSH for everyday use? Or does Jellyfin require it to function?
Maybe leave that behind some VPN access.
I agree, but SSH is more secure than Jellyfin. it shouldn't be exposed like that, others in the comments already pointed out why
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lemm.ee :'''(
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Change the port it runs on to be stupid high and they won't bother.
Yeah hey what's your IP address real quick? No reason
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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
I'm just using caddy and a cheap $2 a year .top domain with a $4 a month VPS. Works for my users, I only have 3 users on my server.
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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
OpenVPN into my router
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Yeah hey what's your IP address real quick? No reason
In 3 years I haven't had a single attempted connection that wasn't me. Once you get to the ephemeral ports nobody is scanning that high.
I'm not saying run no security or something. Just nobody wants to scan all 65k ports. They're looking for easy targets.
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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
I just install tailscale at family houses. The limit is 100 machines.
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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
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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.
wrote last edited by [email protected]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.
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Fail2ban isn't going to help you when jellyfin has vulnerable endpoints that need no authentication at all.
Your comment got me looking through the jellyfin github issues. Are the bugs listed for unauthenticated endpoints what you're referencing? It looks like the 7 open mention being able to view information about the jellyfin instance or view the media itself. But this is just what was commented as possible, there could be more possibilities especially if combined with other vulnerabilities.
Now realizing there are parts of Jellyfin that are known to be accessible without authentication, I'm thinking Fail2ban is going to do less but unless there are ways to do injection with the known bugs/a new 0day they will still need to brute force a password to be able to make changes. I'm curious if there is anything I'm overlooking.
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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
You remember when LastPass had a massive leak and it out of their production source code which demonstrated that their encryption security was horrible? That was a Plex vulnerability. All it takes is a zero day and one of the packages they're using and you're a prime target for ransomware.
You can see from the number of unauthenticated processes in their security backlog that security really has been an afterthought.
Unless you're running in a non-privileged container with read only media, I definitely would not put that out on the open network.
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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
Synology worked for me. They have built in reverse proxy. As well as good documentation to install it on their machine. Just gotta configure your wifi router to port forward your device and bam you're ready to rock and roll
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Synology worked for me. They have built in reverse proxy. As well as good documentation to install it on their machine. Just gotta configure your wifi router to port forward your device and bam you're ready to rock and roll
Didn’t they patch their things now that your stuck in their bubble/environment now or something like that ?
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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
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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
wrote last edited by [email protected]Jellyfin isn't secure and is full of holes.
That said, here's how to host it anyway.
- Wireguard tunnel, be it tailscale, netbird, innernet, whatever
- A vps with a proxy on it, I like Caddy
- A PC at home with Jellyfin running on a port, sure, 8096
If you aren't using Tailscale, make your VPS your main hub for whatever you choose, pihole, wg-easy, etc. Connect the proxy to Jellyfin through your chosen tunnel, with ssl, Caddy makes it easy.
Since Jellyfin isn't exactly secure, secure it. Give it its own user and make sure your media isn't writable by the user. Inconvenient for deleting movies in the app, but better for security.
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Use fail2ban to stop intruders after failed login attempts, you can force fail2ban to listen in on jellyfin's host for failures and block ips automatically.
More!
Use Anubis and yes, I can confirm Anubis doesn't intrude Jellyfin connectivity and just works, connect it to fail2ban and you can cook your own ddos protection.
MORE!
SELinux. Lock Jellyfin down. Lock the system down. It's work but it's worth it.
I SAID MORE!
There's a GeoIP blocking plugin for Caddy that you can use to limit Jellyfin's access to your city, state, hemisphere, etc. You can also look into whitelisting in Caddy if everyone's IP is static. If not, ddns-server and a script to update Caddy every round? It can get deep.
Again, don't do any of this and just use Jellyfin over wireguard like everyone else does(they don't).
