How do I use HTTPS on a private LAN without self-signed certs?

[theparadox@lemmy.world]

Thanks for being so detailed!

I use caddy for straightforward https, but every time I try to use it for a service that isn't just a reverse_proxy entry, I really struggle to find resources I understand... and most of the time the "solutions" I find are outdated and don't seem to work. The most recent example of this for me would be Baikal.

Do you have any recommendations for where I might get good examples and learn more about how do troubleshoot and improve my Caddyfile entries?

Thanks!

[conrad82@lemmy.world]

I do the same!

I have a provider that is not supported by caddy, but I can still use it via duckdns delegation!

https://github.com/caddy-dns/duckdns?tab=readme-ov-file#challenge-delegation

Challenge delegation

To obtain a certificate using ACME DNS challenges, you'd use this module as described above. But, if you have a different domain (say, my.example.com) CNAME'd to your Duck DNS domain, you have two options:

1. Not use this module: Use a module matching the DNS provider for my.example.com.
2. Delegate the challenge to Duck DNS.

[Guest]

+1 for the letsencrypt wildcard with DNS verification, been using this for years. with dehydrated (https://github.com/dehydrated-io/dehydrated) you can automate renewing the certs, pretty convenient.

One thing i didn't see mentioned yet - you can also easily create a wildcard for a subdomain of your domain, e.g. *.local.example.com.
Most DNS providers let you define something like _acme-challenge.local IN TXT ... so you don't even need to define an extra zone for local.example.com.
Probably makes no big difference, but i like it ^^

[iantwenty@lemmy.world]

I'll mention this as no one has yet but you can be your own CA. Tools like mkcert make it easy

https://github.com/FiloSottile/mkcert

This is potentially more hassle (than using public DNS) as you have to get your CA certs onto every device. However it may be suitable depending on the situation.

[4am@lemm.ee]

If you are really looking for hassle-free this is it. LetsEncrypt root certificates are already trusted by most devices so when your friends come over and wanna control the media library or whatever you don’t need to install your locally hosted CA’s self-signed certificates on their phone.

Also certbot and a cron or systemd timer is all you need; people have rolled all these fancy solutions but I say keep it simple.

[jakenveina@lemm.ee]

The most straightforward thing to do, on a private LAN, is to make all your own certs, from a custom root cert, and then manually install that cert as "trusted" on each machine. If none of the machines on this network need to accessed from outside the LAN, then you're golden.

[mouse@midwest.social]

Unfortunately that's one area I am bad with, I tend to use reverse_proxy for most such as Baikal running with the ckulka/baikal Docker image (which runs Nginx or Apache), otherwise I only static sites.

I'd start by looking at Baikal's config for Apache and Nginx, https://sabre.io/baikal/install/ and comparing to the directives for Caddy, https://caddyserver.com/docs/caddyfile/directives and

Since it uses PHP, it will need that, https://caddyserver.com/docs/caddyfile/patterns#php

Upon my searches I came across this, it talks about running Baikal with Caddy specifically. https://github.com/caddyserver/caddy/issues/497

I hope that this provided some helpful directions.

[mangopenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone]

LetsEncrypt.

[offspec@lemmy.world]

With certbot there's probably a plugin to do it automatically, but if you just want to get something working right now you can run the following to manually run a dns challenge against your chosen domain names and get a cert for any specified. This will expire in ~3 months and you'll need to do it again, so I'd recommend throwing it in a cron job and finding the applicable certbot-dns-dnsprovider plugin that will make it run without your input. Once you have it working you can extract the certs from /etc/letsencrypt/live on most systems. Just be aware that the files there are going to be symlinks so you'll want to copy them before tarballing them to move other machines.

certbot --preferred-challenges dns --manual certonly -d *.mydomain.tld -d mydomain.tld -d *.local.mydomain.tld

[douglasg14b@lemmy.world]

I just:

1. Have my router setup with DNS for domains I want to direct locally, and point them to:
2. Have a reverse proxy that has auto- certbot behavior (caddy) connected to the cloud flair API
3. Navigation I do within my local network to these domains gives me real certificates.

[celestus@lemm.ee]

FYI, all the certs you generate are public record, so it might be a good idea to use a wildcard route in Caddy. That will make it only generates one cert, so no one can find your internal domain names. Especially if your Caddy instance is accessible from the Internet, and you’re expecting external connections not to be able to access domains with only internal DNS records

[monument@lemmy.sdf.org]

The advice I needed and have not been able to find. I could kiss you. Or at least give you a fond nod.

[lovablesidekick@lemmy.world]

When somebody says they "just" reverse the polarity of the navigational deflector array and channel power directly from the warp core.

[lodemike@lemmy.today]

Let's encrypt has a DNS verification option.

[false@lemmy.world]

You don't need a public DNS record for https to work. You can just use public external certs as long as it's for a domain you own. You don't need to setup the same domains externally.

If you want certs for a domain you own, then yeah you're looking at self signed.

[false@lemmy.world]

Running your own CA is essentially still a form of self signed. Though it will work better for some use cases (at the cost of more complexity)

[Guest]

I use Nginx and let's encrypt. Works super easily and auto updates.

[whyjiffie@sh.itjust.works]

browsers complain less, and some apps (like HomeAssistant Android) only accept that

[false@lemmy.world]

Trust the self signed cert. Works similarly to trusting a CA.

[whyjiffie@sh.itjust.works]

for every single subdomain, on desktop. firefox mobile does not even remember the decision. HA Android straight out refuses it, and thats not a local problem but a relatively known problem in the community