Comment on HTTPS on homelab (just locally)

• hperrin@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Because you have to manage it on your network and all your own machines, and it doesn’t provide any value if your server is hacked. It actually makes you less safe if your server is hacked, because then you can consider every machine that has that CA as compromised. There’s no reason to use HTTPS if you’re running your own CA. Just use HTTP or use a socks proxy through ssh.

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  • irotsoma@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I agree that it’s the wrong way, but not because of any of this other than the first half of the first sentence.

    It’s the hard/wrong way because it means you are having to be responsible for securing the root cert private keys and because most people will do it wrong and set up a root cert with the ability to sign not just tls certs, and that’s where the problems can occur if the keys are compromised and you’ve set up all of your machines to trust it.

    But it’s also not true that you shouldn’t use HTTPS or that you should trust your own network, not because of the router, but because of the devices. People don’t control their devices anymore. Many home automation devices, nanny cams, security devices, water leak detectors, etc., contain firmware that is poorly configured and can easily expose your network traffic if it’s not encrypted. Not to mention a lot of apps these days on smartphones are Trojans for spyware, Temu, WeChat, etc.

    And as for cost, you can get a domain name for a few dollars per year or as mentioned, a subdomain from something like a DDNS service, so it definitely can be totally free to do it the right way.

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