So i’ve been hosting a modded Minecraft server for my friends and me on weekends. While it’s been a blast, I’ve noticed that our current setup using LAN has its limitations. My friends have been eagerly waiting for their next “fix” (i.e., when they can get back online), and I’ve been replying with a consistent answer: this Friday.
However, exploring cloud providers to spin up a replica of my beloved “Dog Town” Server was a costly endeavor, at least for a setup that’s close to my current configuration. As a result, I’ve turned my attention to self-hosting a Minecraft server on my local network and configuring port forwarding.
To harden my server, I’ve implemented the following measures:
- Added ufw (Uncomplicated Firewall) for enhanced security.
- Blocked all SSH connections except for the IP addresses of my main PC and LAN rig.
- Enabled SSH public key authentication only.
- Rebuilt all packages using a hardened GCC compiler.
- Disabled root access via
/etc/passwd. - Created two users: one with sudo privileges, allowing full access; the other with limited permissions to run a specific script (
./run.sh) for starting the server.
Additionally, I’ve set up a fcron job (a job scheduler) as disabled root, which synchronizes my Minecraft server with four folders at the following intervals: 1 hour, 30 minutes, 10 minutes, and 1 day. This ensures that any mods we use are properly synced in case of issues.
any suggestions of making the computer any more secure, aswell as backup solutions? thanks!
–added note, what hostnames do you guys call your servers? I used my favorite band albums and singles for hostnames.
You’re adding attack surface by keeping them separated only by vlan. VLAN hopping exploits exist, especially in older firmware, ESPECIALLY on EoL units.
Pfsense is a proper router/firewall built on one of the most hardened networking stacks on the planet.
If I might ask, what do you have handling your inter-vlan routing/firewall? Is it the same box you use to handle the firewall/routing between your WAN and LAN?
currently my setup is a dsl modem that goes, to my router/WAP which is a eero, that i plan to eventually replace with a Banna pi R4 which will run openwrt. but as of now the eero goes to my 48 port in my server room, and i have all my computer jacked into that. so to answer your question, my firewall is handled by my router and individual local rules by my machines. im kinda new to self hosting and port forwarding and pfsense looks pretty useful. i know pfsense is based on freebsd so is that a big plus vs openwrt?
please let me know, what some potential solutions could be.