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Serveo: Expose Local Servers to the Internet

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Re: Serveo: Expose Local Servers to the Internet

#31

Post by smittywerben »

jarcane wrote: post #22
rohan1024 wrote: post #8

NAT has crippled the Internet. We are permanently dependent on public facing servers to route packets from one device to the other. This service is absolutely not needed in a non-NAT world. And I strongly believe we have lost a lot by being completely dependent on client-server model of Internet. I've written more about it here https://www.ankshilp.in/post/the_broken_promise_of_internet/

I honestly think the fault here is not technical, it's ISPs. Between the RIAA/MPAA breathing down their necks about piracy, and the realization they could make a mint charging inflated "business rates" than letting you do what you wanted with your own damn internet connection, shit got locked up tight so fast no one even noticed. It's not NAT that's why my ISP is blocking half the protocols on the Internet. Why every…

> Why I'd need to us a fucking VPN tunnel just to get SSH to my home computer.

My most recent disappointment was trying to mount an Azure SMB 3.0 network drive over port 445. It would function just like a network drive at work or school right? No more poorly made userland daemons i.e. Dropbox. Or any additional software, VPN, proxy, or admin rights for that matter. Just click “add network drive” button in explorer and paste in the URI.

But nope port 445 is blocked by ISPs. So ironically the cheaper storage is only usuable by business internet plans. Which seems sorta atypical.

Re: Serveo: Expose Local Servers to the Internet

#32

Post by TrueDuality »

ultrarunner wrote: post #28
TrueDuality wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I think the adoption of TLS has more to do with free certificates from LetsEncrypt and CloudFlare than the Snowden leaks. As much as I'd like to think people were concerned about the privacy of their communications... I don't think most of the masses actually care about security or avoid conveniences based on threats to their privacy...

“The masses” don’t deploy http servers. They don’t need to implement tls. The fact is that something struck a nerve and motivated the people who handle this to implement TLS. Whether that’s tech-minded understanding or consumer-fomented demand channeled through CTOs, I don’t really care. Let’s Encrypt founders didn’t sit down one day with a master business plan of getting rich off free certs. I wouldn’t be the least…

LetsEncrypt was likely accelerated by the Snowden leaks, but the discussions around free community run CAs were around long before that precipitous event. For CloudFlare it was likely just an effective way to drive additional business to them while pursuing their business model.

I don't think "the masses" fall into the equation at all and likely haven't even really noticed the change besides the "This site isn't safe" warnings that occasionally pop up.

Re: Serveo: Expose Local Servers to the Internet

#33

Post by j88439h84 »

kevsim wrote: post #14
Advaith wrote: post #4

I've been using ngrok for development purposes. This seems like an interesting alternative.

Agreed. In particular when testing any sort of web hooks/callbacks, I get pretty sick of constantly updating configurations as the ngrok tunnels change subdomain. Self-hosting is also a nice option.

If you're self-hosting, why not just use ssh forwarding directly, without serveo?

Re: Serveo: Expose Local Servers to the Internet

#35

Post by AmericanChopper »

jfries wrote: post #26
TrueDuality wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NAT is definitively not a security layer and was never intended as such. You can get better security with a simple stateful ingress firewall (block packets not associated with an established/related connection) which is what most people think of for security with NAT. The only slight benefit it has imparted is the privacy benefit of hiding multiple devices behind a single address, but they can usually be individually…

I've heard before that "NAT is not intended as security", but isn't the effect still the same, that an external device can't connect to a device behind NAT without explicit configuration allowing it?

I find this argument to be completely ridiculous, and it’s become remarkably common among those who wish to justify some of IPv6s shortcomings. Whether it was designed to be a security control or not, it is one, and it’s an incredibly important one. Anything that controls how hosts are allowed to communicate with each other is a security control. The argument is so absurd that I literally can’t believe people go around parroting it.

Re: Serveo: Expose Local Servers to the Internet

#36

Post by zx2c4 »

TrueDuality wrote: post #27
jfries wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard before that "NAT is not intended as security", but isn't the effect still the same, that an external device can't connect to a device behind NAT without explicit configuration allowing it?

That is generally true, but has weird edge cases. For example using not so specially crafted ICMP packets[1] two hosts each behind independent NATs can communicate with each other without any change to a firewall configuration. Also honorable mentions: The UPnP protocol & STUN servers [1]: https://samy.pl/chownat/

For an even cooler trick, check out pwnat, also from Samy: https://samy.pl/pwnat/

Server sends constant icmp pings with fixed payload to unreachable dead Internet IP. Client sends icmp time exceeded message to server containing original fixed ping subpayload, which the server NAT lets through because the payloads match as related traffic. Server then learns client IP and usual chownat udp hole punching tricks apply.

Re: Serveo: Expose Local Servers to the Internet

#37

Post by dboreham »

rohan1024 wrote: post #16
jfries wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm probably missing something, but I think that, for home networks at least, NAT is wonderful because of how it requires some effort to make devices exposed on the external network. If we were given an unlimited supply of IP addresses from the ISP and all devices were accessible externally, it seems security issues in would be a much larger problem.

The original purpose of NAT was to get additional devices connected to Internet since we had shortage of Ipv4 addresses. For security, we have firewalls. If we had not been dependent on NAT for security, firewalls would have been actually configured. We will have to configure firewalls with ipv6 anyway.

NAT arose long before any address shortage concerns. Rather it was a response to ISPs attempting to charge "per user" by associating a fee with each additional address (note this is long before residential ISP service we know today: Internet service was for businesses with retail subs only having ppp access via dialup). NAT allowed customers to work around the ISPs pricing model at the time.

Re: Serveo: Expose Local Servers to the Internet

#39

Post by deforciant »

xenator wrote: post #17
xref wrote: post #11

I’ve been using self-hosted localtunnel but man is it unstable. It loses connections several times a day and never releases now “dead” urls, so you can’t count on a specific sub domain. I’ll have to give serveo a whirl

I have this problem with Servo. Having your own name is big advantage over ngrok. But connection need restart regularly.

Hi! check out webhook relay https://webhookrelay.com/ :) it has multiple ways to forward webhooks and internal connection healthchecks. Disclaimer: I built it.
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