I want to set up a lemmy instance as a subreddit alternative for a community I moderate. I would be running the instance on a local machine in my home so I really want to make sure that it can’t be traced to my physical location.

I already subscribe to ExpressVPN for general use, can I just install it on the local machine, press connect, and boom be anonymous? What impact would this have on users?

  • ijustlookatpictures
    1·
    2 years ago

    For all my self hosted stuff I use nginx proxy manager behind a cloudflare tunnel. The tunnel connects to a container on the machine which sends everything to the reverse proxy. no need for vpn or port forwarding

    • lambchop@lemmy.world
      2·
      2 years ago

      This is the only correct answer, the other responses about only showing local ip, and hosting something that goes through a VPN are either wrong or don’t result in a working configuration. A domain must resolve to an IP so connecting out via a VPN just won’t work. Proxying your connection through cloudflare using cloudflareD tunnels is the answer. Users will only see the ip of cloudflare.

  • infinitevalence@discuss.online
    1·
    2 years ago

    Most people use cloudflares free proxy service and a fully qualified domain name that they own.

    You could also set up a virtual private server on a host provider like linode or digital ocean and install a point to point vpn as your egress/ingress point.

    • ijustlookatpictures
      1·
      2 years ago

      You can get a couple of free VPSs with Oracle no credit card required as well. I’ve heard some people say theirs were shut down and I read somewhere that they may do if usage falls below a certain amount - I guess cause they’re considered dormant. I’ve never had a problem.

  • jax@lemmy.cloudhub.social
    1·
    2 years ago

    I don’t think that’ll work, they likely don’t allow inbound connections to their VPN endpoints.

    There are a couple options:

    • Use Cloudflare Tunnels (Free)
    • Use a small VPS from a company like DigitalOcean to run a site-to-site WireGuard VPN + reverse proxy
    • Use a small/medium VPS from a company like DigitalOcean to host your Lemmy instance

    Note: I haven’t done a review of the traffic to confirm if option one or two will leak your IP (it shouldn’t, that’s generally a problem with WebRTC), but it is a potential concern. I do use option 1 currently. Note that tunnels are limited to 100mb file uploads, but iirc there is a bug in Lemmy that effectively limits uploads to 20mb.