Forwarded ports for semi-active apps reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Guryamp · 2023-12-19 04:25 I have a couple of game servers that only run during the weekends. I've had to forward certain ports for them to work. My concern, is it safe to have the ports forwarded for the rest of the week? Like, what happens to traffic/packets that go into those ports if there is nothing on the other side actively listening? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- adamshand · 2023-12-19 04:45 If there's nothing listening to the ports, then nothing bad can really happen. The only real risk is if you turned something else on which used the same port and wasn't safe to be exposed to the internet. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AdrianTeri · 2023-12-19 06:39 Why forward ports? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AnApexBread · 2023-12-19 10:36 Yes,its safe. If nothing is there listening for the connection then the traffic will just hang for a bit and then will get dropped. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- griphon31 · 2023-12-19 12:27 Who in 2023 is letting semi trusted individuals into their home network? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- pigers1986 · 2023-12-19 13:43 nothing - the communication will simply timeout ---------------------------------------------------------------------- t3hpr1m3 · 2023-12-19 18:21 This just displays a fundamental misunderstanding about networking in general. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Old_Bug4395 · 2023-12-19 19:51 ah yes having my friends vpn into my network to play on the minecraft server ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 702Pilgrim · 2023-12-19 23:20 I shut down my game ports when not in use or only during gaming hours via pfsense router. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AdrianTeri · 2023-12-20 07:14 Sure dude let a rip and see yourself in shodan or the ~18 hour scans carried out by censys that scan the whole internet. https://twit.tv/shows/security-now/episodes/927 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AdrianTeri · 2023-12-20 07:16 Sure teach me how punching holes in a NAT & listen/serve works ... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AdrianTeri · 2023-12-20 07:18 Oh shoot is my NAS in the same network? There goes ~20 TB of family photos, financial receipts etc to ransomware .... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Old_Bug4395 · 2023-12-20 09:37 Well I mean if you're concerned, you can separate the networks, but chances are in a homelab scenario you're not going to run into that lol, especially not if you're keeping your software up to date. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AdrianTeri · 2023-12-20 09:45 So how are you accessing those services from your "secure" network? On top of VLANs have made and reviewed(independent eyes) that your firewall rules do exactly this & have no mistakes?