Securing Internet services on your home network
Single Source Protection
![© Lead Image © Nah Ting Feng, 123RF.com © Lead Image © Nah Ting Feng, 123RF.com](/var/linux_magazin/storage/images/issues/2020/240/mistborn/nah_ting_feng-circuit_and_lock.png/775715-1-eng-US/Nah_Ting_Feng-Circuit_and_Lock.png1_medium.png)
© Lead Image © Nah Ting Feng, 123RF.com
Mistborn bundles important Internet services on your home network and secures them with a WireGuard VPN tunnel, Pi-hole, iptables rules, and separate containers.
COVID-19 has forced many people to work from home, relying on Internet services for file sharing, videoconferencing, and more. In addition to outside threats that exploit the current situation, security risks within the services themselves also pose a problem. For instance, the videoconferencing platform Zoom [1], which has had an influx of users since the beginning of the pandemic, can hardly keep up with the task of closing its security gaps.
To avoid these pitfalls, Steven Foerster, the developer of security software at Cyber5k, needed an easy-to-implement security solution for all his family's Internet activities. The result is the Mistborn [2] project on GitLab, which is exclusively based on free software. (The name comes from the epic fantasy book series of the same name by Brandon Sanderson.)
Mistborn offers the script-controlled setup of a VPN tunnel with WireGuard, as well as ad-blocking with Pi-hole using DNSCrypt [3] (Figure 1). In addition, Mistborn lets you activate and manage other services, such as Nextcloud, Cockpit, Syncthing, Rocket.Chat, Home Assistant, Jellyfin, Bitwarden, ONLYOFFICE, Tor, and Jitsi.
![](/var/linux_magazin/storage/images/issues/2020/240/mistborn/figure-1/775718-1-eng-US/Figure-11_large.png)
Setup
In our lab, we used Mistborn on a Lenovo ThinkPad X220 as the server and a ThinkPad X230 as the client, both with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa). You control the software via a web interface from any device.
The developer recommends 1GB RAM and 15GB memory for WireGuard with Pi-hole. If you want to use the Cockpit management tool, you need at least 2GB RAM. If services like Jitsi Meet, Nextcloud, Jellyfin, Rocket.Chat, Home Assistant, or ONLYOFFICE enter into play, you need at least 4GB RAM, which also increases the storage space requirement to around 25GB. For videoconferences with Jitsi Meet, 10GB bandwidth is optimal.
Alternatively, you can run Mistborn in the cloud, as long as the cloud environment supports PostgreSQL databases. Options are available for about one dollar per month.
Static IP and DDNS
If you install Mistborn on a device on your home network, it requires a static IP address [4]. If the services will be available only on your LAN, it is sufficient to give the computer a private static address. This can usually be easily done via the router configuration or the operating system.
The easiest way to obtain a fixed public IP address is to use one of the many dynamic DNS (DDNS) service providers. Some routers, such as the AVM FRITZ!Box, offer DDNS as part of their software.
You can install Mistborn directly or via SSH. If the installation is taking place via SSH, the setup creates an iptables rule that allows future connections via SSH from the same IP address, but blocks all other external connections. The PC continues to accept internal connections via the WireGuard tunnel. The same applies to installation on remote devices via SSH.
All services in Mistborn run in Docker containers. Mistborn automatically sets up and manages the containers for you. It also dynamically creates iptables rules as required to prevent external data traffic via the containers.
Installation
For the basic Mistborn installation, the script does most of the work leaving you little to do besides reading the output in the terminal as a matter of interest. The first two lines in Listing 1 set up the software. The first line downloads the script from GitLab; the second line starts the actual installation (Figure 2). This takes place below /opt/mistborn/
.
Listing 1
Installing Mistborn
$ git clone https://gitlab.com/cyber5k/mistborn.git $ sudo bash ./mistborn/scripts/install.sh $ sudo mistborn-cli getconf
![](/var/linux_magazin/storage/images/issues/2020/240/mistborn/figure-2/775721-1-eng-US/Figure-21_large.png)
On the laptop, the process took about 15 minutes on a fast network (Figure 3). For a list of installation steps, visit Mistborn's GitLab page [5]. When prompted to install the resource-hungry Cockpit management tool on a Raspberry Pi, answer no unless you absolutely need it.
![](/var/linux_magazin/storage/images/issues/2020/240/mistborn/figure-3/775724-1-eng-US/Figure-31_large.png)
After the installation success message, wait another minute and then create the configuration with the command from the last line of Listing 1 (Figure 4).
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
![Learn More](https://www.linux-magazine.com/var/linux_magazin/storage/images/media/linux-magazine-eng-us/images/misc/learn-more/834592-1-eng-US/Learn-More_medium.png)
News
-
NVIDIA Released Driver for Upcoming NVIDIA 560 GPU for Linux
Not only has NVIDIA released the driver for its upcoming CPU series, it's the first release that defaults to using open-source GPU kernel modules.
-
OpenMandriva Lx 24.07 Released
If you’re into rolling release Linux distributions, OpenMandriva ROME has a new snapshot with a new kernel.
-
Kernel 6.10 Available for General Usage
Linus Torvalds has released the 6.10 kernel and it includes significant performance increases for Intel Core hybrid systems and more.
-
TUXEDO Computers Releases InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen9 Laptop
Sporting either AMD or Intel CPUs, the TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 is an extremely compact, lightweight, sturdy powerhouse.
-
Google Extends Support for Linux Kernels Used for Android
Because the LTS Linux kernel releases are so important to Android, Google has decided to extend the support period beyond that offered by the kernel development team.
-
Linux Mint 22 Stable Delayed
If you're anxious about getting your hands on the stable release of Linux Mint 22, it looks as if you're going to have to wait a bit longer.
-
Nitrux 3.5.1 Available for Install
The latest version of the immutable, systemd-free distribution includes an updated kernel and NVIDIA driver.
-
Debian 12.6 Released with Plenty of Bug Fixes and Updates
The sixth update to Debian "Bookworm" is all about security mitigations and making adjustments for some "serious problems."
-
Canonical Offers 12-Year LTS for Open Source Docker Images
Canonical is expanding its LTS offering to reach beyond the DEB packages with a new distro-less Docker image.
-
Plasma Desktop 6.1 Released with Several Enhancements
If you're a fan of Plasma Desktop, you should be excited about this new point release.