So I’ve been fiddling around with remote management tools for my home server recently, after accidentally discovering Cockpit after installing Fedora (it comes preinstalled with Fedora Server 34), I started looking around for alternatives. Don’t get me wrong Cockpit is great but being a DIY I always wanted to see what kind of options are out there.

During my search I came across a vaguely familiar name: Webmin. I had limited experience with Webmin before when I was searching for a decent web panel for my VPS since it is the basis on which Virtualmin is based on. I quickly dropped it due to the horribly outdated UI (it’s a designer’s quirk, don’t ask).

Revisiting it a few years later, I just couldn’t believe my eyes when I first fire up the program, the difference is like Night and Day! Even literally more so since the current version even includes a proper dark mode that can be toggled in real time! How awesome is that?

Check out this before-after comparison:

For those following my post the last couple of weeks, you’d know I’ve been obsessed with building up my home server system, so much so that I made the grave mistake of exposing my computer to the world wide web through the use of DMZ (De-Militarized Zone).

Long story shot.

I’ve been hacked.

And $3,000 was stolen from my wife’s MasterCard.

What’s done is done, I’m here to tell you about what exactly what went down, how the attacker did it and how you can avoid the same mistake I did.

Let’s get started

1. Reverse Proxy: Setting up Caddy and write a proper caddyfile for reverse proxying to different endpoints within my local network.
2. Personal DDNS: dynamically update my domain(s) A records to point to my home’s public IP so I never have to worry about Viettel’s shitty service changing my IP every 2 damn days. This is done by setting up a cronjob and utilizes CloudFlare’s public API.
3. AIO Clientless SSH/RDP/VNC solution: I’m sure most of you already figured it out just by reading that sentence, yes it’s Apache Guacamole, and yes I know it’s been around for a while, but I’ve only discovered it last week, and it basically changed my life forever. I’ve been kicking myself for not looking into it sooner. I can’t even remember how much time I wasted setting up TeamViewer/Anydesk/Putty on new machines. This thing just makes it feel so effortless, and it runs directly in your browser so no corporate firewall should stand in your way.