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Setup & Configuration

LocaltoNet safest setup for small private file sharing

Posted by emilybrown • July 11, 2026

I can get the tunnel up, that's the easy part. What I'm trying to avoid is the usual "it works" setup that quietly exposes too much, especially if I stick Nextcloud or a basic file server behind it for a handful of people.

If you were doing this with sane defaults, would you put Nginx or Caddy in front, force HTTPS end to end, add basic auth at the proxy even if the app already has logins, and lock it down to only the exact paths or ports needed? I'm mostly after a checklist of what you'd enable first for security and reliability before letting anyone in.

Comments (3)

oliviagarcia Jul 11, 2026

Put Caddy in front and only publish that one reverse-proxy port, not the app itself. I switched to that after fighting with manual web server config on Windows, and for a small private share it keeps the moving parts down while still letting you clamp access in one place.

robertb Jul 11, 2026

Force HTTPS all the way and make the tunnel target only the proxy, not some plain HTTP app port hiding behind it. That's the one default I'd never skip for Nextcloud especially, because mixed "secure outside, cleartext inside" setups are where people get sloppy fast, and Caddy makes the cert side pleasantly boring.

matthewking Jul 11, 2026

Limit LocaltoNet to a single hostname that only reaches the reverse proxy, then deny everything else on the box with the local firewall. That's the default I care about most, because even a tidy proxy setup won't save you if 445, 8080, or the admin UI is still reachable from somewhere you forgot about.

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