I’m setting up DHCP reservations on my home network and came up with a simple schema to identify devices: .100 is for desktops, .200 for mobiles, .010 for my devices, .020 for my wife’s, and so on. Does anyone else use schemas like this? I’ve also got .local DNS names for each device, but having a consistent schema feels nice to be able to quickly identify devices by their IPs.
The only one I set static is the servers and that’s for port forwarding. So I set it to what it was using at the time. Unifi IDs the devices for me otherwise.
Sounds like fun but watch out for man in middle…home tech support!
Remember upper executive mgmt (wife) will have priority demands and expect to bypass all support/ticketing processes c/o direct access/shoulder tap, 24x7.
Tip - create high priority user stories for your upper exec mgmt needs and your rest activities (sports, call of duty, tinkering in garage/shop/man cave, etc etc etc et al) so your impl supports your key stakeholders while also aligning with your favorite best practices.
.local is the important part imo—actually, tbh I am not a super fan of the .local dns method and how it punks networks (basically like entering a crowded bar and yelling YO BRAH!) BUT it is simple and low effort (see high pri user stories).
Good luck with your PI plan, could you include us in PI retrospective so we can learn from you? Godspeed.
Many, many, many subnets, so many subnets, different subnets for vms, for jailed services, for guest wifi, ‘secure’ wifi, ‘normal’ wifi (ie phones and shit), my workstation has a routed subnet for its lxc containers, I have remote subnets for my wifi routers over vpn when I travel (with restrictions similar to home access and the same 3 ssids), an unrouted subnet for stuff like bmcs, switches and infrastructure, a subnet in my dmz with statics, the backside of that subnet, the subnet that subnet uses for upstream access.
We all go down this hole at the start. The truth is, you should only reserve IPs if you actually need it to stay the same. You don’t need to check IPs as often as you think, I promise. The only segmentation and planning you should do for a home network is for subnets/vlans; LAN, Guest, IOT, Server, etc.
Instead of managing the IP addresses, just manage hostnames. Make sure every device with a customizable hostname is easily identifiable. This will help you so much more in the long run.
I just let DHCP do its thing.
If something needs a static IP, I just change their lease to a static one (retaining the IP they were dynamically assigned).
I feel like keeping things neat isn't worth the effort, especially with the threat of ipv6 where neatness isn't going to be viable anyway.
I reserve everything below .100 for static IP devices like switches/access points and my work devices, the rest is all dynamic lease DHCP.
I could just set up a dashboard or figure out how to use hostnames, but I’m a caveman and I remember the IPs of the devices I want to ssh or browse to in my network.
I think it will just identify the device by MAC and use whatever IP that MAC has assigned to block queries. I just noticed the other day that i can select devices by MAC and assign to groups, and my pihole isn’t the DHCP.
I have a few vlan subnets, one for IOT devices (smart junk, automation, media players etc), one for general LAN devices (mostly computers, NAS etc), one for VMs and other services and one for guest access. all with their own fairly simple firewall rules to eachother and to the web. there are also matching Wifi networks for IOT, Main and Guest that are on those Vlans.
As for DHCP, I tend to set the DHCP ranges for xxx.100 - xxx.254 and anything below 100 is for static allocations. all in standard 192.168.x.x ranges, no need to go bigger than that. I only have IPv6 for the VMs for testing cause i’m still learning how to use that properly and safely.
We all did back in the 90’s. But this is kinda counter to the idea of dynamic leasing of IP addresses.
The only reason I see for reserving IP’s would be to do some based on cidr ranges (bad practice) or because you need some shitty software that only handle IP’s and not hostnames.
Just liberate yourself and get used to not having control over IP. It will prepare you for ipv6 where dynamic addresses are part of the spec.
Your local dns server should be set up to register devices on ip lease - something all dns servers I’ve worked with last 20 years can manage. With properly set ip search domains this means that you can reach your devices by hostname, or by fqdn if you’d want that.
Also note that .local is a special tld reserved for mdns/zeroconf. Do not set up your dns server to serve this. You’d be better off using something like .LAN - this means that mdns/zeroconf can co-exist nicely on your lan.
Regarding vlans: this is something completely different as this is level 2 in osi. Each vlan is like a separate network - there needs to be routing to reach one from the other. I would agree that vlans are nice when used properly - to section and separate devices. One vlan for IoT devices - to keep them out of your safe home network - is a fairly common thing. A separate vlan for servers, one for management perhaps, one for guest-network and one for your normal home devices.
I use 4 vlans at home each with a /16 network from the 10/8 range. And the only static (not reserved dhcp) that I use are for dns and gateway. At work I still set up some sites where infrastructure like switches/routers etc are on static - and take this into account when I set up the ip pool(s). I’m those cases I’ll exclude the top end of the network and put the rest in the pool. Some like to do the opposite end, and some don’t care and just use all as pool and count on arp/ping to avoid conflicting leases (bad practice).
Not bad. Hugely depends on what software, hardware, and firmware you use though.
I used a guide by HomeNetworkingGuy to fully set my network up in OPNSense, my software, running on a Protecli Vault, my hardware, using FreeBSD, my firmware/bios. It took me a full day start to finish. VLANs were maybe 30-60mins of that time tops.
They are not hard once you grasp the idea. They are like separate networks on layer 2(link) - layer 1 (physical) can be shared.
So you get several separate networks for the price (and equipment) of one. If you want to reach a device on one vlan from another it needs to be forwarded by something.
It gets a bit complicated here - as your idea of the network is on layer 4 where tcp and udp and other protocols live. As you don’t want to connect one vlan to the other - you want something that has access to both vlans to forward your layer 3 data (IP) between the links. This is your router. It will have a virtual network card on each vlan. You can tell your router to send data from one network card to the other to forward the data.
I suck at explaining- so you probably better off doing an Udemy network primer or read up a little bit. Good things to understand are the first 4 layers of osi model and routing.
It’s not hard and you can learn how to use it by poking stuff and googling a bit. Just imagine each vlan as a “copy” of your equipment (layer 1) cables and all. Your switch will have to support it, and if you want to trunk (run several vlans though one link) you need support on the other end as well.
I currently use 192.168.6.0/24, set DHCP to 100-199, and statically assign a few servers outside that range. Anything else can use DNS via DHCP because I use Windows for AD/DNS/DHCP.
For work we have standards, ideally we separate VLANs by device type and firewall off their communication, but on a home network, I’d generally group by category. .1-9 network gear like switches and firewalls. .10-19 IOT. .20-29 servers & NAS. So on and so forth.
That’s what I do. All my IOT stuff that I can’t get wired or via Zigbee/Z-Wave goes on a separate VLAN along with my Home Assistant server. I have an mDNS repeater for ease of access to TV stuff via apps (might spin TVs off into its own VLAN, just haven’t gotten around to it) but a 1-way firewall rule that only allows the main network to initiate connections. Certain devices which don’t need internet at all get static IPs and completely firewalled.
Vlans are virtual lans. So no extra equipment, but your router (as minimum) must support them. If your AP also supports them, you send two vlan through one cable (trunking), and attach each vlan to its own SSID on the AP. There will be no connection between devices on SSID1/Vlan1 and devices on SSID2/vlan2. It’s like you have two cables. To make a connection between those devices you must tell your router to forward the packets between the virtual lans.
That’s the whole trick - you see one cable, but inside it’s like 4000 cables. It’s the same inside your switch/router with vlan support - you see one physical port, but it’s 4000 inside - one for each of the 4000 cables. Each one works and behaves like a physical one. You get data in from one, and can forward it upstream to internet or into one of the other nic’s/cables as that’s what a router does
I’m paranoid so I have created a physically separate network for the IoT stuff. Everything gets its IP from the same server from a /25. The lower is the trusted network, high IPs are not. IoT network devices cannot open connections to the other network. A bit awkward, but works fine.
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