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Any networking experts on the Forum?

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Anonymous
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Any networking experts on the Forum?

I’m looking to subnet or multi LAN my network so that I can isolate various categories of devices. Ideally I’m looking for 4 subnets or LANs so for those that know about this I’d appreciate your thoughts.

I work from home and everything I have on the network, currently 65 devices, are visible on the other side of the VPNs I have which is my motivation for doing this.

If you have any questions then please ask, as I wouldn’t class myself an an expert by any means.

14 REPLIES 14
Darkfire
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Re: Any networking experts on the Forum?

Fix

vlans are your best friend here Smiley 

 

a vlan for management(if you have any kind of management of services, allows these to be only done from certain machines)

a vlan for wi-fi devices, maybe one wi-fi network for your personal stuff that connects to your more personal network locations and a "public" or "everyone but me" wi-fi network on a locked off vlan that can only get to the internet.

 

a vlan for cctv if you have any is always the best solution when working with cameras  it avoids conflicts with some annoying cameras and keeps things locked away and not accessible by everything else.

 

There are other ways to do separation of a network but vlans are generally the best way to do this and are a tried and tested method Smiley 

 

If you have any thing specific you'd like to know let me know and I can go into further detail

Anonymous
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Re: Any networking experts on the Forum?

Thanks @Darkfire this looks very promising. Smiley But what about devices that can’t be tagged directly, can this be done via DHCP Options?

As an example I have a camera in the garage that has no obvious support for setting a VLAN tag.

Darkfire
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
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Posts: 699
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Registered: ‎17-10-2015

Re: Any networking experts on the Forum?

No problem Smiley 

 

For devices that can't be tagged directly this can be done at router/switch level depending on what equipment you use, some switches allow you to tag certain ports or port groups onto certain vlans(especially good for things like cctv etc), even a lot of the cheaper managed switches support vlan tagging based on port so this isn't an overly expensive way to look at things.

Anonymous
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Re: Any networking experts on the Forum?

Having had a quick read up on VLAN, this is exactly what I need. I already have a managed switch that will do most of the grunt for me, so I’m off to some more reading and then get the pencil out and do some planning.

7up
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Re: Any networking experts on the Forum?


@Anonymous wrote:

I work from home and everything I have on the network, currently 65 devices


What on earth do you have on your network? NASAs mission control?

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Anonymous
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Re: Any networking experts on the Forum?

@7up - I’ve found that the number of devices on my LAN keeps creeping up and up. It really doesn’t take long with Echos, Kindles, Tablets, Phones, VoIP, PVRs, TVs, RPi, Consoles, PCs, Cameras, Router, Switches, NAS Boxes all sucking on power and bandwidth.

 

 

VileReynard
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Re: Any networking experts on the Forum?

Have you considered reducing the number of boxes by running a few devices as VM's on a single box, to reduce your electricity bill?

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Anonymous
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Re: Any networking experts on the Forum?

@VileReynard - I already have a dedicated 24 core VMWare Server with 8 VMs on it. Two of these VMs (Level 3 Arch Linux) run 24/7 while the others are used to test Client software prior to release so are only fired up on demand.

However, most of the PCs / devices I have can’t be virtualised as they were built / bought for a specific purpose, plus there are other things I’ve mentioned in the list above like Echo’s, TV etc, that obviously can’t be virtualised.

Having said that when I use Windows I use a Windows 10 PC virtualised using Parallels on my iMac as its the fastest (and best) platform I have.

Thankfully power consumption isn’t really an issue for me, my issue was the ‘leakage’ of what was attached to the LAN with having all of the devices on a single LAN and with the implementation of VLANs this will be a thing of the past come Monday!

 

7up
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Re: Any networking experts on the Forum?


@Anonymous wrote:

@7up - I’ve found that the number of devices on my LAN keeps creeping up and up. It really doesn’t take long with Echos, Kindles, Tablets, Phones, VoIP, PVRs, TVs, RPi, Consoles, PCs, Cameras, Router, Switches, NAS Boxes all sucking on power and bandwidth.  


Don't get me wrong, I love my tech but how on earth do you put up with all that? And since when have cameras needed to be networked lol

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VileReynard
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Re: Any networking experts on the Forum?

IP cameras?

"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."

7up
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Re: Any networking experts on the Forum?

Fair point! I had it in my head he meant a normal stills camera for some obscure reason

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Anonymous
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Re: Any networking experts on the Forum?

@Darkfire - Just a quick question. I've now given some consideration to this and the only fly I see in my ointment is that of the VPNs. How do I tag these to be in a given VLAN? I see no options within the router (DrayTek 2925) that allows this, so I'd appreciate your thoughts on this.

Convin_Illusion
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Re: Any networking experts on the Forum?

https://www.peplink.com/

Peplink makes the router I currently have on my wishlist [Pepwave Surf SOHO ~ £205-£220 on Amazon atm], and on their website they have the ability to try out an online version of their products interface so you can check out its features and see how you would configure it for yourself on your network before you buy. I believe that DrayTek has a similar option, and it's worth checking out to see, because that will probably answer more of your questions than anything else, and probably answer questions you hadn’t thought to ask yet.

https://www.peplink.com/products/balance/live-demo/

https://www.draytek.com/en/products/products-a-z/switch.all/vigorswitch-p1280/

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Anonymous
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Re: Any networking experts on the Forum?

Thanks for the links @Convin_Illusion but if anything I'd be replacing my existing router / modems with the FB2700 as I mentioned in the other thread, I'm taking the long view with this possible purchase due to the £900 price tag. The DrayTek I have, a 2925, is a very nice bit of hardware as are the modems both DrayTek Vigor 130s but there is so much more control available when using the FireBrick.