How to Homelab Episode 3 - Planning your Network Layout

The "How to Homelab" series helps you plan your very own home server setup for world domination (or for even just hosting some apps). In the third episode, we look into networking and how to plan your layout.
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[@camerontgore]

VLANs are awesome! Even if you don't have a home lab it's still great for segregating IoT devices that are trying to phone home to mother base.

[@LearnLinuxTV]

Warning: Absolute truth contained above ^

[@maginos1310]

...or to segregate servers, to which you have access from outside your LAN and where you don’t want to use use vpn.

Really clear explanations, loving the series! A diagram of your lab and services that you have running would be nice for the next video

[@DaveSomething]

my raspi4, the things I've installed on the poor thing. it's holding up so far!

[@remixedMind]

nice logo, i have learned a lot from you and Tom, great job, thanks you for the time and effort, keep on doing this great videos

[@murlock666]

Thanks for the new installment of the Homelab series Jay. Im literally in the process of creating a home lab. Server is an HP ML350 G6 186GB Ram 4.3TB array 2x DGS1210-28 Dlink Switches and an Asus AX82 Router. a couple of NAS boxes are already here and im in the process of loading Proxmox on the server. Youve already helped a lot and id like to see how to best set up my switches as they are managed. Keep up the good work and thanks for your effort in making information like this available.

[@RajkoRuza]

Great video as always! New logo looks awesome!

[@kimotroph9683]

Thank you Jay for this video. I am improving on my homelab and this was very useful for me to refactor my network. I am definitely using ipcalc now..Thanks again.

[@VirendraBG]

Appreciate your efforts. 👍🏻 Good series. Keep it up.

[@derekgoodwine7509]

Amazing series more video can satisfy my eager! Please keep it up!

[@gustavgurke9665]

I already learned significantly more than I thought I'd learn from this series. Keep it up!

[@AnzanHoshinRoshi]

Thank you, Jay. Nice new graphics, logo.

[@LearnLinuxTV]

Glad you like them!

[@christopherbui7315]

Thanks! Appreciate the video. Been planning on getting a pfsense box but wanted to get hands on experience. Even more fortunate that I currently have a asus box !

[@cyn1x]

Great video, Jay. Thanks!

[@DarthDweeb]

Good video. Would love to see how to set up the vlans on pfSense and how to set up subnets. I have had a consumer grade router for many years and anyone who has set up a plex media server or something akin would have a pretty basic understanding of a static DHCP lease and some port forwarding. But vlans and subnets are mostly an enigma for me. I recently bought a device to install pfSense and dabble in these networking tools. Would love to see your implementation of them.

[@noam65]

Homelab network troubleshooting and resolution? That can certainly be another topic. Good stuff.

[@woxit6107]

Thanks for your time and effort.

[@ericclingo3958]

LOL! The idea to set up a VLAN as leverage on my kids.. now that's motivation!

[@nbarrager]

"Use what you have" My friend gave me a Poweredge R410 that he was going to throw away. Good machine, quiet enough to sleep next to, fastest transfer speeds I've ever had. Only problem was it had a software based RAID card which only works with Windows. So I bought a new RAID card which runs very hot, and therefore so loud I don't even want to work next to the thing, let alone sleep next to it. What's worse is now I'm not even sure I want to primarily run Linux. "Use what you have"

[@marcoslozano6566]

Thank you for all the great content you provide, Jay! I decided to make a homelab to keep my files and services away from Big Techs and your videos have been very inspiring and I’m learning a lot from them. Not just from this homelab series but all the awesome linux content as well.

[@LearnLinuxTV]

awesome, it’s going to be a lot of fun for you

[@MariaCurry]

Awesome! Thank you for this video.

[@michelangelop3923]

My isp make me buy the router, and it was locket, it haved enough features unlocked but the admin account wad a different password, I fount on a forum the password from someone who managed to get his hand on he code, the admin account allowed me to have additional ssids for my cameras, and I configured the voip to ring and operate on two lines independently, so I can have 2 calls from the same line without interfering. Thanks for the video series, as a starter homelaber my self (R710) I found it very helpful, keep up with the great content!

[@HellhoundDieselCrew]

Excellent series! ~Tana

[@michaelharbuck3314]

Super! Thank you!

[@tottiinfo]

Top as always

[@Felix-ve9hs]

Homelab is Love. Homelab is Live

[@anthonysantana4278]

Outstanding

[@GCTWorks]

Suggestion for a future topic: since people will want to wet up several servers that might by internet facing, but they only have one internet connection, you might want to show how to set up a reverse proxy with NGINX. I have done this with a raspberry Pi 4, and points to other physical raspberry pi servers as needed.

[@noweare1]

I have used caddy for this, very cool.

[@pepeshopping]

Most cable modem-routers will not let you change the IP address scheme, just the DHCP begin/end, DNS and other basic, but enough parameters that somebody that knows what they are doing can configure correctly.

[@romany8125]

You can always add your own router after the modem to modify the network structure to your own specs.

[@YannMetalhead]

Good video.

[@dean8012]

Greetings from Israel. Your new book is always out of stock on amazon.. I check every day for the paperback version and no luck. As a book collector, the kindle version is a no no. I really want to start and learn this book, where can I get it?

[@markarca6360]

I had already a virtualized pfSense instance and planning to use a Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X or a Mikrotik hEX GR3 instead.

[@robertoperdomo1995]

Thx Jay for this awesome video, pretty informative. I have a request for you. Managing Servers and services through IP's is fun, but i would like to use a naming scheme with my servers, l would like to name them after greek gods, types of tress, or precious stones. For that we would have to use DNS in our home lab. What are the best options to do it, and how? Thanks again for sharing your knowledge with us.

[@noweare1]

Maybe I missed it but I thought you said you don't use address reservation but showed us how. You didn't show how you handle ip address changed when it changes though.

[@dbaldock9]

Hello Jay - I'm enjoying your different Playlists of tutorials. Currently running OpenWRT on an older MikroTik RB493G as a Router/Hot-Spot (w/Internet via AT&T UVerse), but it only supports OpenWRT up to v19. So, for a Network Layout, I'm trying to figure out if it's practical to try and run a Firewall/Router (OpenWRT 22.03 x86_64) in a Proxmox VM, on a small server? Can the Firewall isolate/protect the server that the VM is running on? The uplink to the Internet would be either the UVerse (Ethernet Port, passed through to VM), or an EM9191 5G Cellular Modem (USB Port, passed through to VM). I have the EM9191, and it sort-of works on my Kubuntu 22.04.1 PC - but haven't got it configured to work on the VM, yet.

[@priit7777]

Definitely good idea! Going right now to split my 5 network connected devices to 5 different subnets in 5 different VLANs. Why? Because I can! :D

[@rafal9ck817]

All I can do on ISPs' router is turn wifi on and of. And 3rd option thankfully is bridge.

[@pnbalaji]

As always, a great video. Thanks Jay, I am learning a lot with this homelab how to series. I don't have an enterprise grade router. However, I have a router with DD-WRT and one with tomato firmware and both firmwares support VLANs. Can I use these routers to segregate the devices on my network?

[@pnbalaji]

@@birsp I have used both tomato and DD-WRT for quite some time. However, I feel the stock firmware on the routers usually give better performance. Any recommended settings to get better performance from advanced tomato? Currently, I am running my Wi-Fi on a different VLAN from tomato as I have configured my Windscribe VPN on it. Any device that is connecting to the WiFi from my tomato router goes through Windscribe VPN. BTW, I am using a Netgear R7000 with advanced tomato.

[@kimotroph9683]

You would need something that will tag the traffic flowing through them. I bought a PoE/VLAN switch for cheap and use that to segment my connection

[@l3martin]

How do you handle static leases with virtual servers? Since the MAC Address changes, that is not really automate able, or is it?

[@magicmanj32]

I have an asus router and when you manual change to static it shows manual, not static, but assuming its the same thing

[@tony-pj7sj]

Nice new logo :D

[@LearnLinuxTV]

Thanks! 😁

[@kimotroph9683]

Do you have some advice for someone with a residential IP and locked router? I am trying to comply with Terms and Conditions of the ISP. I cannot modify or replace the ARRIS router. I also cannot make any public addressable resources. I am thinking of making a workaround using either astro relay or unbound.

[@hakovatube]

May I request an episode on how to set up VLANs and allowing some hosts accessing more than one VLAN perhaps? I want to segregate my NAS, which contains the multimedia but it needs to be accessed by the Plex server, which is a VM. NAS is also my backup storage for a few VMS and servers. I am not sure putting it on a separate VLAN is a good idea.

[@ralphtaylor5328]

Home routers supplied by your ISP are often relatively primitive and you are often limited to being able to set aside part of the IP range as static. Then you have to set the static IP at the peripheral. I used this approach. The method in the video needs a router that allows you to set static IP for each peripheral. Here changing the router would require (if allowed) setting up each fixed IP. Where the fixed IP is set by the peripheral all you need to do when upgrading the router is set aside the fixed IP range. Not sure if I missed it but you did not say why you favoured setting the individual IPs at the router

[@noweare1]

I think i am confused. I thought he said he didn't use reserved address. Then showed us how to reserve a range of addresses on the router. How does he deal with changed ip addresses external ip address and internal then ?

[@ralphtaylor5328]

Perhaps I should have said the router can usually reserve an ip range from the series it allocates for DHCP to be used for static. Then you use the peripheral configuration to set the ip in the range reserved for static ip

[@icydeadpeeps]

I appreciate the video for the general topics but definitely think it should have just stayed more general and didn't dive into the asus demo that wasn't fully understood. Most of the info in that section wasn't accurate. For example: - Asus-wrt allows assigning static leases of IPs that are in the pool of DHCP addresses. It is smart enough to know that that is reserved. It is still best practice and makes things more understandable to change the pool limits but it isn't needed. -To assign the static lease you can not do it from that client list like was said would happen if you could save the manual enablement. You actually do it directly below where the switch to turn on manual assignment was. -Asus merlin firmware does allow assigning subnets and VLANs contrary to what was said (although you're right that that demo doesn't show it) There were a couple other similar things mentioned that I think would just have been better left off. It'd be great to just stick to the area you know since you do know that very in depth. I would even just add that especially with custom firmware that is readily available you can achieve more than is needed for getting started on a Home lab just using that Asus router. As far as I can tell from watching other videos mine is achieving everything that most homelab youtube channels have happening in pfSense so people should definitely not feel limited by their retail device (at least if it is an Asus router)

[@W4TRI]

If I can segregate IoT and phones to separate subnets like this is it going to help with network speed? I pay Spectrum for a 400/20 connection. I rarely get Speedtest over 120/18 plugged in to their modem directly. They have come out and shown me on their tester that they are delivering just over 405mbs in most cases. Any good way to improve what I have? I went through all the PCs and the router to optimize MTU values and that changes nothing. Enjoying the series! Thanks!

[@W4TRI]

@@birsp Forgot to mention that. I put in all new CAT7 on all my ethernet. Anyone know a program I can use to track and see where the stopping points are? Thanks!

[@yolgo754]

sir i really like your videos but i can,t see you chowing Terminal commands so i can right it in my texte commands

[@erichrogers4856]

If anyone wants to learn subnetting and how everything is derived check out laslo Diaz’s video on IPv4 and 6 subnetting. The books I read were way to confusing and I have yet to find an easier way of calculating subsets. Unless you use a calculator but you can’t use those on a CCNA exam

[@samchandler2722]

In my home network I have my ISP modem 10.0.0.1 and another linksys router plugged into it that is broadcasting its own network 192.168.1.1. The router is setup so that all traffic is routed through my PIA vpn. How do I get my devices on my home network 10.0.0.30 connected to my plex server hosted on 192.168.1.120??

[@nikoonk]

You should preferably only have one device handling the DHCP service to avoid conflicts. You can usually just turn it off in the config menu of the device. Then you could make everything just part of one network. However if you have a more advanced router you could allow network traffic to flow from one network to another using rules in the firewall. It depends on how advanced your router is if that would be possible to do in the settings.

[@kenzieduckmoo]

My biggest thing I was always told was you have to keep everything on the same network, like 192.168.50.x , so if you split them on other things (like 51,52,53,etc) then could they even talk to each other?

[@romany8125]

You would need to route them internally. There is a number of tutorials on different routing techniques out there.

[@edwardmacnab354]

You might think about doing a video on using more sophisticated routers along with ideas on how to obtain one at a reasonable price as I can see the range is $1.000 to $("The skies the Limit") .

[@yolgo754]

please you have to answer to tell me where we can start it in youtube by tipping for me

[@StruC]

support.learnlinux.tv doesn't resolve

[@talbech]

Would have been nice if you had taken your time and done the DHCP and router demo on a virtual pfsense rather than some crap demo ui that doesn't work.

[@bobkoss280]

It's just me and my wife, but my router is already up to .160 addresses. Between the laptops, desktops, tablets, phones, ip cameras, and wireless speakers - those 254 addresses get eaten up. Good thing we don't have kids! Creating a vlan is easy. But you didn't mention routing between vlans, and that's a PITA to consider all of the rules and put them in the router.

[@rahilarious]

How to create vlan? Does it need a router that supports it?

[@bobkoss280]

@@rahilarious A vlan is either created in a router or a switch that supports it, i.e., a managed switch.

[@romany8125]

Actually there are more than 254 addresses on 192.168.x.x unless your soho router is deliberately limiting them. You can use subnetting to increase your broadcast domain.

[@jameschuk8219]

Want to know how to connect the ubuntu workstation into ubuntu serve as file server

[@LearnLinuxTV]

Good idea!

[@kenzieduckmoo]

Setting up a file server with plain ubuntu server would be interesting. Or if you wanted to go advanced, could include roll your own ZFS

[@warwolf333]

I was searching for a network layout (as per the title), and what i didn't found here is a network layout, and different layout models. Hum. Too much talk, no layout.

[@FreeThink1984]

Video starts at 3:50 🙄

[@email16v]

Don't waste your time starting with your home router. Get something that can do vlans first because almost always your next step in any home lab is to create vlans. Trust me

[@JCLarsen]

I fear for the table behind you! For each video it squews a little more. At some time it will break and your homelab come crashing to the floor!

[@jackrorystaunton4557]

lame := comcast xfinity port forwarding is not supported but they will waste many hours of your life before admitting that

[@BT13091]

3 minutes in and you haven't said anything useful. Goodbye.

[@piotrsulima8696]

Fucking ads, commercials, time to unsubscribe.