Home network project : opinions request
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If you simply want to learn more about networking and cybersecurity, and you view your home network as just a learning project, then go ahead and knock yourself out with all the stuff you plan. But if others in your home will depend on the network for rather mundane stuff like watching streaming video, reading emails, visiting web sites and perhaps playing the occasional Internet game, then what you have outlined in your original post is a recipe for a giant headache with lots of unnecessarily blocked traffic and angry house mates (especially bad if one of those angry house mates is your spouse ...
).Oh, and please explain to me how using a VPN tunnel gives you "safe surfing". A VPN for generic outbound traffic does exactly zero for security. Where a VPN offers security is when you use one to remote back into your home network from a public network.
Before you go off and spend a lot of time and effort on locking down your network like the NSA or Fort Knox, first consider its "strategic value" to an outsider. A home network is not a government agency protecting state secrets, it is not Apple or Google or Tesla protecting valuable intellectual property, and it is not Citibank or Credit Suisse with a gazillion dollars of monetary assets to pilfer. It's just a few files and maybe some family photos and such. Valuable to you I'm sure, but not so much to an attacker. No nation-state actors are going to be attempting to break into your home network. So don't be paranoid about all the CPU microcode based exploits or virtual machine exploits and such. Just worry about the more mundane stuff like teaching your house mates how not to click on every attachment and link in an email and how not to visit dodgy web sites. That's 90% of cybersecurity right there -- being careful what you click on!
Really basic stuff like keeping your PCs updated with the latest security hotfixes and running some kind of anti-virus client on them is probably good enough. And having pfSense out in front of the network with its default deny-all inbound rules in place, you will be sitting pretty good in terms of a security posture. And you want get lots of spurious blocks from all those security tools triggering on false positives to boot!
But as I said, if you want to toy with an IDS/IPS go ahead. Just don't enable blocking out of the gate and read and research both here in the IDS/IPS sub-forum and on Google to learn how to administer an IDS/IPS rule set.
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Thanks for your insights and perspectives sharing.
I think I will let the IPS stuff and pfblocker aside, and therefore use pfsense without additional package. An APU4C4 should do the job fine then, and to support the project I can still donate directly to the FreeBSD Foundation as it is well explained on your blog.
I plan to stick with the nanohd as we have only 5Ghz devices and take a US-8-60W switch, add a PoE hat to the pihole so the switch can power it. Pihole is indeed very good at his job and dashboard/reporting is great too.
For VPN, I meant "surfing with more privacy", not "safe surfing", bad wording, my mistake
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@xavi3r said in Home network project : opinions request:
For VPN, I meant "surfing with more privacy"
Says who? Your handing over everything you do on a silver platter to this vpn company.. And your source IP is just 1 tiny piece in the tracking information used by places you go.. There is fingerprinting, there are cookies.
The argument could be made that using a vpn actually lowers your overall privacy ;)
https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29 -
Very interesting indeed. So it seems better to ensure that browser plugins like HTTPS everywhere and Privacy badger are activated. With ublock origin I think it's a good combo.
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That users think they have some ability to remain private is what is the funny part.. OMG my isp might know I went to amazon.com - but hey its ok to let my phone track where I go and when, and how I text, etc. And use my CC when I stop and pickup a sixpack of beer and condoms on the way home... While the toll booth tracked my car, and every camera I pass sees my face and license plate of the car registered to me..
If you want to remain private - you should drop off the grid and live in a cave somewhere in the Alaska wilderness - hunt your own food, etc.
There is zero chance of having "privacy" in the world we live in to be honest.. That companies use such scare tactics to be honest is more on how to get user X to send me MORE info easier so I don't have to work so hard in tracking him ;)
Prob a better tactic to enact laws and regulations to prevent companies from doing this tracking, and if they get caught doing something against the rules to be held accountable for it.. And that that info they do store about you in doing business with you is stored secure.. So some scrpt kiddie hacker hit some url on the public internet and download a companies millions of user info, names, email address, cc number, etc. etc. Can we go a week without hearing about the latest data breach where account information for X millions of users was compromised... But yeah hey you should be concerned that your isp might know you went to amazon.com or pfsense.org ;)
These companies have million and millions of dollars to spend and some of the best talent on the planet on how to do it, but sure you going to be private and secure in spending $2.95 for that vpn service ;)
You have your cell phone company selling your real time location info to anyone willing to pay for it.. But hey yeah your privacy is protected by that fly by night vpn service..
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@xavi3r said in Home network project : opinions request:
A ubiquiti nanohd using included PoE injector as WLAN access point (with 3 SSIDS on 3 VLANs, maybe 2 ports LAGG for fun and optimization)
The NanoHD only has 1 ethernet port, so not sure how/what your plans are for LAGG. If you really want 2 ports and LAGG you'll need a UAP-HD or UAP-SHD.
That said the NanoHD is a decent device, I run 3 of them at my house. The 2.4ghz bandwidth is less than the UAP-HD or UAP-SHD, but the 5Ghz is the same and it is a lot cheaper. Basically those two are more for where you have a LOT of users on 2.4ghz, which isn't your home situation. How big is your home? You may want more than one for good 5Ghz bandwidth everywhere. The way I have mine set up is my main devices (Macbook, iPhones, etc) use 5Ghz and my low-bandwidth devices such as various IoT stuff use the 2.4Ghz.
Are you planning to use Unifi Controller software for the NanoHD? It is possible to not use it, and just set it up using an IOS app, but if you like to tinker you'll probably want to use a controller e.g. installed on a computer. Note that the controller does not have to be running the whole time (unless you want to use guest login portal) but it's nice if you can.
If you're on 1gbps and want to run a number of packages including VPN I would say the APU4C4 is likely not powerful enough for your needs. If you do choose not to go down the Netgate hardware path, I would say better to get something like an Intel Qotom device. Note that OpenVPN on pfSense is (I think) still not multi-threaded so single-core performance is more important than multi-core. However extra cores will be useful for running multiple packages. -
Yes you are right. I think that I mixed up AP models specs, watching too many of them..
I'll use this APU4C4 without any packages, just core pfsense, as I'm happy with the pihole. I'll do some tests with the APU4C4 and go for a 200/200 FTTH instead of 1Gbps if needed. This is still huge bandwidth for my needs compared to the 40/8 I have now. And should I upgrade to a 1Gbps in some years I could still opt for another hardware, like a netgate model ;)
I've also reconsidered VPN and realized I do not need a permanent VPN tunnel at all, only thing I really need is to connect to home (IPSec or OpenVPN I don't know, need to study) from outside when I'm on a public or untrusted wifi. This way I do not need any VPN provider. I'm a lambda guy living in Switzerland, not an activist fighting for human rights in a dictatorial country.
For the wifi, at first I was quite seduced by Ubiquiti products but might go with Zyxel finally. The Zyxel GS1900-8HP-EU0102F managed switch has 8 PoE/PoE+ ports (perfect for my raspberry pies) and seems to have no excessive heating compared to the US-8-60W I first planned to get. Plus this would avoid me to need an external controller as it has its own web interface. Different kind of solution.
So I'll probably go for a Zyxel AP, as they have interesting stuff too. Will see.
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@xavi3r said in Home network project : opinions request:
(perfect for my raspberry pies)
So you modified your pi's to be poe? You bought a poe hat? I just bought a 6 port anker usb charger ;) It powers 4 pis, my alexa dot and charger for my fitbit right on my desk...
Far cheaper option then buying a poe switch as well.. My 3 AP just use the injectors.. Which I have plugged into UPS as well - so even when the house looses power my network and wifi is still up ;)
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Not yet. Mhh. That's interesting. With good cable management it can be clean and avoid power interruption because of switch firmware update for instance. Thanks. Plus I do not want fans on these devices and not sure if the usb power issue is now fixed (guess so).
Just got an APU4C4 today, updated coreboot to latest legacy version and installed pfsense. Got a solid 700 mbits (iperf3) with peaks at 800. Not yet played with inets queues and offloading checksums yet to see if it can improve. Need to study this.
For residential customers, my ISP offers either 200/200 or 1000/1000 on FTTH with a difference of ~10$ per month. Will go for the 1000.
It's a bit sad that pfsense/netgate does not accept direct donation anymore, will donate to FreeBSD foundation tough.
Thanks for your insights and inputs guys.
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10$ dif for 200 vs gig - yeah that is a no brainer.. What I would go for gig as well at that sort of price point and difference.. What I really want is the up.. But if I went gig from my 500/50 it only goes to 1000/100 - and its like 20+ more a month.. And I really can not justify the download side.. I have no real use for it, and the up is only for my friends and family to share my plex.. And 50 is handling the current load without any issues.
But if I could get 1000/1000 I would jump on it for sure if only 20 more, for 10 = no brianer..
So if your going to do gig/gig - 1100 prob bit under powered.. 3100 would be what you would want. Just ordered 4th 3100 for work ;) pretty happy.. Just wish they would let me use them for some other devices with more umph... Its been a slow process.. But out of the blue my team lead said today - hey order another one of those firewalls ;)
