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.
I use it for enterprise scale infrastructure deployments. But for a home network, it seems like unnecessary work.
I live alone. So I just have reserved IPs for each of my devices. Any new device gets assigned >200 so that I can easily identify new stuff, or rogue devices - which hasn’t happened lol. The only special IP is my pihole that gets 192.168.1.2 next to my router since I consider it infrastructure basically. Plus pihole is my dhcp server and dns obviously
I like the range for new devices- hadn’t thought of that!
Yeah makes it easier to identify new stuff. Like I recently added a new NAS into my network, and I didn’t have to try and figure out which device it was identified as. Just sitting at 200.1 so I could give it a name and assign a static IP.
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 don’t.
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.
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.
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Son, I think it’s time you learn about vlans.
I know they exist and vaguely what they do, but I don’t know how to set them up. What’s their advantage over simple DHCP reservations for a small client list?
Based on what you described I really don’t think you need a vlan.
How small a client list are we talking? If it’s that small, then that would beg the question, why would you need dedicated ranges in the first place?
A couple dozen devices maybe. I don’t really need dedicated ranges, but it’s nice to know exactly which device I’m looking at just by the IP when reading logs.
I’m not saying in anyway that what you’re doing is in anyway wrong. It’s good that you’re thinking the way you are. Just saying, if you’re in this frame of mind now, it’s a good time to look at vlans. Think dedicated ranges with the benefit of reduced traffic saturation.
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.
I have a lot of subnets.
