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Networks Help with hardware/software setup

Discussion in 'Tech Support' started by harvy, 10 Jul 2021.

  1. harvy

    harvy Minimodder

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    Hi All,

    I'm with Sky Broadband in the uk but am looking to move soon.
    I do however want to split up my network so looking for some help on how to setup the network.

    I want to split my internal network in to 3 layers.
    1) I want my devices, laptop/desktop/xbox etc
    2) I want my smart home devices (tazmota devices + alexa etc)
    3) a Guest Wifi network.

    I currently have two netgear switches which can do vlans, but not DHCP.
    I have a cisco router which also does vlans, but the DHCP server can only use itself as the exit point to the internet - but can not connect in place of the sky router - it only has RJ45 connections on RJ11 for phone line.

    I have a bunch of VM's running which will be on a mixture of lan's 1 and 2 (eg home assistant/node-red which will need to be controlled via a device on lan1, but devices it connects to are on lan2) and will be using synology for storage.

    Another VM is for PI-hole, which again i want accessible via all three vlans for ad blocking.

    I need DHCP for all three lans, but dont want software solution, and need to be able to setup the DNS server + Gateway to point to the right location out to the world.
    The Cisco, a vodafone THG3000 and the sky router all lack one of the DNS or gateway settings on DHCP (or both!)


    Any ideas on what this network setup should look like and what hardware to look into?

    This is for residential use so dont want to spend loads.
     
  2. saspro

    saspro IT monkey

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    What Cisco Router do you have?
    That Netgear Switches do you have?

    The Unifi Dream Machine would probably do everything you need (although you'll probably need to set something up for mDNS)
     
  3. harvy

    harvy Minimodder

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    Apologies - oversite!
    Cisco is RV016 -
    Netgears are Gs724T - 1* V3 and 1 * V4


    I was looking at OpenWRT earlier, which seems to be able to do the DHCP side of it, then I can stick any wifi device (old routers) on the netgear to act as AP for that vlan?


    I guess the main thing is any recommendations for a hardware device that can do multiple DHCP, with options for dns and importantly gateway to be specified rather then assume the device itself is the gateway...
     
  4. saspro

    saspro IT monkey

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    The way I'd normally do it would be:

    1) Small server running DHCP (all scopes, with the options on each scope that you want). This could be a Pi. It sits on a server VLAN.
    2) Configure DHCP relay/ip helper on a switch (the "core") for each VLAN to forward DHCP packets to that server.
     
  5. harvy

    harvy Minimodder

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    @saspro that was my initial idea, but to future proof against power cuts (ie the need to manually bring the DHCP server back online) when im not around i am hoping to do it via hardware - I think i have the basics sussed via OpenWRT on an old router, I've put up a post on there to ask for further guidance so that may be the way forward.
     
  6. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    I mean, if you're running a DHCP client under OpenWRT on an old router you're still running it in software. I don't think anyone's ever made a DHCP ASIC before.

    A Raspberry Pi will automatically reboot in the event of a power cut. The only thing you'd have to worry about is data corruption, but you could boot it from a microSD (or netboot the thing) into a read-only environment and never have to worry about that.

    But if you've already got an old router, that saves buying a Pi!
     
  7. harvy

    harvy Minimodder

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    Apologies - i meant software as in firing up a VM to run dhcp server, I have plenty of PI's dotted around the house for various functions, but the data corruption side of things/dud micro sd cards, psu's that die etc made me not want to go down that route for "core" infrastructure! - Technically yes its software running on the router, but a bit more resilient in my eyes!
     
  8. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Could always run two DHCP servers pooled. 's what I do: got one running on my NAS/general-purpose server and t'other one running on my old server until I finally get around to migrating it to a Raspberry Pi. Either one can go down for any reason and any length of time and the network'll keep ticking.
     
  9. harvy

    harvy Minimodder

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    That's interesting - will need to look into that as an option.
     

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