Introduction IPv6 was drafted in the mid-1990s when it was realized that IPv4 addresses would quickly be exhausted due to the explosive growth of the Internet. Since the IPv4 protocol was originally a research project, approximately 4.3 billion unique IP addresses was considered more than enough. I doubt many imagined our current world where nearly everything would be connected to the Internet.
Various techniques such as assigning smaller sized networks to organizations and the utilization of NAT (Network Address Translation) helped extend the time before IPv4 addresses would be exhausted.
In my home network I wanted to set up a dedicated Pi-hole installation so that I could have network-wide ad blocking. Additionally, I could reduce the telemetry/tracking performed by applications and operating systems as well as potentially block malware. Pi-hole provides the ability to view the DNS traffic on my network on a per device basis, which may present valuable insight in detecting unusual activity on the network.
While OPNsense can be configured to provide DNS blocking, I really like the graphs and logging of Pi-hole.
Introduction If you are new to firewalls like I was when I decided to build my own router/firewall, it can take some time to fully understand and feel comfortable implementing firewall rules. Before attempting to build my own router, I tried to do my research so I would know what I was getting myself into. In particular, I read several posts and watched some videos on how to create firewall rules since that is one of the biggest reasons I was taking on such a project – to implement greater security in my home network.
Introduction For the uninitiated, VLANs are Virtual Local Area Networks. Think of them as logically separate networks that are similar in concept to physically separated networks. The biggest difference is that you do not need to put network devices on physically separate switches or other network hardware. VLANs are both economical and convenient. It is economical since you do not need to purchase extra hardware and convenient since your network devices can be physically located anywhere yet still be grouped in logically separate networks.
Introduction The Internet is full of malicious actors looking to take advantage of insecure networks and devices. While corporate and government targets may be the biggest targets because of the valuable data they possess, home users still need to be cautious. Phishing attacks usually via email is the most common attack for home users. Fortunately, those attacks are typically easy to avoid by cautious users that do not blindly click every attachment and web link contained in their emails.
