Diary of a Network Geek

A pretty bold statement, isn’t it?

Well, I’m not going to tell you how to build the “ultimate home network”, but, rather, suggest some things that you may want to consider to build your own, personal, “ultimate” home network.  Everyone needs something different from a home or small office network.  Some of us have side jobs that require a fair amount of data transfer or storage, like, for instance photographers.  For some of us in the IT business, having a home “test” network is almost assumed, though, perhaps not as much as it used to be in the boom days of the Internet.
I’ve been thinking about it this past week because my old BorderManager firewall finally has died.  I’m using a backup firewall at the moment, which is “good enough”, but I’ll be taking this crash as an opportunity to start rebuilding my home network from the ground up, using mainly free, open source software, starting with a Linux firewall.  In fact, I have three that I’ll be looking at and, yes, writing reviews of, in the coming weeks.  This will be an on going series of posts, too, as I evaluate software and, piece by piece, integrate it into my working, live network.  My needs will probably be different than yours, but all home networks will have some similar items and considerations.
So, what should go into your own personal, “ultimate” home network?  It depends on what you do, but here are some ideas.

The Actual Network.
Obviously, the first thing is setting up the actual, physical network.  And, in this case, by physical, I’m including wifi routers and the like.  Back in the old days, having a home network meant running cable.  That’s not as true as it used to be, but don’t just go wireless without considering at least some wired connections.  If you’re concerned about security, for instance, especially, regarding financial transactions, nothing is as secure as a wired connection.  Keep in mind, though, that at some point you still connect to an outside source to get to your bank.  Also, since most laptops have built-in wifi and have gotten so inexpensive, if you don’t already have one, consider getting a laptop.  For most people, laptops can inexpensively do everything we need to do and have the advantage of portability, so if you need to leave, say in case of a hurricane, you can take at least part of your home network with you.
There are a wide range of network switches and routers out there to choose from, but I suggest sticking with a name brand that is relatively well known and established. It’s no guarantee that you won’t have problems, but it’s a good start. I personally like Linksys and DLink brands, but there are many others that will work well, too.

Security.
Don’t forget that you need to have at least some security on that home network.  At a bare minimum, you need a firewall and some kind of antivirus.  If you’re connecting to broadband internet, either cable or DSL, most often the router they give you from the service you use has a firewall on it.  If you’re using wifi, the wifi router almost certainly has a firewall on it.  Use them!  Most importantly, actually set them up and change the default password to something else that you’ll remember but that strangers won’t guess.  If you’re not sure if you have a firewall on your network equipment, then at least use the built-in Windows firewall, but use something!
If you don’t want to spend big money on either McAfee or Norton for antivirus, good news!  You don’t have to spend anything!  Yes, that’s right, you can download AVGFree and run it for nothing at all.  So, now, what excuse do you have to not be running some kind of antivirus again?
And, please, for your own sake, use passwords.  Use hard to guess passwords, not your kids names or your birthday or even your license plate number.  In fact, try not to use dictionary words at all, or, if you do, substitute other characters for letters, like $ for S or @ for A, to make it more difficult to guess.  Also, use numbers with the letters, for the same reason.

Networked Storage.
Just having storage isn’t enough, really.  On a home network now, you may have a laptop, or two, a desktop, a DVR or any number of different networked devices that share data.  They all need to store it somewhere.  And, even if they store the data locally, they need to be backed up somewhere.  The answer is network based storage.  There are a lot of options out there, and Rick Vanover at TechRepublic has a good article on several.  I know one solution that’s popular with photographers is the Data Robotics Drobo series of devices.  I don’t have any direct experience with these, so I have no opinion on them specifically, but these days, decent network attached storage is so cheap, it would be foolish to ignore that as an option.

Virtual Server Environment.
Now, obviously, this isn’t for everyone.  Back in the day, I used to run a small, two server Novell network in my house just to keep everything fresh in my mind.  Novell isn’t always the most popular networking environment, even for hard-core network geeks like me, so I always wanted to make sure I knew how to do some of the more “interesting” and challenging things in that environment and ran a test network at home for that reason.
Now, you can do all that through virtualization.  In fact, that may be the newest buzzword that’s already worn thin on me!  But, buzzword or not, setting up a virtual test network is something that’s been talked to death in the industry, but I’ve only seen one article recently on setting up a home virtual test network.  You can read more about it in an article by Brad Bird over at TechRepublic, but, again, for those of us who work in a lot of different environments, it’s not a bad idea to make a series of virtual machines to experiment on.  There are still some hardware costs involved, of course, but there is the advantage of being able to roll back to an earlier state if something gets too screwed up.  Try that on your old-fashioned home network!

Even Fancier Stuff!
Of course, there’s almost no limit to what you can do on a home network these days.  Many inexpensive printers come with network interfaces built in, some even have wifi networking built in.  Of course, I’ve mentioned things like Windows Home Server and Linux servers here before, too.  It is, after all, what I do.  Though, with the low prices on network attached storage, I’m not sure I’d recommend that option for the average user.
And, this post hasn’t even touched on integrating any audio visual equipment into your network, or a home security system, or some of the fancier bells and whistles that are out there.  The sky, literally, is the limit.

So, the thing is, everyone will have a different idea of what the “ultimate” home network is, but these are some things to consider, and a few you don’t want to forget.

Well, I’m starting to have power issues here in Jersey Village.

Apparently, they announced on the news that Jersey Village is without power. Currently, I have power, but it’s blinked out at least twice more since I wrote about power the last time. I only know that I’m supposed to be without power because J. called to tell me. So far, I’m happy to be making the news casters at least partially liars. Not sure how long my power will hold, either, since the cable seems to be on the blink. Obviously, my DSL connection is holding up okay. That’s not a surprise, honestly, and one of the reasons I went with DSL over cable.

I probably won’t post again until morning, barring any power issues. All things being equal, I’ll end up sleeping through the worst of it. I’m going to turn down the A/C, so it gets nice and cold, in case the power goes out. At least it’ll take longer to warm up and get uncomfortable.
Either way, I know I’ll be able to make a cup of coffee!

StormAlert

Originally uploaded by Network Geek

Okay, so if somehow you haven’t been watching the news, or just don’t care about Texas, there’s a storm in the Gulf headed our way.

There are a bunch of computer models, but they’re all pointing toward Galveston and Houston. It really looks like this is going to hit us dead on this time. Oh, sure, they said the same thing about Rita a couple of years ago, but, well, let’s face it I’m just not lucky enough to miss this one, too. I mean, sure, I got out of an ugly marriage clean and I beat cancer, but I don’t think even I’m lucky enough to dodge two hurricanes pointed directly at Houston.

So, I spent the morning cleaning out my yard and cleaning off my porch. I filled the fountain, so I’d have flushing water. (I’ll show a picture of my fountain later, probably.) Then, I filled two collapsable water containers, that total five gallons together. And, I filled a five gallon SunShower, as well as my percolating coffee pot and my regular coffee maker and a tea kettle and an 18 quart pot. I’ll fill a few more containers later this evening, just in case. Last year, I kind of freaked out about having enough drinking water, so this year, I’m making sure I’m okay. Oh, and I have a hand-pump Katadyn water filter, too! So, if worse comes to worse, I can drink water from my ponds.
I’ve checked my batteries in my lantern and made sure I know were my candles all are, not to mention lighters and matches. I’ve cranked my Freeplay radio/flashlight, to make sure it has a charge. And, I have a spare battery fully charged for my camera. So, as long as I have an Internet connection, I’ll keep posting. After that, I’ll keep taking pictures to upload later.
I’ve got a load of laundry in right now and I’ll run the dishwasher after dinner, so I’ll have clean clothes and the maximum amount of clean dishes, too. I’m debating about going out and getting my tank totally topped off, as I didn’t have a chance to do that yesterday. See, I was a loyal employee and did everything I could to make sure our systems were good for the storm. You’d think I’d learn better by now, right?

Okay, the thing that drives me nuts about this Hurricane Ike coverage on the Weather Channel is that these guys are really, really hyping this all the way up to justify their own existence. I get that, but I wonder if they feel bad at all about making people panic? Do they really think they’re doing such a public service with that?

Well, since it’s before noon and the high winds aren’t supposed to start in my area until something like 7:00pm, I think I’m going to run over to my friend’s apartment and get their new DSL working for them. They don’t have cable and I’d hate for them to be cut off from communications about any storm danger or anything. Also, it’ll give me something to do. And, while I’m out if I see a gas station with gas, I might swing in and top off.

Stay tuned, readers! More pictures and posts later!

I love the smell of burnt circuits in the morning!

Actually, no, I don’t, but it was a good, catchy line. So, it turns out that, yes, my DSL router got kissed by lightning and cooked. Actually, just the DSL modem part got cooked, but that was enough to keep me from getting to the Internet. And, to add insult to injury, I also lost several network cards. So, I spent the better part of the week scrounging up network cards, testing them, findind drivers for them, and replacing dead cards at home. Saturday afternoon, I had a tech over who took all of about 10 seconds to confirm that it was, in fact, my DSL Router that had gone all crispy.
In fact, his whole visit lasted all of about 15 minutes. I wore my new Novell Cool Solutions Tip T-shirt, in lovely Hunter Green, which arrived Thursday night, just so he could see I was a real geek. He took one look at that, my Wall O’ Computer Books (most of which are terribly out of date), all the equipment laying about and basically got out of my way. He metered the line, then offered to sell me a router out of his truck. It cost at least twice what it was worth, but saved me the hassle of configuring it and let me test while he was still there. Another 10 minutes to change out the last bad network card and reconfigure my BorderManager firewall, then I was back up and running.

Actually, I did get a bit more reading done than I would have otherwise this past week. And, I was less obsessive about the new game I’m playing on-line (more about that on Friday). Still, it’s nice to have e-mail again. And, I think my wife likes having access to the ‘Net again, too. So, it’s back to wasting time as normal for us. Wee!

Well, that was exciting!

I fried two power supplies last night. And, I think either my DSL router is toasted, or two of my three PCI network cards are. Apparently, we got hit with lightning yesterday. I say “apparently” because I wasn’t there, but my wife described at “big flash and a boom” that sounded like it was “right here”. And, of course, right after that, my DSL stopped working. (So, yes, I’m posting this from the office.)
Anyway, I was up until about 1:00am troubleshooting that, but with little effect. I’ll try and scrounge a new network card at the office, but I’m not holding out much hope. Oh, and I blew the two power supplies while trying to get everything into a new machine, just to elminate that as a possibility. I finally scrapped my poor wife’s Linux machine and made it the new firewall. Unfortunately, I still can’t get it to see both network cards! Ah, well, I guess I’ll work on that tonight…

So, I have one entry in the queue and that’ll be the last one for a bit. At least until I get the firewall working again. *sigh*