https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/categories/networking.htmlHugoen-ie2026 Tiernan OTooleFri, 10 Jul 2026 23:30:52 +0100https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2025/06/11/network-upgrades-2025.htmlWed, 11 Jun 2025 22:16:56 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2025/06/11/network-upgrades-2025.htmlIt’s been just over a year since I last posted my 2024 Network Upgrade post. In that time, my network has undergone several changes. Here are the major updates: In the (hopefully not too distant) future, my cable ISP plans to upgrade from HFC (Hybrid Fiber/Coax) to full FTTH. When this happens, my speed will increase from 1Gb/50Mb to 5Gb/500Mb—and needless to say, I’ll be ordering that as soon as it’s available! This will boost the total download speed to just over 10Gb (about 10.4Gb, since Starlink tops out around 400Mb/s) and upload to 800Mb/s (with Starlink contributing 40-50Mb/s). That’s why I chose the UCG Fiber. It should handle two 5Gb incoming links, one 10Gb LAN connection, plus the Starlink connection (with IDS/IPS off, of course).https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2024/12/12/how-to-use-cloudflare-warp-with-a-udm-pro.htmlThu, 12 Dec 2024 21:25:23 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2024/12/12/how-to-use-cloudflare-warp-with-a-udm-pro.htmlIf you’re considering using Cloudflare Wrap for specific machines on your network, you can easily install the Warp client directly on them. It supports various operating systems, including Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, and Android. However, if you need to use it on devices that aren’t compatible with the client installation, for example, NAS Devices or Smart TVs, this tutorial may be helpful. First, please note that this is not an officially supported option. Cloudflare might modify their configurations at some point, potentially causing this feature to break. You have been informed about this possibility.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2024/04/29/some-network-upgrades-going-on.htmlMon, 29 Apr 2024 20:40:21 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2024/04/29/some-network-upgrades-going-on.htmlhttps://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2023/02/11/day-41-of-100daysofhomelab.htmlSat, 11 Feb 2023 22:55:33 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2023/02/11/day-41-of-100daysofhomelab.htmlGoing to be a very quick update here. Things are a little more stable at the moment. I figured out why my FTTH connection was acting up. the VM I moved it too had the default free 1Mb/s license for RouterOS. After moving my unlimited CHR license over, things have gotten better. screenshots over on my mastodon instance: So, today, not doing much other than monitoring. I am taking a day of rest and will be back tomorrow…https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2023/02/11/day-40-of-100daysofhomelab.htmlFri, 10 Feb 2023 23:03:57 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2023/02/11/day-40-of-100daysofhomelab.htmlDay 40 of #100daysofhomelab and the internet is a little more stable. Still not 100%, but “stable”. Speed test results have dropped, as you can see in the graph below, but weirdly, ping times are a little better… Download speeds. The swap over happened around the 8th Feb, 9th was pretty much a wash, 10th things got a bit better… Upload Speeds. less spikey upload speeds, but also less upload speed…https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2023/02/09/day-38-and-39-of-100daysofhomelab.htmlThu, 09 Feb 2023 22:31:52 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2023/02/09/day-38-and-39-of-100daysofhomelab.htmlthis post is for day 38 and 39 of #100daysofhomelab. and i have finally moved over to my #RB5009. and, well, it has not gone so well. It has rebooted a few times due to memory issues (too many BGP tables being held, so I shut a few down to start with. some cleanup needed there), then the internet connections are a little unstable, and, well, in the last 48 hours, I have spent more time on LTE than on proper internet. It does seem to be working (ish.) now, but not as fast as it was. I am just using the #Zerotier link, so the #Wireguard links are currently off. Anyway, below are some links. I hope to make things work better tomorrow. And i also hope to have a better write up soon too…https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2023/02/04/day-31-of-100daysofhomelab.htmlFri, 03 Feb 2023 23:55:03 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2023/02/04/day-31-of-100daysofhomelab.htmlDay 31 of #100daysofhomelab and I am going through the config from my CHR to bring over to my RB5009, and, well, I have no idea what I was doing when I built the original config… Now to try and figure out what the config did, since I want to document it here so I know what I was thinking, but to also possibly help someone else… Mind you, at this stage, it won’t be much help… I also need to figure out how to add my Zerotier Bridge into the mix.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2022/06/18/dnscontrol-and-github-actions.htmlSat, 18 Jun 2022 18:32:24 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2022/06/18/dnscontrol-and-github-actions.htmlI am participating in the #100daysofhomelab challenge and have been posting a lot on Twitter as @tiernano, but some posts and tasks I am doing will require longer-form write-ups. So, some updates will include either Videos (which will be published on my Youtube Channel) or blog posts, which will go here. This is the first of the blob posts.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2022/04/25/unifi-network-update-7-1-61.htmlMon, 25 Apr 2022 21:58:58 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2022/04/25/unifi-network-update-7-1-61.htmlA few weeks back, Ubiquiti released a pre-release update for the Unifi Network Controller, version 7.1.61. It got installed on my UDM and I noticed a few interesting bits that you might find handy… First, you will need to be signed up for Unifi Early Access before you can download or even read the release notes, but this is just a quick update based on my findings so far.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2022/02/25/running-a-raspberry-pi-in-a-car-and-backing-up-dashcam-footage.htmlThu, 24 Feb 2022 23:45:39 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2022/02/25/running-a-raspberry-pi-in-a-car-and-backing-up-dashcam-footage.htmlA few months back (well, November 2020) I wrote about connecting to my car with Zerotier. In this post, I mentioned using a TP-Link router running OpenWRT and a Huawei LTE dongle to connect to the internet, which allowed me to then connect to my Blackvue Dashcam and watch remotely. But it had some issues I wanted to fix:https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2021/11/07/ubiquiti-udm-pro-fail-over-to-speedify.htmlSun, 07 Nov 2021 21:46:59 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2021/11/07/ubiquiti-udm-pro-fail-over-to-speedify.htmlSo, this has been a blog post in the making for a while now but never got around to fully writing it up, so here goes nothing… I run a UDM Pro in the house. It has 2 WAN Links: 1 1Gb link and 1 10Gb Link. I also run AS204994, my own ASN with its own Transit and Peering connections, mostly in Europe. There is a VM in the house which acts as a connection to AS204994, which gives me a full connection to the Internet through my own ASN. More details on my AS204994 blog are here.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2020/11/09/connecting-to-my-car-over-zerotier.htmlMon, 09 Nov 2020 19:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2020/11/09/connecting-to-my-car-over-zerotier.htmlI use ZeroTier on my network for a good few things, including internal network peering between BGP VMs, management of machines, and now, connecting to my car over LTE. This is one of those posts that sounds silly, but is very handy! First, the parts list: Car. 3G/4G/5G modem of some sort. I am using a Huawei Wingle. Can be used without the Router below, but I wanted Zerotier, so I have it in modem only mode. A router that supports Zerotier. I am using a modified TP-Link TL-WR703N upgraded to 16MB ROM and 64MB RAM. This is required for newer OpenWRT builds a dashcam that connects over Wifi. I am using a BlackVue DR750S-2CH Latest ROOter software from Of Modems and Men Patients. After installing the the latest copy of ROOter on the TPLink (or router of your choice) and getting the modem configured correctly (this took a while) you need to install the Zerotier software though the dashboard. Once installed, I joined my Zerotier network using the CLI (SSH into the router) and the approved it though the my.zerotier.com dashboard. Once its approved and connected, you can now go to the Zerotier IP and get to the router directly. From here, you can either setup a route in Zerotier to point at the internal network behind the router, or, in my case, setup a SSH tunnel to the dashcam. I found the IP given to the dashcam and used SSH forwarding to get to it. Finally, i used the URLs from Digital-Nebula’s hackview repo to get to the different URLs. I use this to download stuff like GPS logs, emergency videos, etc. I have to clean up some scripts at some stage for this, and plan to upload them at some stage.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2020/10/15/domain-joining-a-machine-over-vpn-and-password-resets-changes-with-azure-ad.htmlThu, 15 Oct 2020 13:44:35 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2020/10/15/domain-joining-a-machine-over-vpn-and-password-resets-changes-with-azure-ad.htmlWith the whole Work From Home thing probably becoming more and more normal in the years to come (I can count on 2 hands how many times I have physically been in my main office in the last 7 months) there are a couple of certainties in that people will come up against. One is passwords expiring and needing to be changed, one is password resets being required and finally laptops or desktops needing to be domain joined or connected to the domain before they can be fully provisioned. As the (currently only) IT guy in our office, I have had to deal with these first hand, and decide to write this post, helping both my fellow employees, and possibly other IT Admins stuck in this challenge.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2019/04/18/network-update-info-april-2019.htmlThu, 18 Apr 2019 17:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2019/04/18/network-update-info-april-2019.htmlSo, this post has been a long time coming! A load of different things to talk about, so lets get started! GodBox V3 So, for a long time, I have been thinking about GodBoxV3, the replacement to GodBoxV2. And when planning this, i had some ideas of what it should be: Minimum of 2×16 cores (double godboxv2) About the same RAM, if not more FAST STORAGE! Is able to run my twin 30" 4K monitors Would like 10Gb/s NICs Well, It finally happened! I got the machine, built it and, well, its impressive! How did i do with specs? Well…https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2018/09/06/adding-a-netgear-lb2120-to-the-homelab.htmlThu, 06 Sep 2018 15:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2018/09/06/adding-a-netgear-lb2120-to-the-homelab.htmlA few months back, Three Ireland came out with an LTE broadband offer: Unlimited* LTE broadband for EUR30 per month. It did come with a 18 month contract, but I pulled the trigger and got it as a backup link. I picked this up in the local Three store, and they had a couple of options for modems: a couple of Huawei mobile Wifi hotspots (E5573 or E5577) or a Huawei B525 Modem, which is designed for home use. Alternatively, there was a Sim only option, but given the modem was free with the contact, i went with the B525.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2018/04/01/as204994-own-ip-space-and-anycast.htmlSun, 01 Apr 2018 22:55:06 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2018/04/01/as204994-own-ip-space-and-anycast.htmlSo, if you are reading this page, it is being delivered with the magic of Anycast. Well, technically, it was before, since i used Cloudflare, and it still is because of Cloudflare, but also because of my own ASN (As204994), some servers in different locations, and some magic, which i will explain a bit of in this post. This all started late last year when i got my hands on an ASN and a /48 block of IPv6 addresses. I had been reading stuff about BGP, routing, etc, and decided to go all in. it was quite cheap with the help of HostUS. All in, it was about $50 for the year. As part of the process, i needed 2 upstream providers to say they would accept my announcement. They were Hurricane Electric though their Tunnel Broker service, and Vultr using a few of their VPSs.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2017/05/05/zerotier-and-minio-followup.htmlFri, 05 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2017/05/05/zerotier-and-minio-followup.htmlin a previous post, I talked about setting up a distributed S3 like data storage system using Minio and ZeroTier. Well, this week, the ZeroTier guys tweeted about this. A few people then started asking questions, and looking for a follow up, so here it is. First, a quick recap. I had 4 machines, all running Linux. Three of them were in 1 time zone (GMT+1) and one was in another (GMT). Looking at the Distributed Minio Quickstart Guide again, there is a mention of times being in sync. which is probably why this did not work as planned. and by “not work as planed”, I mean that Minio would crash, or not be responsive, or not write data in the place it should have. which was a pain. But looking at the documentation again, they do mention that Windows support is “experimental” which means, hopefully, some day it will be not so experimental, and might work. Given that most of my machines in house are Windows boxes, this would be a nice feature.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2017/01/19/distributed-s3-data-storage-using-minio-and-zerotier.htmlThu, 19 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2017/01/19/distributed-s3-data-storage-using-minio-and-zerotier.htmlSo, something i have been looking into in recient times has been Distributed Storage, and, more specifically, how to use the storage in my many, many machines to protect data, and also increese my usable space… There are a few projects on the market that do this (Ceph, NooBaa and Gluster all spring to mind) but some are more painful to setup than others… which brings me nicely to Minio. Minio is a 20ish MB executable you download from their site, mark it as executable (on Linux or Mac Boxes) and run… and you have yourself a S3 compatable storage server… Simples!https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/09/14/cloud-desktop-becoming-a-reality.htmlWed, 14 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/09/14/cloud-desktop-becoming-a-reality.htmlI have talked about the theory of the “Cloud desktop” twice on my older blog (Rackspace’s Hosted Virtual Desktop and More on the desktop in the cloud) way back since 2011. Since then, a few things have changed: Amazon have released AWS Workspaces, which is a cloud based desktop using Teradici’s PCoIP technology Both EC2 and Azure now have GPU enabled VMs to spin up and use NVidia have released NVidia Grid cards, specifically for the “cloud” or “remote” desktop services. Windows Continuum now allows you to use your Windows Phone with a keyboard, monitor and mouse, allowing you to replace your desktop. basically, plug your continuum enabled phone into a docking station, and use it as a Windows Desktop. Email, Browsing, Office Apps, etc. anything that supports UWP. and now VMWare has just released a Windows UWP app that works with Continuum With all the increased bandwidth for mobile devices (4 and 5G, expanding wifi, etc) the idea of having your desktop live in the cloud is getting nearer… interesting times, my friend… interesting times…https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/07/20/double-speed-internet-part-9-going-back.htmlWed, 20 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/07/20/double-speed-internet-part-9-going-back.html[NOTE] This part 9 in a series of posts. The rest can be found here Well, the double internet experiment is about ready to be finished. After 9 posts, 4 months, lots of sweating, many painful nights trying to figure out why something stopped using, shouting when Netflix did not work, wondering why my internet connection was so slow, and many, many other problems, i have decided to wind down the project. in the last 9 posts, i have learned a lot, and i hope i have helped someone figure out some stuff on their end. Even though this is a wind up of the project, there are still new things i have to share.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/06/20/meraki-and-ubiquiti-networks-gear-update.htmlMon, 20 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/06/20/meraki-and-ubiquiti-networks-gear-update.htmlIn part 6 of my Double Internet Series I mentioned i was running a Meraki MX64 in the network, and said i would write up about it. I am taking this opportunity to also write up about the Ubiquiti networks gear in the house also. First on the list is my older Ubiquiti Edgerouter POE. It currently in the process of being decommissioned, or used for something else. It was the main edge router for the network: it had both internet connections connected, and did routing, firewalls, etc, but with the Proliant taking over as a router, it is not required as much any more. Its still on, mainly because its still a DHCP server, but not much else. There are 2 Meraki MS220-8 switches next. GodBox1 and Godbox2 both connect in here, and are bonded, as is everything else on the network. The MS220-8 has 8 GigE ports, but also has 2 SFP ports. I bought 4 SFP Ethernet adapters and have a short calbe running between the switches. That uplink is also bonded. All going well so far! All Meraki hardware can be managed though the Meraki dashboard. check out their site for more details and examples of how to use it. I bought one of the MS220’s from eBay a few months back, and loved it. Then i realized that you can get your hands on free gear, the MX64, an MS220 and a Wi-Fi Access point if you attend their webinars. Terms and conditions apply, but check them out! I have 2 Ubiquiti UniFi APs, one in the front of the house, one in the back. They are connected to one of the MS220’s, but dont work with its POE (maybe the EdgeRouter could do that, since its POE.) so there are injectors for them. Anyway, the network ports on there are VLANed to the MX64 (more on that later) and the default traffic is going to a management VLAN. The MX64 has a static internal IP on my DMZ network, and uses the Proliant as an upstream connection. Upstream on the Hetzner server, all traffic coming from the MX64 ip uses one of my /29 ip block. all traffic to that ip is also forwarded directly to the MX64. I has 2 small, unmanaged switches (a cheap 8 port Linksys and a 8 port TP Link) which are used for separate things: the Linksys has 4 Raspberry Pi’s, which run a GlusterFS cluster, plugged into it and the TP Link connects to my printers. I also have a Mikrotik CRS226-24G-2S+IN which has 2 10Gbit SFP+ Ports, and plan on using this for higher speed networking soon, aswell as a Cisco 48 port 3560 which also has 4 SFP ports (GigE) and may come in handy for something soon. So, thats the network currently. any questions, please leave a comment.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/06/08/double-speed-internet-part-8-routing-around.htmlWed, 08 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/06/08/double-speed-internet-part-8-routing-around.html[NOTE] This part 8 in a series of posts. The rest can be found here. At the end of my last post I asked the question about routing traffic to different servers based on thier distances, etc… Well, after a bit of messing, i can say it kind of works! here is a quick over view: server in the house has now got multiple OpenVPN connections (2 to Hetzner, 1 to OVH (with a plan to double), 1 to Digital Ocean (again, to be doubled) and i am planning 2 to Azure as well). Quagga/Zebra has static routes (currently static, planing on dynamic soon… more eventually) to different servers depending on where they are. for example, all traffic to the hetzner network (including their Storage Boxes) go though the hetzner link. Hubic traffic goes though OVH, Azure (currently) and AWS traffic, aswell as some CDNs go direct over either WAN1 or WAN2 in the house, and some other stuff (CrashPlan currently) goes though Digital Ocean. Everything that has no static route goes though Hetzner… Ideally, the static side of things should be removed, and a more dynamic setup done. How that works, i have no idea… Spotify have 2 posts about their SDN Internet Router (part 1 and part 2) which is an interesting idea… More digging and research is required. So, there you have it. Everything currently seems to be working, mostly, and tweaks can be made easily… I have a couple posts i have in my head, including something to do with automating bringing up new machines (probably with Ansible or something like it), more monitoring, and some other stuff too… Any questions, leave a comment, and i will get back.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/05/31/double-speed-internet-part-7-ecmp-kind-of.htmlTue, 31 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/05/31/double-speed-internet-part-7-ecmp-kind-of.html[NOTE] This part 7 in a series of posts. The rest can be found here. In the last post I mentioned I am now using Hetzner for hosting a dedicated box. Thats still live, and going well. I have a /29 IP range (6 usable) and also 2 other IPs. So far, so good… But because i was using a Socks Server, I was not fully able to use the /29 ips… I use something like as follows:https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/05/17/double-speed-internet-part-6-hetzner-edition.htmlTue, 17 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/05/17/double-speed-internet-part-6-hetzner-edition.html[NOTE] This part 6 in a series of posts. The rest can be found here. Its been a while, since I posted, and there are some, well, pretty major changes since the last time… Lets start are the beginning. Last time I was using Digital Ocean for my hosting provider. I was using their $20 a month server (2 cores, 2GB RAM, 40GB SSD, 3TB transfer), and it was all good… But I noticed that every now and again I would need to reboot the box. I also noticed that when transferring large files or using higher bandwidth (400mb/s+) the 100% of both cores were being used. So, I wanted to move to something with more power…https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/04/21/mad-max-speed-the-road-warrior-internet-connection-double-speed-internet-part-5.htmlThu, 21 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/04/21/mad-max-speed-the-road-warrior-internet-connection-double-speed-internet-part-5.html[NOTE] This part 5 in a series of posts. The rest can be found here. This post is going to be an update and theoretical post. probably very little “new” stuff going on here, mostly updates, and what I am planning on doing later on. This week, I have been OOF sick, so I have not done much work, but I have been surfing the web, watching videos, downloading stuff, etc., so I have an idea of how things are going. First, as mentioned in the previous post I have MPTCP, Squid, Socks Servers, OpenVPN and IPTables doing their magic. 2 OpenVPN tunnels between the house and Digital Ocean. All TCP Traffic (bar port 80) is sent over socks to the box in the cloud using RedSocks. All UDP traffic is sent direct over OpenVPN. Since MPTCP is in the mix, all socks traffic is actually split over the 2 connections. All port 80 traffic, and 443 (if the client is using local Squid as their proxy) is sent round-robin between the 2 upstream IPs to Squid (2 OpenVPN end points).https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/04/14/2-cable-modems-double-speed-part-4.htmlThu, 14 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/04/14/2-cable-modems-double-speed-part-4.html[NOTE] This part 4 in a series of posts. The rest can be found here. So, this week I went in a completely different direction that I have been thinking recently. So, the basic theory is as follows: I am still using MPTCP kernels on both upstream and local machine now have 2 P2P UDP OpenVPN tunnels between house and cloud. Example config is here all TCP traffic (bar port 80) that hits the router in house is redirected to RedSocks RedSocks uses a socks server, Dante, as an upstream server on the cloud box since the socks traffic is over TCP (inside the UDP OpenVPN tunnel) it uses MPTCP having socks running, gives me quite the download speed, turning it off does not, hence the following tweet I am also noticing that I am starting to hit the limits of my upstream VM. If downloading or uploading at speed, the processor cores (2 in the case of the box I am currently running) are pegged at pretty much 100% full. Well, 80ish, but that because the other 20% is being used by Dante. I am noticing I can hit a full 72Mbit/s up, but the max currently downloading is about 400, maybe 450. Need a faster box now. I mentioned port 80 not being set over socks. That’s because its redirected to Squid. Squid (in house) then uses Squid (in cloud) as a parent. There are 2 round-robin parents for squid, one on each OpenVPN connection IP address. all other traffic (UDP, ICMP, etc.) are sent over the OpenVPN connection. currently only one is picked, but I have a cunning plan. The cunning plan? Well, if I am reading the internet correctly, and I would like to think I am, I think ECMP, or Equal Cost Multi-Path Routing, could help. Again, it’s a fledgling idea currently, and I am still reading the documentation, but if it works. Well. I not sure. let’s see.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/04/02/2-cable-modems-double-speed-part-3.htmlSat, 02 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/04/02/2-cable-modems-double-speed-part-3.html[NOTE] This part 3 in a series of posts. The rest can be found here. In Part 1 of this series I explained the why and what I wanted to do for this “project”. In Part 2 I did some basic testing of both MPTCP and MLVPN. I also mentioned trying MMPPP using vtund but it has been a while since I did that testing, and it had not been on bare metal. So, this post is a follow up, where I am using bare metal.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/03/30/mptcp-ssh-squid-openvpn-and-2-cable-modems-double-speed-not-quite-part-2.htmlWed, 30 Mar 2016 20:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/03/30/mptcp-ssh-squid-openvpn-and-2-cable-modems-double-speed-not-quite-part-2.html[NOTE] This part 2 in a series of posts. The rest can be found here. In my previous post I explained what i was trying to do… This post explains what i have been working on recently, and performance results… So, first, what have i tried… There are 3 different things i have tried, and here are some of their details. Some will need to be updated (other parts of this series), and others i will try get back to eventually.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/03/22/2-cable-modems-double-internet-speed-well-not-really-part-1.htmlTue, 22 Mar 2016 18:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2016/03/22/2-cable-modems-double-internet-speed-well-not-really-part-1.html[NOTE] This part 1 in a series of posts. The rest can be found here. First, a bit of background, and then I will explain what I am currently running in Part 2… For the last 15 or so years, I have had at least 2 internet connections in to the house… 2 of them have always been Cable Modems from NTL, which became UPC, and now is Virgin Media. When I started, i think the modems where 150/50kbit/s and 600/150kb/s, and have steadily increased in speed, currently at 360/36Mbit/s each… But they have always been somewhat separate, and single thread downloads have always been limited to 1 of the connections… I have been looking for ways around this for years…https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/09/30/edge-router-sophos-utm-dmz-and-lan-networks.htmlWed, 30 Sep 2015 20:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/09/30/edge-router-sophos-utm-dmz-and-lan-networks.htmlI have been using an EdgeRouer POE as my main router for most of the network (some of the network still uses PFSense as a router, but thats being removed soon) for the last few weeks, and i am quite happy with it. I also have a second router, a Sophos UTM VM between my first LAN (essentially a DMZ) and my client LAN (there will be more “LANs” over there soon). The Client LAN is NATed between the DMZ and the LAN, which means anything on the LAN i want to access from the DMZ has to be port forwarded… Ideally, not much from the LAN should be accessible though the DMZ, but in my initial setup, stuff like Plex, etc, is…https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/08/05/ubiquiti-edgerouter-poe-in-the-lab.htmlWed, 05 Aug 2015 21:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/08/05/ubiquiti-edgerouter-poe-in-the-lab.htmlToday, my Ubiquiti EdgeRouter POE arrived in the house. I got it hooked up to both UPC connections (as secondary connections) and all seems to be working grand. Some notes i wanted to put up here: out of the box, the install was quite simple. set my Ethernet connection to a static ip in the 192.168.1.x/24 range, using 192.168.1.1 as gateway and dns, and then point at http://192.168.1.1 for admin. login (ubit for both username and password) and heay presto. I was asked did i agree to the license, and then im in. by default, NAT is off… i turned it on, and enabled DNS and was able to surf. I also noticed the software was out of date… Oddly, there did not seem to be an option to update automatically, but you can manually download the tar and upload it, which i did. so far, so good… not sure yet if i will be using it as my main router, but it may end up being a VoIP router. Finally, speed test result below:https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/05/30/pfsense-with-multiple-public-ips.htmlSat, 30 May 2015 17:50:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/05/30/pfsense-with-multiple-public-ips.htmlSo, a few weeks back, i got my hands on a Hetzner Dedicated box. It has a quad core Xeon, 32Gb ram, 3x3Tb hdds, RAID controller and KVMoIP. one of the first thing i did was get myself a /29 IP pool (8 total, 6 usable IPs). There where already 3 IPs given to me: 1 for the KVM, one for the box itself, and 1 as the router for the IP block.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/05/20/quick-tip-for-internet-facing-esxi-servers.htmlWed, 20 May 2015 07:12:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/05/20/quick-tip-for-internet-facing-esxi-servers.htmlQuick tip for all you with internet facing VMWare ESXi Hosts. I have just got my hands on a box on the Hetzner network (more on that later) and using their LARA system i installed ESXi on it. All was good, then I tried login in a couple hours later and i kept getting errors about my password being wrong… So, i tried a few more times, got pissed off and rebooted the box (had to do a hard reboot, since i couldn’t even get in over KVM). I though this was a hardware issue, or a config issue, and left it… yesterday, i had the console open most of the day, and when looking at something i noticed this:https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/05/10/vlans-wifi-and-mikrotik.htmlSun, 10 May 2015 17:40:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/05/10/vlans-wifi-and-mikrotik.htmlAbout a month ago, while i was recovering from surgery, i attended a Webinar on Cisco Meraki devices. After the webinar, i was contacted by Maraki and given a MR18 with a 3 year license, to play with and evaluate. So, i set it up in the house and all was good. Thing is, the wifi in the house was grand previously. I have a Routerboard RB951G which does the job and has no issues. And because i am mostly offsite in the office i work, and because i need to remotely manage the network, the MR18 is going into the office from tomorrow morning. I may talk about the MR18 and the rest of the Meraki gear later on, but this is not that post. This post is about something the MR18 did, and i wanted to do on the RB951.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/05/07/using-git-and-route53-together.htmlThu, 07 May 2015 19:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/05/07/using-git-and-route53-together.htmlso, earlier on today, i was talking about using Git with a DNS service called LuaDNS to update your DNS records. Well, thing is, i have 30+ domains registered, and of them about 25 are hosted on Amazon’s Route53. So, moving ALL of them seems, well at the moment, excessive… So, i went digging… there is a tool called cli53 which will allow you to manage route53 objects from the command line. It can also export your zones to BIND format and then re-import them if you have made changes… This all came out of a blog post by the guys and gals at netguru who showed how they integrate their DNS records with their Continuous Integration… Now, i have not gotten to that stage, just yet, but its only 1 step more down the road… but I don’t have my zones in bind format… So, how do i do that?https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/05/07/git-push-dns.htmlThu, 07 May 2015 14:30:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/05/07/git-push-dns.htmlThere are now a lot of services that have “git push” options available… you can build websites with Azure and Github, books using ShareLaTeX and now, DNS using LuaDNS. I have one zone running at the moment (tiernanotoole.net) and you can see the DNS records on github here. I am tempted at moving other records over soon… but i am currently on Amazon Route53 and 1: its works, so dont break it, and 2, not sure how to bulk export records from Route53 to Bind or Lua format.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/03/31/hubic-openstack-swift-and-curl.htmlTue, 31 Mar 2015 21:40:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/03/31/hubic-openstack-swift-and-curl.htmlHubiC is an online storage site, built by the guys at OVH. They are currently offering 30Gb free (if you use the link above) or if you pay, you get 110Gb (insted of the usual 100Gb) for EUR1 a month, or 10.5TB (yup… TERABYTES!) for EUR5 a month… Thats a crazy amount of storage for a not crazy amount of money! So, while playing around with different things, I found they have an API, so other than the usual apps to play with (like the Hubic Apps for iPhone, Android, Windows Phone, Windows Desktop and OSX, Duplicity for backing up *nix boxes, and a few others) you can build your own…https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/02/15/mobile-phone-as-a-service.htmlSun, 15 Feb 2015 20:47:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2015/02/15/mobile-phone-as-a-service.htmlAfter my post about the Raspberry Pi acting as a VoIP server, and being able to add a 3G Dongle and allowing it to act as a Mobile Phone gateway, it got me thinking… Why not have something that allows you to rent a mobile phone number in a country, send and recieve text messages, phone calls, etc, all from anywhere in the world? Thats where Mobile Phone as a Service comes in…https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/12/20/ipv6-firewall-rules-for-mikrotik-routeros.htmlThu, 20 Dec 2012 10:09:06 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/12/20/ipv6-firewall-rules-for-mikrotik-routeros.htmlAfter yesterday’s post on IPv6 Networking in the house, I realized that all machines internally had publically facing IPv6 addresses! I started to panic, then went looking online, and found the following script: This script, when run on your RouterOS board, will allow Established and Related connections, allow outgoing connections, and drop anything incoming that has not been requested… so, now everything inside the network should be more secured… I am new to this IPv6 stuff, so I am still learning… but, i am getting there…https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/12/19/ipv6-mikrotik-linux-windows.htmlWed, 19 Dec 2012 15:24:07 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/12/19/ipv6-mikrotik-linux-windows.htmlI have been wanting to setup an IPv6 network for a while now, but never had the hardware or network to support it. My broadband Modem, a Cisco EPC3925, was pretty useless… But with the advent of Bridging on the Cisco EPC3925 it now works! The first thing i needed to do was setup a Tunnel Broker Account with Hurricane Electric. I got a /64 block of IPv6 addresses, which should do me for a while… 🙂https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/11/22/moving-your-tmg-sql-server-logs-db-and-other-tmg-tips.htmlThu, 22 Nov 2012 07:27:55 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/11/22/moving-your-tmg-sql-server-logs-db-and-other-tmg-tips.htmlIn house, I have been using Microsoft TMG 2010 Server for a while now. I use it as a firewall for some of the machines on the network, and also as a proxy for most, if not all, machines. When acting as a Firewall, all traffic flows though the machine, be it HTTP/HTTPS, SMTP/POP3/IMAP, or anything for that matter. You can also lock down ports on the box, which is a feature of most firewalls, but i like TMG due to its relitive ease of use…https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/10/26/wanproxy-and-squid-with-upstream-servers.htmlFri, 26 Oct 2012 13:14:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/10/26/wanproxy-and-squid-with-upstream-servers.htmlIn my previous post on WANProxy, i did not really go into detail about what it actually was. The direct quote from their site is WANProxy is a free, portable TCP proxy which makes TCP connections send less data, which improves TCP performance and throughput over lossy links, slow links and long links. This is just what you need to improve performance over satellite, wireless and WAN links. This is something that has interested me for a while, so i have been looking into it, and so far so good. In my last post i mentioned i was proxying Squid traffic, in todays post, i still am, but with some tweaks.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/10/12/routeros-using-host-names-in-firewall-rules.htmlFri, 12 Oct 2012 07:43:17 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/10/12/routeros-using-host-names-in-firewall-rules.htmlAs a follow-up to yesterday’s post on RouterOS Blocking Machine access to all but one IP, I thought I would show how to add extra IPs to that list, without having a shedload of firewall filters. First things first, get your list of IPs you allow access to. In my case, I just did an NSLOOKUP on the name and got the IPs. Create an “Address List” in RouterOS. This can be done on the Web Interface by going to IP / Firewall / Address List and clicking Add. I had none previously, so I created a new rule, naming it ExpressVPN (the lads I use for VPN access) and added the first address. this is where things get interesting. for extra IP (for ExpressVPN, I have 4) you create a new address with the SAME name, but different IP. in your firewall rule, you should have either an src address or a dst address. in my case, I had both, but this was a change for the dst address. I removed the address from the rule, and I added it as a dst address list entry. If you have multiple address lists, you will see them here. to do this at the command prompt:https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/10/11/routeros-blocking-machine-access-to-all-but-one-ip.htmlThu, 11 Oct 2012 13:09:20 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/10/11/routeros-blocking-machine-access-to-all-but-one-ip.htmlSo, I have a machine on my network, which should be only connecting to the internet through a VPN. I needed to tell my RouterOS box to block all access, except to this said IP address. The following should do the trick. YMMV this will drop any packets from the srcaddress (IP address) that are not for the destination dstaddress (IP address). in my case, dstaddress is the VPN server I want to connect to. So, in theory, all packets should just go through the VPN and not leak out into the rest of the network. again, still testing this so be careful!https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/10/02/enabling-true-bridging-modem-on-a-cisco-ecp3925-cable-modem-upc-ireland.htmlTue, 02 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/10/02/enabling-true-bridging-modem-on-a-cisco-ecp3925-cable-modem-upc-ireland.htmlI am a UPC Ireland customer, and have 2 cable modems into the house, both Cisco EPC3925s. These are not exactly great modems for power users, but are grand for normal use. Me, however, being a poweruser wanted something a little more, how should I put it, powerful. A couple of months back, a tutorial was posted on Boards.ie which showed you How to enable “bridging” on your UPC modem. When i say “Bridging”, they used DMZ, turned off firewalls, static IPs internally, turned off WiFi and DHCP, etc. It worked, quite well actually, but was “odd”. Today, however, there is a new tutorial Enabling REAL bridging on a Cisco EPC3925. I have tried this, and so far, it works! now just to set my router to work correctly, and update my IPs if they change.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/09/27/more-voip-stuff.htmlThu, 27 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/09/27/more-voip-stuff.htmlAs part of my ongoing plan to upgrade the house to VoIP, and as a follow up to my first VoIP stuff post, here are some more things i have found. I have added SipDiscount and SipGate for making and recieving calls. SipDiscount allows me to set pretty much any number as my Caller ID, as long as i “own” that number (they either text or call you with a code, and you enter it on their site). They also allow me to make cheap calls to Irish Mobiles (check their rates here) SipGate gave me a incoming UK phone number. Its an 0845 number, which I dont know what that means. but it was free, so its all good. Not sure if i can recieve text messages on it though. I have a Blueface account, which gives me an Irish 076 VoIP number. 076 is the standard VoIP number here in Ireland. I have a IpKall number, which is based in Washington State. You need to recieve a call on this line at least once every 30 days to keep it active. My Google Voice accepts calls and forwards them to my IpKall number, which then rings my BlueFace SIP account (since i know they will be up all the time, by my home server may be offline since i am only testing) which, if a SIP device is connected, will forward it again. if i am offline, or no sip devices are active, that call is redirected to voice mail. Its all very complicated at the moment, but the plan will be that any incoming calls should go directly to the machine in house, which will ring the desk phone and any other SIP clients. Any incoming PSTN calls will also do the same. Outgoing calls will depend on the dialing plan, which i still need to figure out, but the theory goes as follows:https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/09/24/microtik-routeros-vpn-setup.htmlSun, 23 Sep 2012 23:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/09/24/microtik-routeros-vpn-setup.htmlI have been running a MikroTik RouterBoard in the house for a couple of months now (the RB750G) and I am very much loving the thing. But one thing you may need to do is setup VPN connections… Here are some tips on how to create a VPN Server and Client on your RouterBoard. ##Client Setup to setup a client, you need to do the following: What does that all do? the first line creates an l2tp-client interface, pointing at “servername” with the username and password set. encryption, etc is enabled… Line 2 then enables the client. Line 3 sets all traffic comming from networkaddress/24 (for example, 192.168.0.1/24) to be sent though the VPN. any traffic going into networkaddress (same example) is not sent though the VPN. Line 4 creates a gateway, for all addresses (0.0.0.0/0) to use the VPN address. finally, NAT Masquerading is enabled on the VPN interface.https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/09/17/ssh-tunneling-made-simple.htmlSun, 16 Sep 2012 23:00:00 +0000https://www.tiernanotoole.ie/2012/09/17/ssh-tunneling-made-simple.htmlSomething I do on a regular basis is use the internet while “out and about”. This could be college, which has a semi open network, or it could be a coffee shop, which also usually has a semi open connection. There is also the possibility of using the a mobile internet connection on my iPhone, which can be slow, but at least its only shared with me… Anyway, over on RevSys.com, there is a post SSH Tunneling made simple which shows you how to open an SSH tunnel to your machine somewhere else (could be at home, as is my case, or a VPS/Dedicated server somewhere, or even on Amazon…) and use that for different things… In the case he shows, its for SMTP access. For my case, i am forwarding my local port 3128 to my Microsoft TMG 2010 Server in house on port 8080. Then my system proxy on my laptop is set to use localhost:3128 for all web and HTTPS requests. Very handy. One other tip: Using the -C flag, so your command may look like: