Category: Home Network

  • Logging your connectivity

    I had a message this morning from a friend who was having intermittent disconnection issues on their internet. The network itself was fine and, when using another provider, that too was working so it came down to evidence gathering to support the case to the ISP to investigate. As a quick throw together, we came […]

  • “Factory” resetting an OpenWRT router

    There are many reasons to re-flash your  home router with a different OS than the one the manufacturer has cobbled together, the Misfortune Cookie attack (US-CERT) is just one of them, Having been involved in the testing of a number of domestic xDSL routers, I have a rather low opinion on the amount of care […]

  • Reflashing a Rooted Router

    I have a couple of Open Mesh Indoor Access Points that I’ve used for various projects, the most recent of which being the provision of WiFi for our Teenage Subnet. These devices have a very cool history. Originally created under the banner of Meraki (since sold to Cisco and thenceforth diverging from its open source […]

  • XBox Live via an OpenWRT router

    One of the concerning requests of Xbox Live connectivity, is to enable UPnP or ‘Universal Plug and Play’ on your home router. The UPnP protocol has a long standing history of security problems, not the least of which being that it allows unauthenticated devices to connect to and through your home network. In the past, […]

  • UPnP – Why I don’t allow it on my Home Network

    The UPnP protocol has a long standing history of security problems, not the least of which being that it allows unauthenticated devices to connect to and through your home network. TLDR; UPnP is a flawed protocol which has been leveraged numerous times to conduct widespread attacks via large numbers of insecure devices. Do not enable […]

  • Tweaking the Home Network – pfSense Firewall [Part 2: Initial Configuration]

    Initial Configuration (via Web Browser) In the previous article, we set up (at least) two network interfaces. The first, facing the Internet (the WAN) and the second facing the internal network (the LAN). In our instance, our WAN interface will simply pass traffic onto our existing internal network, where it is subject to existing rules and management, […]

  • Tweaking the Home Network – pfSense Firewall [Part 1: Installation]

    So, now we have teenagers, I’ve realised a need to create a little more separation with our home network. The intent of this is to give them a segment of the network where they can connect their wireless devices, use the internet and allow their friends to also connect their devices when they visit. With freedom comes responsibility, so we also want to be able to enforce limits on the hours of use, conserve bandwidth, and attempt to protect them from malware and viruses. Future enhancements may include traffic reporting, content filtering – but for now we want to get them off the core network, and onto their own segment.

  • Notes from Barcamp Auckland 2010

    Barcamp Auckland is an annual gathering of developers, designers, start-ups and social-media types. It’s a full day event held in an ‘unconference’ like style, where the attendee (see my attendee & interested folks list on Twitter) set the schedule – and people turn up to discuss topics which interest them. The following are the session […]

  • Profiling my Power

    To celebrate the introduction of the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS*) in New Zealand today (1 July 2010), I thought I’d publish the following article on what I’m doing in terms of residential Power Monitoring. Read on for: The Back Story The Unboxing Installing the Device Configuring the Software Results The Back Story A few years […]

  • The Big Move: Weather Station is GO!

    Okay – after a bit of fnarkling, we’re back with Temperature, Humidity as well as that ever useful Wind and Rain data. Not only are we transmitting in elegant Flash interactivity, we’re also on Twitter – should that be your thing (note, this is currently set to tweet every 15 minutes). So – there we […]