Homelab on myl3z.me

Homelab, step three — cutting the network into segments

Sun, 23 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Homelab, step three — cutting the network into segments#

Part two ended with a clean setup and a plan for the next step: five segments instead of one flat /16. The plan had been sitting there finished for days, with a numbered order for the rebuild evening.

Step one of that order worked. After that the network started talking back.

Why cut it up at all#

Until that evening the home network was a single room. Everything in it: the Dream Machine, the thin client running the DNS filter, phones, the work laptop, the TV, the printer, a handful of smart home devices. Every device could reach every other one directly. Not because it was configured that way somewhere, but because nothing prevented it.

Homelab, step two — who the DNS server trusts

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Homelab, step two — who the DNS server trusts#

Part one ended with Pi-hole running and the observation that a service that runs and a service that gets used are two different things. Three points were left open. Two are now done, and the third deliberately is not.

The one catch in the router#

The filter had been running for days and filtering nothing, because nobody asked it. The UDM kept handing out its own address as the nameserver over DHCP, and every device in the house went along with that — a directory sitting on the shelf while everyone keeps consulting the old one.

Homelab, Step One — A Thin Client Running Debian 13

Sun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Homelab, Step One — A Thin Client Running Debian 13#

I am building a homelab. Not a rack in the basement, but something that grows one piece at a time: one machine, one service, write it down, keep going.

The first node is a thin client. For a start that is the right class of hardware — silent, barely any power draw when running around the clock, and cheap second-hand. For the services I want on it first, it is plenty.