Will's Blog

  What follows is documentation for my home network VLAN configuration. An LLM was used to help with terminology. My focus is generally focused on the intent and sometimes that is misaligned with the common technical terms used to communicate some particular implementation. The machine is great at making that type of translation. Why do you want a VLAN?   Unless you're well versed with layer 2 networking, setting up a VLAN network is quite a tedious, so there had better be a good reason to set this thing up. I have a few reasons: Security:  I'm interested in setting up various cheap IOT devices for home automation, but I don't trust them. Putting them on a separate VLAN minimizes how much damage can be done by a rogue device.  Priority:  I also have IP Cameras generating a lot of traffic. I'd like to see how much traffic and have a way to lower its priority. More security : Any employer-managed device goes on a completely isolated network. Fun:  What ...

  This turned out to be a cautionary tale. At the beginning I was hoping to find an AI success story that demonstrated the power of how it lets you wade into the deep end of a domain and find success. It turned into a grueling week of troubleshooting rabbit holes that the AI insisted I get to the bottom of. It's a powerful thing, but it takes a mindset that I'm still trying to figure out. I have what you might call a home lab and was thinking about adding some smart home devices. After a bit of yak shaving it became clear that I needed to setup a VLAN in order to partition the traffic. While I was at it I'd setup networks for IP cameras and my work computer. Last year I switched over to a proper firewall running OPNsense, so I figured all this would be a nice exercise to get practical experience with things I was generally already familiar with. Shortly after firing up ChatGPT I had a high level plan and a better understanding of how to design a network. With a couple manag...