Sarah's Catalog

Storage

  • Root and boot partitions (SSD) are automatically mounted on startup using the fstab file.
  • The root partition allocates space for a swap file.

Pi-hole

  • Pi-hole is used as a DNS sinkhole and DHCP server for my entire network
  • DNS:
  • Upstream: Google and Cloudflare (IPv4) + local DNS records → resolve domains
  • Blocklists → sink domains
  • Blocklists:
  • Steven Black
  • HaGeZi Multi Light
  • Adguard Base Filter
  • OISD (Big)
  • someonewhocares.org/host (Dan Pollock)
  • KADhosts
  • FadeMind Spam
  • WaLLy3K Static
  • WindowsSpyBlocker
  • Perflyst SmartTV-AGH
  • DHCP:
  • Pi-hole handles DHCP for all devices except for the servers and second router, which is handled by the primary router
  • Second router is used as an access point (AP)
  • The DHCP server won't conflict with the primary router because it's within a completely separate range
  • I do this to ensure my servers and router will retain their IPs if I ever have to completely reconfigure the Pi-hole
  • (Servers' IPs are already configured via Netplan, so this is just in case)

WireGuard

  • For secure remote access, I utilize WireGuard.
  • FreeDNS is the DDNS provider
  • A cron script updates the server's public IP to workaround my router's lack of support for FreeDNS
  • Split tunneling preserves bandwidth, it's configured to only allow the WireGuard peer and home subnet
  • PostUp and PostDown rules:
  • Bridges traffic between the WireGuard tunnel and home LAN
  • Masquerades WireGuard IPs with my home network's public IP or server's private IP so it can access the internet and local LAN
  • Cleans up rules whenever the WireGuard interface is removed

Terms

  • For anyone who just wants to know, here's a short recap of some of the things I discussed:
  • Subnet: a specific range of IPs on a network.
  • Domain name system (DNS): a system which allows IP addresses to be easily identifiable by pairing host names.
  • Pi-hole: a DNS sinkhole which resolves, or hands out IP addresses to a specific domain.
  • DNS sinkhole: DNS server which "sinks" specific domains by resolving them to non-routable IPs, or IPs that are a dead end.
  • Dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP): automatically assigns IP addresses within a specific range to devices on a network.
  • WireGuard: a VPN service which solely uses UDP. Compared to let's say OpenVPN, it's newer.
  • Dynamic DNS (DDNS): service which updates the public IP for a specific domain

Thanks for visiting!