Being an indie dev with a pihole setup has been tough - I’ve gotta turn it off a lot for various client projects
When you get enough established paying clients, consider firewalling work gear from home gear.
My client work computers are not my personal computers. My client computers have their own router that is separate from my personal router. At one time I had my personal internet on cable, and my clients on DSL, but unfortunately that's not possible where I am now.
I get a lot of peace of mind from knowing the two are isolated from one another. The only thing they share is a desk. But when work time is done, client laptops go into the closet. Helps with the work-home balance, which is harder working from home.
Any particular reason you don't just use VLANs? It sounds like you're describing a textbook case for them. Nearly any routing software should have a firewall too and the whole point is handling layer 3. Even for purely your own stuff segmenting off various devices into their own subnets can still be handy. If you want you even with a single WAN connection you could do something like get a cheap $5/mo VPS|droplet|etc, run wireguard on it, then route all traffic from a given VLAN through it. That'd give you similar WAN isolation.
Because the router I own is better than the router I don't own.
Further, everything you describe is a bunch of complexity I don't need in my life. My time is too valuable to spend fiddling with configurations every time some piece of kit does a software update.
The way I do it, I plug a wireless router into one ISP, and a different wireless router into another ISP, and I'm done with it. Simple and clean. I'd rather spend my time with my family than "handling layer 3."
Appreciate the reply and everyone has their own circumstances. But it doesn't sound like you've actually considered it or know anything about it which I guess is the basic answer to my question.
Because the router I own is better than the router I don't own.
That's obviously not necessarily true. By this logic all upgrades for all time are pointless. Why get a better CPU/GPU/SSD? "The CPU/GPU/SSD I own is better than the CPU/GPU/SSD I don't own" after all. Except it's not, hence the interest in upgrading.
Further, everything you describe is a bunch of complexity I don't need in my life.
Your setup sounds much, much more complicated actually.
My time is too valuable to spend fiddling with configurations every time some piece of kit does a software update.
This isn't actually a thing. If anything, a core reason for using VLANs is precisely being able to just have any system at all and plug it in/join network and have it all be isolated and routing the right place with zero configuration.
The way I do it, I plug a wireless router into one ISP, and a different wireless router into another ISP, and I'm done with it. Simple and clean.
Sounds complex and PITA, not least because it requires multiple ISPs and associated infrastructure, billing, tech support if needed, dealing with any security issues in their bottom barrel AIOs, etc. It's not free either, dual ISPs at least around here could easily add $400-1200/year. That's real money, even at the low end it's more money than a basic quality switch+router would cost.
I’ve noticed a trend that when visiting the homes of network engineers and sysadmins who have some custom network setup, the wifi is more likely to be broken than the average person who has something off-the-shelf like a Google Wifi puck.
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Being an indie dev with a pihole setup has been tough - I’ve gotta turn it off a lot for various client projects
When you get enough established paying clients, consider firewalling work gear from home gear.
My client work computers are not my personal computers. My client computers have their own router that is separate from my personal router. At one time I had my personal internet on cable, and my clients on DSL, but unfortunately that's not possible where I am now.
I get a lot of peace of mind from knowing the two are isolated from one another. The only thing they share is a desk. But when work time is done, client laptops go into the closet. Helps with the work-home balance, which is harder working from home.
Any particular reason you don't just use VLANs? It sounds like you're describing a textbook case for them. Nearly any routing software should have a firewall too and the whole point is handling layer 3. Even for purely your own stuff segmenting off various devices into their own subnets can still be handy. If you want you even with a single WAN connection you could do something like get a cheap $5/mo VPS|droplet|etc, run wireguard on it, then route all traffic from a given VLAN through it. That'd give you similar WAN isolation.
Any particular reason you don't just use VLANs?
Because the router I own is better than the router I don't own.
Further, everything you describe is a bunch of complexity I don't need in my life. My time is too valuable to spend fiddling with configurations every time some piece of kit does a software update.
The way I do it, I plug a wireless router into one ISP, and a different wireless router into another ISP, and I'm done with it. Simple and clean. I'd rather spend my time with my family than "handling layer 3."
Appreciate the reply and everyone has their own circumstances. But it doesn't sound like you've actually considered it or know anything about it which I guess is the basic answer to my question.
That's obviously not necessarily true. By this logic all upgrades for all time are pointless. Why get a better CPU/GPU/SSD? "The CPU/GPU/SSD I own is better than the CPU/GPU/SSD I don't own" after all. Except it's not, hence the interest in upgrading.
Your setup sounds much, much more complicated actually.
This isn't actually a thing. If anything, a core reason for using VLANs is precisely being able to just have any system at all and plug it in/join network and have it all be isolated and routing the right place with zero configuration.
Sounds complex and PITA, not least because it requires multiple ISPs and associated infrastructure, billing, tech support if needed, dealing with any security issues in their bottom barrel AIOs, etc. It's not free either, dual ISPs at least around here could easily add $400-1200/year. That's real money, even at the low end it's more money than a basic quality switch+router would cost.
I’ve noticed a trend that when visiting the homes of network engineers and sysadmins who have some custom network setup, the wifi is more likely to be broken than the average person who has something off-the-shelf like a Google Wifi puck.
They just claim it's broken.
I mean... I guess they could be intentionally inducing the flakiness and running into the network closet for dramatic effect.
If you got good enough router/access points, you could create separate VLANs for client vs private.
Thinking about it, I might just do that when I get back home :)