Andy Als

VLANs at Home — Building a Segmented Network From Scratch

Tue, 20 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

My home network had everything on one flat subnet for years. Laptops, phones, a desktop, a NAS, a couple of smart plugs of questionable origin — all of it talking to everything else with nothing in between. It worked, but it wasn’t a network so much as a free-for-all.

I finally sorted it out properly. Two VLANs — one for wired trusted devices, one for WiFi. Here’s the design and what the subnetting decisions looked like.

Setting Up VLANs and a VPN on My Home Network

Sun, 18 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This took me way longer than it probably should have but I learned more from this than from anything I’d read up to that point.

The basic goal was: stop having everything on one flat network, add some segmentation, and set up a VPN so I can get back in when I’m not at home without relying on some third party service.

The setup

Running a UniFi gateway and a couple of UniFi switches and APs. Started with everything on the default network — every device, same subnet, no separation. Fine for a simple home setup, not great if you’re trying to learn networking.

Subnetting — How I Finally Got It to Stick

Sat, 10 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

So subnetting. The thing that makes people quit CCNA prep early.

I avoided it for longer than I should have. Not because I didn’t understand the concept, I kind of got it, but when it came to actually working through questions I was slow and uncertain and kept second guessing myself. I was using subnet calculators to check my work and that was the problem, I wasn’t actually learning anything I was just verifying answers.

About

Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

About me

I’m Andy. Not a professional, not formally trained, just someone who got into IT and networking properly and decided to actually do something about it.

Been messing around with computers most of my life. Home networks, fixing other people’s broken stuff, running servers for various reasons. At some point I realised I was spending most of my free time on this anyway so I might as well try and make it a job.