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.

Homelab on Andy Als

VLANs at Home — Building a Segmented Network From Scratch

Setting Up VLANs and a VPN on My Home Network

The setup