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Page Revision: 2011-12-05 07:22

This is going to be an attempt at documenting the main aspects of my home (and, by extension, office) networking and computing setup, so that I have my thoughts in one place, and have an easier time of figuring out what's missing, and what to change, when another machine or technology enters the fray.

There's a very faint chance that something here might be useful to someone or that they get sent here by some confused search engine algorithm - if so, don't hesitate to contact me with any questions.

Network

I'm a big fan of technologies that make me the "owner" of my hardware, and as such DD-WRT (and others in the family, such as Tomato firmware) strike me as the coolest thing ever. Consequently, I try to buy devices that can are supported by open firmware (as far as I know DD-WRT has the broadest support).

I recently purchased what appears to be the best of both worlds - the "TP-Link TL-WR841ND v7", an absolutely dirt-cheap router (less than 30 EUR) that happens to be supported by DD-WRT, and here's the high-level setup:

• Administration -> Management: Password
• Setup -> Basic: IP Address (192.168.2.1)
• Setup -> MAC Address Clone: Set this to a fixed tht is the SAME as the sometime-default, because otherwise the WAN mac, and therefore the interim IP address, wavers along the lifetime of the router boot/uptime... (use the default MAC but ending in 2, as this seems to be the pre-cloning MAC)
• Administration -> Management: Web access - HTTPS only, internal only, no telnet or SSH (except temporarily for backup & upgrade...?)
• Administration -> Management: Max Ports: 4096
• Administration -> Management: TCP Timeout: 300 secs (UDP default 120)
• Wifi
  • Primary "TWireless" with WPA2-PSK-AES, ending in "7"
  • WDS of type "LAN" to AP, defaults
• DHCP Fixed (list snipped)
• Port Forwarding (list snipped)
• QoS
  • Enable, on WAN, default packet scheduler, with upling & downlink specified.
  • Set the IP Phone MAC address with "Premium" priority (need to "Add" to set the prriority)
  • Add a "MiniMac-BT" service for the appropriate port range, apply
  • Select the new "MiniMac-BT" service at "Bulk" priority (means no reservations at all)
    

Additional parameters that I would have liked to set up, but caused reliability problems (within-network inter-host connectivity failures, WDS connectivity failures, etc):

• guest "GuestWireless" with WPA2-PSK-AES password on a note on the fridge
  • Setup -> Networking: create "br1" bridge for 192.168.4.1, save/apply
  • Setup -> Networking: create a bridge assignment, "br1" to the virtual wifi interface ("ath0.1")
  • Setup -> Networking: multiple DNCP Server, create "DHCP 0" on "br1" (NOT "ath0.1"), On, defaults.
    • At this point you have a guest SSID and subnet, with internet access, but full cross-talk!
  • Administration -> Commands: Save Firewall script (from http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Multiple_WLANs):
    

    iptables -I FORWARD -i br1 -o br0 -m state --state NEW -j DROP
    
    iptables -I FORWARD -i br0 -o br1 -m state --state NEW -j DROP
    
    iptables -I FORWARD -i br1 -d `nvram get wan_ipaddr`/`nvram get wan_netmask` -m state --state NEW -j DROP
    
    iptables -I INPUT -i br1 -m state --state NEW -j DROP
    
    iptables -I INPUT -i br1 -p udp --dport 67 -j ACCEPT
    
    iptables -I INPUT -i br1 -p udp --dport 53 -j ACCEPT
    
    iptables -I INPUT -i br1 -p tcp --dport 53 -j ACCEPT

    
    

Home Server

An increasing requirement is an always-on server - I happen to currently favor a Mac Mini running Windows 7 (I stick to windows out of laziness - I'm just quicker on my feet in a windows environment). I would love a more power-efficient Pico-ITX or similar server, but Apple's power usage claims on the Mac Mini are already pretty impressive, and it doubles as a decent projector source.

Sync Folders

I'm a big fan of Unison as it's a dedicated cross-OS sync solution, but I'm more than a little saddened by its stagnation/abandonment (or, maybe more to the point, its use of OCaml that seems to guarantee its long-term demise); I'd love to create something equivalent (for my purposes at least) starting from a project like Duplicati, but in the meantime I keep using it as it's the only reliable cross-OS open-source solution I'm aware of. These instructions are tainted by my preference for Windows, but seem to work:

• Install cygwin ssh on the server (currently v1.7.x). I used to shrink away from any setup that included cygwin because of the unmaintainable bloat I remembered, but recently gave it a try and was VERY pleasantly surprised by the package-manager-like setup program they have now. Easy to set up, easy to use, but you still need some googling:
  • Install base packages + nano (or your editor of choice) and OpenSSH, and auto-selected dependencies
  • from a cygwin terminal started as Administrator, run "ssh-host-config"
    • priviledge separation: yes (it can only be safer, and I haven't found it breaking anything yet)
    • new local account: yes
    • service: yes
    • value of cygwin: (I left it blank - the defaults seem to work fine for me)
    • different name than cyg_server: no (will only be asked on windows 2003 and later)
    • create user cyg_server: yes (will only be asked on windows 2003 and later)
    • new password: something that you will never remember (you can always reset it and update the service(s) later)
  • As recommended here, might as well change /etc/sshd_config to prevent legacy SSH 1 connections, using nano to edit the file (for some reason cygwin protects its config files against local windows admins...?)
  • Similarly, change the port to (marginally) help avoid drive-by automated attacks
  • start the service ("net start sshd")
  • if you're running a host-based firewall like Windows Firewall, set up an appropriate exception (usually on your target port, TCP only)
  • If you're going to want access from outside your LAN (eg for remote backup), then set up a port forward on your router (TCP only)
  • If you're setting up a dedicated user for Unison (with limited rights, presumably) then run "mkpasswd -cl > /etc/passwd" afterwards to sync the passwd file.
  • Test eg with FileZilla
• Install Unison on server
  • Drop GTK+ (2.22.0??) files somewhere known eg Progra~1, and add to path (optional, for GUI debugging)
  • Drop Unison files somewhere known eg Progra~1 (optional, for GUI debugging)
  • Copy Unison-Cmdline into C:\Windows\System32 (or somewhere else that will be in the PATH of a cygwin shell), as Unison.exe
• Install Unison on Client
  • Drop GTK+ (2.22.0??) files somewhere known eg Progra~1, and add to path
  • Drop Unison files somewhere known eg Progra~1
  • Add plink.exe and the ssh.exe wrapper to plink (eg from here) in the Unison folder
    • We don't use cygwin SSH, although it also works, because cygwin SSH has irritating permissions/path issues outside of its shell env.
  • Generate a public/private keypair with puTTYgen, keep the private key file with the Unison setup (program file probably), and place the appropriate entry in the server's "authorized_keys" file for the target user (creating the .ssh folder for that user profile if necessary, and even the user's folder in /home).
  • Connect to the server from the client using puTTY, to save the trusted host key
  • Set up one or more appropriate "prf" files in your User profile's ".unison" folder, eg:
    

    #local folder to sync
    
    root = c:\Archive
    
    #server/shared mirror location
    
    root = ssh://Unison@192.168.2.30/D:/UnisonSync/Archive 
    
    #Careful with this! Forces RSync mirroring! (deletes any local files that don't match - rarely use)
    
    #force = ssh://Unison@192.168.2.30/D:/UnisonSync/Archive
    
    #private key and port specifiers for plink
    
    sshargs = -i ConfuzzedToUnisonOnMinimac.ppk -P 12322 
    
    #back up all deleted files in the unison profile folder, just in case!
    
    backup = Name * 
    
    #accept (non-conflicting) changes automatically
    
    auto = true 
    
    #start automatically (don't wait for the user to click anything)
    
    batch = true 
    
    #trust file timestamps and sizes on windows, don't always re-hash in case someone's messing with us (much faster).
    
    fastcheck = true 
    
    #don't bother with version control internals, trust that there is a connection to an authoritative VCS server
    
    ignore = Regex .*/*\.(svn|git).*
    
    #Winmerge: suggested at https://alliance.seas.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/wiki/index.php?n=Main.UnisonFAQOSSpecific
    
    #          /e:  Exit by single escape
    
    #          /ub: Do not add paths to MRI
    
    #          /dl, dr: Description, left, right
    
    #          /wr  Right side: read only
    
    #          Merge only works when first root is local!
    
    # merge disabled because I want to automate the process (commandline) - but can be enabled for UI-interactive sync
    
    #merge     = Name * -> "c:\Program Files\WinMerge\winmergeu" /ub /e /wr /dl "Local" /dr "Remote" "CURRENT1" "CURRENT2"
    
    # diff enabled because it never hurts to have that option (isn't automatic)
    
    diff     = "c:\Program Files\WinMerge\winmergeu" /ub /e /wr /dl "Local" /dr "Remote" "CURRENT1" "CURRENT2"