Home Network 1: Getting Started

This is the first post about my home network. Before I get to the advanced parts, the basic network first needs to be set up. That is what will be described in this post. For the more advanced sections you will have to wait for the next post.

To understand the workings of my home network, it would be better to start at the end than the beginning. After the last post about my home network you should know how I set up each part of the network in the figure below, as well as how to graph the network traffic per MAC.

So let's back up a little and look at the network from the start.

The Main Router

The central gateway for my network is my TP-LINK router, so this is the first thing that I need to set up. Because my network has many things that it has to do, I want something that gives me a bit more control than the default firmware. I decided to flash the router with OpenWrt, which is a Linux distribution for embedded devices. You can check the list of OpenWRT supported devices on the OpenWrt website to see if your router is supported. They also have detailed instructions on how to flash each of these routers.

When this is done you can ssh into your router or use the web-interface. It should look something like this:

If your computer does not have an IP in the same range as the router (192.168.0.0/16 most of the time) you may need to force one in order to access it.

The Internet and DHCP

The next step is setting up the TP-LINK to dial the internet connection. By default my Telkom Mega 105WR modem dials the internet connection and runs a DHCP server, thus I had to turn both of these off. The way to do this differs for each modem. To dial the internet connection with the TP-Link router, the Telkom modem must be in "Bridge" mode (you will be able to change this under the connection settings, it will be in PPPoE mode) and must be connected to the WAN port of the TP-LINK router. You will need to write down the PAP/CHAP username and password from the modem as this will be needed to dial the connection from the TP-LINK.

Now on the OpenWRT web-interface go to Network > Interfaces > WAN. Set the protocol to PPPoE, enter the username and password. Finally "Save & Apply".

Lastly you will have to set up the DHCP server. I have set it up so my network has the range 192.168.0.0/24, with the router IP being 192.168.0.254.

To do this go to Network > Interfaces > LAN. Set the protocol to "Static address", enter IPv4 address > 192.168.0.254 and IPv4 netmask > 255.255.255.0. Finally "Save & Apply".

At this point you will have this part of the network:

tl;dr
Flashed TP-LINK router with OpenWrt and set up WAN and LAN.