Going to be a very quick update here. Things are a little more stable at the moment. I figured out why my FTTH connection was acting up… the VM I moved it too had the default free 1Mb/s license for RouterOS… After moving my unlimited CHR license over, things have gotten better. screenshots over on my mastodon instance:
So, today, not doing much other than monitoring… I am taking a day of rest and will be back tomorrow…
Day 40 of #100daysofhomelab and the internet is a little more stable… Still not 100%, but “stable”. Speed test results have dropped, as you can see in the graph below, but weirdly, ping times are a little better…
Download speeds. The swap over happened around the 8th Feb, 9th was pretty much a wash, 10th things got a bit better…
Upload Speeds. less spikey upload speeds, but also less upload speed…
ping times went from around 38-40ms to around 28-30ms…
I currently have Observium watching the traffic on the routers, and all logs are being written to an ELK stack. Not correctly (links below on how it *should* work, but I don’t have it fully working… yet) but they are being logged nonetheless.
this post is for day 38 and 39 of #100daysofhomelab… and i have finally moved over to my #RB5009… and, well, it has not gone so well… It has rebooted a few times due to memory issues (too many BGP tables being held, so I shut a few down to start with… some cleanup needed there), then the internet connections are a little unstable, and, well, in the last 48 hours, I have spent more time on LTE than on proper internet… It does seem to be working (ish…) now, but not as fast as it was. I am just using the #Zerotier link, so the #Wireguard links are currently off… Anyway, below are some links… I hope to make things work better tomorrow… And i also hope to have a better write up soon too…
Day 31 of #100daysofhomelab and I am going through the config from my CHR to bring over to my RB5009, and, well, I have no idea what I was doing when I built the original config… Now to try and figure out what the config did, since I want to document it here so I know what I was thinking, but to also possibly help someone else… Mind you, at this stage, it won’t be much help… I also need to figure out how to add my Zerotier Bridge into the mix.
So, as trying to get a high level overview of how this works, lets start with this:
So, at least that is the theory… How well this will work is anyone’s guess… But more messing with configs is required.
I am participating in the #100daysofhomelab challenge and have been posting a lot on Twitter as @tiernano, but some posts and tasks I am doing will require longer-form write-ups. So, some updates will include either Videos (which will be published on my Youtube Channel) or blog posts, which will go here. This is the first of the blob posts.
DNSControl is a tool written by the Stackoverflow lads (when they called themselves StackExchange). It is designed to update DNS records and can work with DNS providers and registrars. I use it to update records in Cloudflare and Route53, but many providers are available. I wrote an article a while back about how to create reverse DNS records for IP space with Route53 and DNSControl, but most of it is still relevant, and the main documentation site for DNSControl has a lot of useful tips.
Up till this morning, if I wanted to update a record, I checked out the DNS records from my private Github repo, made the change, and ran the DNSControl commands on my machine (check for syntax checking the file, preview to show what will change at the provider level, and push to make the changes). But I wanted to have some automation for this. So, enter Github Actions.
I did a bit of digging and found a Github Action from koenrh called dnscontrol-action. The docs on this are quite simple to go through, so I created 2 action files for my Repo: preview and push. a Gist for Preview is below:
and the one for push is as follows:
The important parts are as follows:
In both preview and push, the check command does a syntax check of your DNS config file. Then preview will check the providers to see if any records need an update. When push runs, it will make the changes.
All my required secrets are set in the Github repo as secrets, so when the action is run, it will pull the required keys out. These are put into the environment variables. I use name.com and a registrar for some domains (though most have now moved to Cloudflare, and some, like my .ie domains, are with Blacknight, who are not supported on DNSControl). Cloudflare is used by the majority of my domains, and Route53 is used for 2 domains currently. There are around 53 domains current managed by this, and the plan is to add more. I also plan on getting some more automation around checking configs and sending alerts if anything changes.
So, enough “How it works” and show us it working!
Right. Let’s update my zt.tiernanotoole.net domain, which is used for Zerotier IPs internal to my network. It’s been a while since I did this, so most will be removed and a few adds… first, I create a new branch, called zt-update, and check it out in VSCode. I made my changes, git committed and git pushed to the branch.
at this stage, the actions have NOT run, since this is neither checked in to master, nor a PR for master.
I go into the create PR section, and I can see the changes I have made. in my case, I removed a load of unused records and added extras:
I now create my PR and wait for the checks to complete:
within a short time, I get an alert that all checks have passed, and I can find the results of the changes in the build (It was meant to add a note to the PR with the details, but I might be missing something in my config…)
Also, not sure why it is redacting part of my name here…
I check the rest of the list, and other than the deletes and creates in route53 for this domain, there are no other changes. So, being happy with that, I click the Merge Pull Request and the code is checked into master, and the DNSControl push command runs:
If i now go into Route53, i can see the records on the site:
Happy days! Next challenges to fix:
Till next time, good luck!
A few weeks back, Ubiquiti released a pre-release update for the Unifi Network Controller, version 7.1.61. It got installed on my UDM and I noticed a few interesting bits that you might find handy… First, you will need to be signed up for Unifi Early Access before you can download or even read the release notes, but this is just a quick update based on my findings so far.
The first thing to note: You can see the list of devices connected to switches on the Overview Tab. I can’t remember exactly when that was added, but I think it’s new…
Under the ports tab, you now have a ports insight option:
Clicking this give you:
You can also select multiple ports and make changes at a bulk level:
You can also see a bit more info about each port:
Teleport VPN is also now added. This makes giving someone access to your network a LOT easier than usual. They will need the WifiMan software on Android, iOS or Mac to join. Not sure what happens on a Windows machine… Maybe it’s coming soon? To use it, just generate a new link and send it to your user. Not sure how to remove them afterwards (if you want to give them temp access for example…)
Final Interesting part, and something I have been waiting for for a while, under Traffic Management, you can now create custom traffic rules:
You can set it based on destination Domain Name, IP or even the full internet:
And you can set the Source to be All Devices, group of devices (network) or individual (or multiple targeted) devices.
Finally, you can set the output internet connection.
If you had multiple internet connections, and one had better speeds for stuff like Netflix, or you wanted to send bulk data over a different link, you can do this using this feature. Very cool stuff.
So, still testing, but looking good so far.
A few months back (well, November 2020) I wrote about connecting to my car with Zerotier. In this post, I mentioned using a TP-Link router running OpenWRT and a Huawei LTE dongle to connect to the internet, which allowed me to then connect to my Blackvue Dashcam and watch remotely… But it had some issues I wanted to fix:
So, I went digging to find some alternatives… and I realized I had a load of them floating around the house: the Raspberry Pi. Specifically, the 4GB Pi 4. I got my hands on a Pi UPS Hat, a couple of 18650 Cells and an SSD Expansion board with a 512GB (overkill I know) SSD. I also got a BlackVue Power Magic Battery, B112, which will power the Dash Cam (a BlackVue DR750S-2CH). It has 2 USB ports, which allows me to run both the Pi and the new WIFI router, a Netgear Nighthawk M1.
When the car starts, it powers, via the 12V socket in the boot of the car (trunk for my American friends), which powers the Blackvue Battery. Cables run from there to the front of the car where the front camera is. (there is also a rear-facing camera in the boot too… more cables!) This then also starts the Pi and starts charging the 2 18650 batteries. Finally, well, at the same time really, the Nighthawk starts running too. Because the batter on this was running hot, the battery is removed from this.
The Pi is hooked to the Nighthawk via ethernet and the WIFI is set to connect to the house when it sees it. The BlackVue uses the WIFI from the Nighthawk for its internet requirements. When the pi boots, it connects to Zerotier for management via SSH or VNC (I use VNC to remote into the box and watch the live video when the car is parked or when someone else is driving).
There is also a python script that is scheduled to run every 15 min that downloads the videos from the Dashcam. It also downloads any GPS and other info. The folder these files are downloaded to is on the SSD and is shared with my machine at home via Resilio Sync. To make sure I don’t use all my LTE usage, the machine at home is set to only download what I want to download. So, if the car is somewhere else, I can download specific files when I want, or when at home, I can download full days, if required.
It’s been running for a few weeks now, and so far, so good. I haven’t had to do any clean up of the SSD, yet, but I would guess that eventually, I will need to look into that… With the 4G connection and Zerotier, I can then connect to my car and watch the live video whenever it is online, and whenever it is driving, within 15 min it will start downloading videos. I could, in theory, do a LOT more with the Pi in the car… Some ideas that come to mind:
Keep an eye on the blog for future possible projects with this… Not sure where this project will get me, but we will figure it out at some stage… Leave a comment if you have questions!
So, this has been a blog post in the making for a while now but never got around to fully writing it up, so here goes nothing…
I run a UDM Pro in the house. It has 2 WAN Links: 1 1Gb link and 1 10Gb Link. I also run AS204994, my own ASN with its own Transit and Peering connections, mostly in Europe. There is a VM in the house which acts as a connection to AS204994, which gives me a full connection to the Internet through my own ASN. More details on my AS204994 blog are here.
That connection is hooked up to the 10Gb Link on the UDM Pro, which is listed as the primary internet link. Details on how these works were uploaded in this video on YouTube:
In the video above, I was using OpenMPTCPRouter to connect to the internet, but it’s been causing some issues lately, I decided to try something else.
The new setup is an Intel Nuc (i3 with 32GB RAM and 2x512GB SSDs… VERY OVERKILL for the job at hand) running Ubuntu Linux. It has a USB Hub with 3 USB Ports and an Ethernet port connected, giving me 2 Ethernet ports on the box in total. 2 of the USB Ports are connected to USB 4G Modems from Huawei and the external ethernet port is directly connected to my cable modem.
Both modems and the ethernet port are connected to the NUC with full internet connections (The Huawei boxes give up NATed IPs, but the Cable modem is a full public IP) and then Speedify takes those 3 connections and does some bonding magic. Speedify is a handy little VPN service that does connection bonding. You can use it to make sure your internet is rock solid using multiple links, make sure streams are stable, etc. It can bond Wifi Links, LTE modems, Cable Modems, DSL, etc. Anything that can connect and be bonded. The only issue I have with it, compared to OpenMPTCPRouter is that you don’t control the upstream server…
Speedify is set in shared mode, so the internal port on the NUC is set to share the internet connection. This is hooked to the 1Gb WAN Port on the UDM Pro. This is set for failover only (currently the only option on a UDM Pro) so if my AS204994 link goes down (VM reboots, VM host dies, Cable modem connection goes out, etc) I will still have a connection. If the cable goes out, it will use just the 4G links, but if everything is running, I get all 3 connections.
I use ZeroTier on my network for a good few things, including internal network peering between BGP VMs, management of machines, and now, connecting to my car over LTE. This is one of those posts that sounds silly, but is very handy! First, the parts list:
After installing the the latest copy of ROOter on the TPLink (or router of your choice) and getting the modem configured correctly (this took a while) you need to install the Zerotier software though the dashboard. Once installed, I joined my Zerotier network using the CLI (SSH into the router) and the approved it though the my.zerotier.com dashboard. Once its approved and connected, you can now go to the Zerotier IP and get to the router directly. From here, you can either setup a route in Zerotier to point at the internal network behind the router, or, in my case, setup a SSH tunnel to the dashcam. I found the IP given to the dashcam and used SSH forwarding to get to it. Finally, i used the URLs from Digital-Nebula’s hackview repo to get to the different URLs. I use this to download stuff like GPS logs, emergency videos, etc. I have to clean up some scripts at some stage for this, and plan to upload them at some stage.
If anyone has any questions, leave a comment!
With the whole Work From Home thing probably becoming more and more normal in the years to come (I can count on 2 hands how many times I have physically been in my main office in the last 7 months) there are a couple of certainties in that people will come up against. One is passwords expiring and needing to be changed, one is password resets being required and finally laptops or desktops needing to be domain joined or connected to the domain before they can be fully provisioned. As the (currently only) IT guy in our office, I have had to deal with these first hand, and decide to write this post, helping both my fellow employees, and possibly other IT Admins stuck in this challenge.
So, as the IT person, there are a couple of assumptions:
If all above are set, you will need to follow the steps to Enable Azure Active Directory Self Service Password Reset. I have enabled this on our domain. Next, you need to get your users to setup their secondary authentication for backup. All our users have a 2FA requirement, so most of them had that already. New users need to go though those setups. Finally, if a user needs to change or reset their password, they can do so though https://aka.ms/sspr. If all is done well, that reduces the amount of support calls I (and you) get.
Now, the next task: domain joining over VPN. This is a bit more “fun” to play with.
First, you need a VPN connection. We use Meraki gear using Active Directory for RADIUS auth. I wont go into too much details on setting that part up, but the script we use to build the VPN connections for users is below. This will probably be different for different VPNs, but this is our starting point.
Lines you need to change are at 8, 9, 10 and 47. Line 39 can also be modified to change from Split Tunneling (only sending traffic to internal subnets) or full Tunneling (all traffic over VPN). If you have multiple internal subnets, Line 49 can be copied with more.
The most important part we need though is line 34. The -AllUserConnection allows the connection to be available to all users on the machine, but also on the start screen. This is important.
So, with all that in place, you will need to connect to the VPN
you should now be able to join the domain as if you where on your local network.
reboot your machine as usual and when it boots, you should see a new option on the login screen
Click this icon and if you only have one VPN connection the screen below will show up. If you have more than one, you will be given a list of options to use.
Enter your domain credentials. Since our AD and VPN use the same credentials, it will automatically log you in aswell.
So, there you have it. How to domain join a machine outside the network. Now, in reality, Azure Active Directory and Intune would probably be the better option, but that’s future work…
