Question Home Network beginner questions ?

[chuffedas]

Can I ask about my general overall house sort of set up please?
I havent really used stuff as in a network before a few years ago.

It is quite a wordy post, but I am not sure what I am asking.
I think there are a only a few questions.

1. How to back up?
2. How and where to put a pihole?
3. Is a VPN a good idea and where does it go?

What I currently have:
I have a Network Switch. Mainly to save on sockets. I prefer to use cables as opposed to WiFi.

My “desktop”: Pi5. Currently on mains, but will get around to PoE one day.

My TV and PVR is a Pi4. Libreelec. This is PoE. Actually it is a CM4. As this is always on, I am thinking to attach my music SSD to it and use that as the source for my players.

I have Volumio on a Pi in the lounge and the garage and intend on having one upstairs.

Also upstairs I have my old main PC. I use this for things like photo editing and I aim to start fiddling about with Openscad with my 3d printer so will do that on that. I also plan on ripping a bunch of CDs. I will run ethernet cable to it. It is a Linux machine, but I also have a Windows drive just in case I need it for some reason.

My 3d printer is also on the network.

I currrently have six HDDs. I keep two for photos oldd and new. Two for music and two for “normal” stuff. I used to plug them in to back up. But it happens less than I would like.

Pihole.
I have tried reading, but I sort of don’t get it.
I want it on at all times, right? Does it go between my router and hole in the wall or router and network switch? Or just somewhere in the network? Does it need to on a separate machine? The only thing I have on permanently is my TVPi, but I don’t think I can add it to Libreelec. I am thinking it will speed my internet experience up a little as I get 15-20Mb/s.

VPN
Again, this confuses me. Is it just something that tells the internet that you are somewhere else so you can watch other program mes? Or is there decent security benefits?
Also, where does it go? On the same machine as the Pihole?

Backup.
I am happy booting up another computer for when I do a backup.
Would it make sense to put my HDDs in the Linux PC upstairs?
Or a I better setting up a dedicated little machine for it?
Do I just work out sharing between computers? I did try looking at NAS software once, but it confused me loads. I don’t think I want a NAS on a daily basis, I only need to share files from the music drive on my TVPi, right? But maybe a NAS would be good for storing my backups?

Hopefully this all makes sense?
Thank you.

 

[bill001g]

Backup is a complex process and how far you get depends on what you are trying to protect from. It could be from simple file deletion to the whole house burning down.

pihole is a private DNS server it can really go anyplace in your network. DNS filters have gotten less useful as things have moved to virtual and cloud based concepts. Things are no long at single location and even the IP addresses can actually be change and represent many differnt servers.

VPN, pretty much if you do not know why you need it you do not need it. VPN used to be more important for protection of data but modern internet traffic is all encrypted with stuff like HTTPS. Mostly it is used to change you location but many times things like tracking cookies can still track you. It is of course still used for illegal activities.

 

[cruisetung]

Pihole can be run on any Linux distro. Since you have several Pi and I think they are running Raspbian?

You can install Pihole using just one command line

curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash

Then you need to sat a static IP for Pihole and disable DHCP on the router, since Pihole comes with one and you can't have 2 running at the same time. Tons of tutorials on youtube.

Personally I prefer using adblocking browser extensions which can be turned on or off easily. With Pihole you need to login through its web ui and try to configure it correctly and also troubleshoot what's wrong if a webpage does not load properly.

VPN usually are used by people who travel to or work at a remote location/country and still want to

• Access subscription serviecs like Netflix/Hulu/Disney+, etc which you need commercial vpn providers likeExpressVPN, ProtonVPN or NordVPN, etc or
• Access home stuff where you need to install ZeroTier/Tailscal/Netbird, etc

 

[chuffedas]

Backup is a complex process and how far you get depends on what you are trying to protect from. It could be from simple file deletion to the whole house burning down.

pihole is a private DNS server it can really go anyplace in your network. DNS filters have gotten less useful as things have moved to virtual and cloud based concepts. Things are no long at single location and even the IP addresses can actually be change and represent many differnt servers.

VPN, pretty much if you do not know why you need it you do not need it. VPN used to be more important for protection of data but modern internet traffic is all encrypted with stuff like HTTPS. Mostly it is used to change you location but many times things like tracking cookies can still track you. It is of course still used for illegal activities.

Thank you for this.
So. Back up is a whole separate conversation.
VPN, I dont need. Thanks.
Pihole. Are you saying it is not worthwhile any more? I was thinking it might block some ads on pages and gain me a couple of mbps maybe? which would be 10% improvement.

 

[cruisetung]

Pihole. Are you saying it is not worthwhile any more? I was thinking it might block some ads on pages and gain me a couple of mbps maybe? which would be 10% improvement.

You definitely will see improvement, not in Mbps, but reduce the annoyances. I use Ghostery and it works great,

 

[chuffedas]

Pihole can be run on any Linux distro. Since you have several Pi and I think they are running Raspbian?

You can install Pihole using just one command line


Then you need to sat a static IP for Pihole and disable DHCP on the router, since Pihole comes with one and you can't have 2 running at the same time. Tons of tutorials on youtube.

Personally I prefer using adblocking browser extensions which can be turned on or off easily. With Pihole you need to login through its web ui and try to configure it correctly and also troubleshoot what's wrong if a webpage does not load properly.

VPN usually are used by people who travel to or work at a remote location/country and still want to

• Access subscription serviecs like Netflix/Hulu/Disney+, etc which you need commercial vpn providers likeExpressVPN, ProtonVPN or NordVPN, etc or
• Access home stuff where you need to install ZeroTier/Tailscal/Netbird, etc

Ah, right. There i was thinking I had sussed that it was an OS in its own right lol.
Thank you for your comments, it is helping e think it through.
So. My desktop Pi is running Raspbian, yes. The others not so much. But, they are not on the internet anyway I guess.
I was thinking of putting it on my TVPi, which is running Libreelec which is an OS just enough to run kodi.
As that is always on. But, I read that someone feels it a good idea to keep it separate.

So, I thought I would dig out an old pi for it.

Now, with you suggesting I can run it on my desktop. I hadnt thought of that.
That might make sense. Thinking it through now, really the only thing I use online is my raspbian pi5. I dont really use the upstairs pc for internet use thinking about it.
When I first started thinking this, multiple devices were using the network. But they have now flown the roost.
Hence I have time to think about it

So. If I am only using the Pi5, I suppose the question is whether or not a browser adblocker or pihole is more effective? Then, if it is adblocking, which one.
I tend to use Firefox and have uBlock origin enabled. What do you use please?

 

[bill001g]

Browser based blockers can prevent more since they can also block scripts and other things like cookies that are ad related but not coming from a ad site.

pihole is better for things where you can not get good adblockers installed say on a cellphone. Pihole for example used to be able to block microsoft automatic updates. Seem they somehow now use direct IP addresses rather than DNS. Pihole can still block other things that are not browser based.

 

[cruisetung]

Like I said earlier I prefer adblocker and I use Ghostery for several years.

I have tried Pihole several times and I give it up eventually, since it even block the ads on supermarket's ads even on supermarket's own official web page and the webpage won't load properly and I have to login Pihole look through the logs page by page to find out what's blocked and put those domain urls (probably googleadservice, doubleclick, etc) into whitelists and I feel it's really cumbersome.

Pihole does work well if want to use it as local dns if you have a bunch of devices and you want to assign names to your devices instead an IP addresses. You can also use it as a cache so the dns query comes back a little bit faster, But I don't want to burden myself maintaining another piece of software.

 

[chuffedas]

Browser based blockers can prevent more since they can also block scripts and other things like cookies that are ad related but not coming from a ad site.

pihole is better for things where you can not get good adblockers installed say on a cellphone. Pihole for example used to be able to block microsoft automatic updates. Seem they somehow now use direct IP addresses rather than DNS. Pihole can still block other things that are not browser based.

Thank you. This is all very helpful. As you alluded to, it doesnt seem like i would gain a lot from it.

 

[chuffedas]

Like I said earlier I prefer adblocker and I use Ghostery for several years.

I have tried Pihole several times and I give it up eventually, since it even block the ads on supermarket's ads even on supermarket's own official web page and the webpage won't load properly and I have to login Pihole look through the logs page by page to find out what's blocked and put those domain urls (probably googleadservice, doubleclick, etc) into whitelists and I feel it's really cumbersome.

Pihole does work well if want to use it as local dns if you have a bunch of devices and you want to assign names to your devices instead an IP addresses. You can also use it as a cache so the dns query comes back a little bit faster, But I don't want to burden myself maintaining another piece of software.

Thank you very much for your thoughts. I really appreciate it. Looks like adblocker is for me as well.