Articles on monitoring, protocols, tools, home labs, uptime and the work itself. New ones arrive about once a week.
Which SNMP port listens where, which way the packets flow, and the exact iptables, nftables, ufw and firewalld rules for polling and traps.
Continue reading SNMP ports 161 and 162: firewall rules that let polling and traps through ›
The green dot says the AP is on. It does not say why the back bedroom drops calls at nine. A checklist from the cable up to the client.
Continue reading Monitoring Wi-Fi access points: what the controller page does not tell you ›
Count the powered ports, budget by class at the switch port, insist on SNMP if you graph things and keep it fanless. A home lab PoE switch, worked through.
Continue reading Choosing a PoE switch for a home lab: ports, power budget and SNMP ›
Netmask, wildcard, total and usable addresses for every prefix from /8 to /32, plus the block-size trick, /31 and /32 links and the private ranges.
Continue reading Subnet cheat sheet: every prefix from /8 to /32 in one table ›
Measure the load, check it against both the watt and VA ratings, read runtime off the maker's chart, and know when pure sine matters. A worked example included.
Continue reading How to size a UPS for a home lab: VA, watts and runtime ›
SNMP & Protocols, Network Monitoring
SNMP says the link is full. Flow data says who filled it. NetFlow, IPFIX and sFlow compared, plus the sampling math that keeps you honest.
Continue reading NetFlow, sFlow and IPFIX: finding out who is using the bandwidth ›
The snmpwalk lines for v2c and v3 you will actually type, what each part of the output means, and the errors that stop a walk cold.
Continue reading snmpwalk command examples for v2c and v3, with the output explained ›
A UGREEN NAS gives a home lab more CPU, RAM and M.2 slots. A Synology NAS gives it DSM, SNMP and mature backups. How to choose, and how to watch either one.
Continue reading UGREEN NAS vs Synology for a home lab: more hardware or better software ›
VLANs, mirroring, LACP and SNMP: what a managed switch adds to a home lab, why many budget models cannot be polled, and how to pick ports, PoE and cooling.
Continue reading How to choose a managed switch for a home lab ›
What to write down about your network, when a spreadsheet stops being enough, how to draw useful diagrams, and how to keep it all true.
Continue reading Documenting your network: diagrams, IPAM and the spreadsheet that will not die ›
Network Monitoring, Uptime & Alerting
A green ping check only proves a kernel answered. What ICMP, TCP, HTTP and synthetic checks each catch, and a layered plan for one web service.
Continue reading Ping is not monitoring: ICMP, TCP and synthetic checks compared ›
Network UPS Tools from the USB cable to a tested shutdown: drivers, upsd, upsmon, what upsc tells you, and which box should go down last.
Continue reading UPS monitoring with NUT: clean shutdowns for a home rack ›
