https://adamazl.github.io/homelab/tags/firewall/Recent content in Firewall on The Home LabHugoen-usSun, 15 Mar 2026 00:37:20 +1300https://adamazl.github.io/homelab/posts/vlan-segmentation-basics/Sat, 04 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://adamazl.github.io/homelab/posts/vlan-segmentation-basics/<h2 id="why-segment-your-network">Why Segment Your Network?</h2> <p>The average home today has dozens of connected devices — smart bulbs, cameras, thermostats, TVs. Most of these devices have poor security track records: default credentials, infrequent firmware updates, and sometimes outright malicious firmware from vendors.</p> <p>Putting them on the same flat network as your laptop and NAS is an unnecessary risk. VLANs fix this.</p> <h2 id="what-is-a-vlan">What Is a VLAN?</h2> <p>A <strong>Virtual LAN (VLAN)</strong> is a logical partition of a physical network. Devices on different VLANs cannot communicate with each other unless you explicitly allow it through firewall rules — even if they share the same physical switch.</p>https://adamazl.github.io/homelab/posts/opnsense-firewall-setup/Sat, 20 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://adamazl.github.io/homelab/posts/opnsense-firewall-setup/<h2 id="why-replace-your-isp-router">Why Replace Your ISP Router?</h2> <p>ISP-provided routers are designed to be cheap and manageable by support staff, not to give you control. They have opaque firmware, rarely get security updates, and have none of the features a proper firewall offers: VLAN support, traffic shaping, IDS/IPS, meaningful logs, VPN server, DNS over TLS.</p> <p>OPNsense is a FreeBSD-based firewall/router that runs on commodity x86 hardware. It&rsquo;s fully open-source (forked from pfSense in 2015), actively maintained, and has a polished web UI.</p>