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Looking at the Unifi controller setup, I'm a bit perplexed as to why they would choose to use MongoDB, although I'll admit I lack experience with everything rel

Looking at the Unifi controller setup, I'm a bit perplexed as to why they would choose to use MongoDB, although I'll admit I lack experience with everything related to networking. I'd think that using SQLite would allow for a simpler setup while providing better performance. Am I missing or misunderstanding something? Does anyone have suggestions for beginner friendly guides to home networking? My home setup is pretty hacky, and I'd love to setup something more secure as well as improving my understanding. Right now I have an ASUS RT-AC66U router with asuswrt-merlin, and it runs an OpenVPN server, so I can remotely access my home network. How do people setup their home network domain name and device hostnames? I have the router set to update a public DDNS entry each time it connects to the internet, and a LAN DHCP Server with manually assigned IP and hostname for each known MAC address. This works alright for home devices, but it gets awkward for mobile devices and laptops. How do you restrict sharing functionality to VPN connections? Should your hostname remain the same regardless of what network you're connected to, or should it vary? Do you use IPv6? My ISP supports IPv6, and I had enabled it on my router for a few months, but eventually ended up turning it off since I felt uncertain that everything was configured securely. Am I just being paranoid? Is it ever worth setting up a RADIUS Server for WPA2-Enterprise wireless security? I kinda like the idea of having a centralized location for handling authN/authZ, but the relationship between the different technologies (Kerberos, LDAP, ActiveDirectory, etc) is pretty confusing, and nobody seems to do a good job at explaining how it all ties together. Right now I just generate an SSH key per device, and I import it to each device which should allow connections. But that increases the friction of deploying home services, which gets a bit demotivating. What monitoring tools do people setup for their home network? Do you handle updates manually or do you have that process automated? Every time I consider setting up a network monitoring tool, I kinda end up going down the rabbit hole and getting overwhelmed by the huge number of options. Many of these tools kinda assume that the user is already familiarized with best practices and that they know exactly what they want, which couldn't be further from the truth in my case.

notwedtm 9y ago
Just letting you know that the reason you are probably not receiving any responses is because nearly every question you ask is either easily Google-able, or you are asking for opinions versus facts. Want to know if IPv6 is secure? Do research to find out. Then you will know for sure.
- aquaticsloth 9y ago
  This comment gives very little to the discussion. The original poster had plenty of valid questions that are very hard to find the answers to as its mainly enterprise/business systems. I would say you will have a hard time figuring anything out for yourself when your infrastructure uses business-class solutions and is cross vendor.
dsr_ 9y ago
Unifi uses MongoDB because somebody at Ubiquiti thought it was cool. It's not an open-source project, you don't get to see their IRC chat logs or commit messages. If you're uncomfortable with IPv6, you are right to turn it off. Learn it, become comfortable, then configure it properly. This advice holds for everything. Is it worth setting up RADIUS? Only if you want the experience. One of the possible functions of a home lab is to gain experience. It sounds like you want to learn how to do operations. It's always advisable to start by gathering requirements, generating threat models, listing resources, and then trying to construct a plan. None of this needs to be fixed in stone - as you research one thing, you should learn of alternatives with different trade-offs. Keep track of all that. There is never just one set of "best practices".

notwedtm 9y ago

Just letting you know that the reason you are probably not receiving any responses is because nearly every question you ask is either easily Google-able, or you are asking for opinions versus facts. Want to know if IPv6 is secure? Do research to find out. Then you will know for sure.

aquaticsloth 9y ago
This comment gives very little to the discussion. The original poster had plenty of valid questions that are very hard to find the answers to as its mainly enterprise/business systems. I would say you will have a hard time figuring anything out for yourself when your infrastructure uses business-class solutions and is cross vendor.

dsr_ 9y ago

Unifi uses MongoDB because somebody at Ubiquiti thought it was cool. It's not an open-source project, you don't get to see their IRC chat logs or commit messages. If you're uncomfortable with IPv6, you are right to turn it off. Learn it, become comfortable, then configure it properly. This advice holds for everything. Is it worth setting up RADIUS? Only if you want the experience. One of the possible functions of a home lab is to gain experience. It sounds like you want to learn how to do operations. It's always advisable to start by gathering requirements, generating threat models, listing resources, and then trying to construct a plan. None of this needs to be fixed in stone - as you research one thing, you should learn of alternatives with different trade-offs. Keep track of all that. There is never just one set of "best practices".