networking on Developer's blog

Working With Multiple VPNs

Thu, 04 Aug 2022 18:00:00 +0000

I work on several projects. Each of them require a VPN connection. Sometimes, I work from remote locations and I need to access my home network. It’s one more VPN connection. It’s convenient to have an ability to access different private networks at the same time. Let’s discuss the issues of multi-VPN setups and possible.

TL;DR:

Use NetworkManager to manage VPN connections.
Disable systemd-resolved.
Use dnsmasq to process DNS requests.

mDNS on Ubuntu Server

Tue, 25 May 2021 03:00:00 +0000

Recently I was configuring a virtual network of several KVM machines for the testing of Gitlab installation. It’s more convenient when I can access machines by hostname but I don’t want to install and support a DNS server. So I’d decided to use mDNS.

Network Tools

Sat, 15 May 2021 08:00:00 +0000

Almost every user sooner or later faces network problems, so it’s essential to have at least a basic understanding of network troubleshooting. In this article, I’d like to overview tools I use to explore network configuration and solve network issues on the Ubuntu desktop. Most of these applications can be used on a server but some of them are specific to desktop systems. ip and NetworkManager ip is a tool that allows to show or manipulate routing and network devices.

DNS without a Server

Sat, 20 Mar 2021 10:00:00 +0000

A few days ago I’d decided to configure Raspberry PI as a weather station to check temperature, humidity, and pressure. So I need to access it on the network with SSH and a web browser. The easiest way of solving this problem is using a static IP address. In this case, I have to set static IP for Raspberry PI and then use this address in a browser. For me, it’s more convenient to use a human-readable hostname than remembering an IP address. I can modify /etc/hosts to associate Raspberry PI IP with custom hostname but I have to perform this action on all of my devices. It’s a bit monotonous work if you have several computers and for some mobile devices, it’s impossible to configure.

In the case of complicated enterprise networks, it’s common to configure a name server to perform hostname resolution, but for a small home network with several computers, it can be a bit overkill to configure and support a dedicated DNS server. Searching through the Internet I’d found an article about connecting Raspberry PI to an iPad with a USB cable. The author accessed a device with the address raspberrypi.local without any additional DNS configuration. So it should be a more lightweight alternative than a dedicated DNS server for home networks.