In my ever-ongoing struggle to disentangle myself and my family from our corporate overlords I have gleefully dived into self-hosting and have a little intranet oasis available; media, passwords, backups, files, notes, contacts, calendars – basically everything I needed the Big G suite for at one point, I’m hosting locally, and loving it. But Unfortunately… my ISP can be shitty. Normally its’ fine and no complaints, but every now and then the network itself goes down for maintenance for a few hours, half a day, a day. When those outages happen even though I have a battery backup/generator, I’m basically stuck treading water, unable to even listen to podcasts. I’m wondering what the folks here’ have as a contingency plan for these kinds of outages. Part of me is considering pricing out some kind of VPS for barebone, password manager, podcast player, notes etc for outages; but I haven’t dipped my toe into that world yet. Just wondering what folks are doing/recommending/
I set up a backup cell connection to my cable internet connection. Sketchy Chinese 4G LTE modem. My router was a DIY job I set up off of Ubuntu Server. Everything ran to a Cisco switch and then was VLAN isolated. For the two WAN connections, I ran scripts from the router that periodically tried to reach out to several DNS providers and then average response rates to determine if the main connection was up. If not then it would modify default routes and push everything to the cell.
The cell connection had pretty low data cap, so it was just for backup and wasn’t a home style plan. I used the old TTL modification trick to get it to pass data like a phone. When I moved the backup to 5G, TTL modification stopped working and I had to resort to creating tunnel interfaces to an actual phone. Since that tunnel is limited in bandwidth to the lowest value, my speeds were really cut in half.
I have starlink has backup for my DSL. Actually had a 5 day outage over eastern. Was a matter of 5 minutes to book a month of service and I was back online.
I think I pay (here in Aus) 95 bucks for 30GB of data, which has a 1 year expiry.
A month out, I turn on a specific firewall rule on OPNsense to force my Usenet traffic over it. I usually eat up the balance in a day or two, at which point I disable the rule again, and top up the data for another year.
$95 for a year of 4G backup capability ain’t bad. What I haven’t done yet is setup my OPNsense rules so that the heavy traffic doesn’t route over 4G in the event of an outage. I really only want it so I can browse the internet, access email, etc.
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In some places you can get a home internet line that runs through the mobile phone data network, and they tend to be more reliable than cabled connections, they can get even better if they use a modem data plan and not explicitly a home bulk plan. It really hinges on how much data you use and what plans are available where you are. Of course if you do it this way you won’t have a private IPV4, but if your ISP allows IPV6, that should be unique and directly accessible no matter what.
As the other poster mentioned there are routers that have a SIM connection as backup, and now they’re being offered with a SIM and automatic fail-over as part of some fiber to the home plans.
First off. If Internet goes down I have a http captive portal that do some diagnos, showing where the problem is. Link on network interface, gateway reachable, dns working and dhcp lease. Second, now when it is down, show the timestamp when it went down.
Third, phone number to the ISP and city fiber network owner.
Forth. Watch my local RSS feed and email folder. Also have something to watch from Youtube or Twitch game downloaded locally.
I use very simple software for this. My firewall can use route monitoring and failover and use policy based routing. I just send all traffic to another machine with the diagnosis part. It does ping through the firewall and fetch some info from the firewall. The page itself is not pretty but say what is wrong. Enough for parents to read what error.
I also send DNS traffic to a special DNS server that responds with the same static ip address - enough for the browser to continue with a HTTP GET that the firewall will send forward to my landing page.
It is sad that I don’t have any more problems since I changed ISP.
Had a scenario when the page said gateway reachable but nothing more. ISP issue. DHCP lease slowly ran out. There were a fiber cut between our town and the next. Not much I could do about it. Just configured the IP static and could reach some friends through IRC in the same city so we could talk about it.
The webpage itself was written in php that read icmp logs and showed the relevants logs of up and down. Very simple.
I’ve been in IT all my life, starting in the mid 80’s. Got an extensive home lab and host pretty much everything you tend to use as SAAS these days at home too. Home mail, cloud, web based office suite, etc.
But for the “what if your ISP goes down”, well, then I switch to my neighbors ISP XD.
There’s dozens of ISPs of various sizes where I live and there’s neighbors representing 8 of these ISPs. I have access to all their networks (most of them gave access).
So if my ISP goes down, I switch to another one.
That said, I haven’t had an outage longer than 30 minutes in 5 years and the average time between shorter outages (quick resets to minutes long) happen 1ce a year or so.
There are some announced outages, usually once per quarter, for network upgrades and system maintenance. But generally, my ISP has a 99,99% uptime.
i have cable, in the us, it goes out for awhile probably on a weekly basis. calling them is pointless.
if i really need internet–and i did a couple weeks ago when it happened (i don’t carry an internet-capable phone), my office is less than five minutes away and has dsl. the phone company has proven itself to be far more reliable than cable, even if they are scummy, greedy bastards just like cable and wireless companies.
I have two internet connections - one is fiber and the other is cable. My cable is the backup connection and is a lower tier offering with a 1.2 TB/month cap while my primary fiber is 1gig symmetrical with no data cap. I use pfsense to handle failover in case of an outage.
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I set up a backup cell connection to my cable internet connection. Sketchy Chinese 4G LTE modem. My router was a DIY job I set up off of Ubuntu Server. Everything ran to a Cisco switch and then was VLAN isolated. For the two WAN connections, I ran scripts from the router that periodically tried to reach out to several DNS providers and then average response rates to determine if the main connection was up. If not then it would modify default routes and push everything to the cell.
The cell connection had pretty low data cap, so it was just for backup and wasn’t a home style plan. I used the old TTL modification trick to get it to pass data like a phone. When I moved the backup to 5G, TTL modification stopped working and I had to resort to creating tunnel interfaces to an actual phone. Since that tunnel is limited in bandwidth to the lowest value, my speeds were really cut in half.
I have starlink has backup for my DSL. Actually had a 5 day outage over eastern. Was a matter of 5 minutes to book a month of service and I was back online.
Cheap and cheerful 4G plugged into my Proxmox server, mapped to a secondary WAN interface for OPNsense.
I ain’t gaming over it, but I will be connected.
Seems like the way to go
I think I pay (here in Aus) 95 bucks for 30GB of data, which has a 1 year expiry.
A month out, I turn on a specific firewall rule on OPNsense to force my Usenet traffic over it. I usually eat up the balance in a day or two, at which point I disable the rule again, and top up the data for another year.
$95 for a year of 4G backup capability ain’t bad. What I haven’t done yet is setup my OPNsense rules so that the heavy traffic doesn’t route over 4G in the event of an outage. I really only want it so I can browse the internet, access email, etc.
I have good ole reliable t mobile. Fml
Explore rpgifting and discover a selection of skins and loot specifically catering to avid gamers. Peruse the items on offer and upgrade your in-game character while benefitting from discounts of up to 50%.
Our extensive selection encompasses an amazing array of items, from the classic and iconic champion skins to some of the more unique orbs and ward skins that have been intricately designed to reflect the amazing world of League of Legends. Every single piece is a stunning testament to the game’s rich story and its creative artistry.
If you’re an experienced League of Legends player or a beginner, this is the moment to take advantage of and give your in-game style a special twist and make yourself noticeable in the Summoner’s Rift.
rpgifting
https://rpgifting.com/
what the fuxk is this here?
In some places you can get a home internet line that runs through the mobile phone data network, and they tend to be more reliable than cabled connections, they can get even better if they use a modem data plan and not explicitly a home bulk plan. It really hinges on how much data you use and what plans are available where you are. Of course if you do it this way you won’t have a private IPV4, but if your ISP allows IPV6, that should be unique and directly accessible no matter what.
As the other poster mentioned there are routers that have a SIM connection as backup, and now they’re being offered with a SIM and automatic fail-over as part of some fiber to the home plans.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
6 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 7 acronyms.
[Thread #148 for this sub, first seen 19th Sep 2023, 08:45] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
Good bot
First off. If Internet goes down I have a http captive portal that do some diagnos, showing where the problem is. Link on network interface, gateway reachable, dns working and dhcp lease. Second, now when it is down, show the timestamp when it went down. Third, phone number to the ISP and city fiber network owner.
Forth. Watch my local RSS feed and email folder. Also have something to watch from Youtube or Twitch game downloaded locally.
Can I get more details on this captive portal? How does it diagnose network issues or what software are you using for the captive portal?
I use very simple software for this. My firewall can use route monitoring and failover and use policy based routing. I just send all traffic to another machine with the diagnosis part. It does ping through the firewall and fetch some info from the firewall. The page itself is not pretty but say what is wrong. Enough for parents to read what error. I also send DNS traffic to a special DNS server that responds with the same static ip address - enough for the browser to continue with a HTTP GET that the firewall will send forward to my landing page. It is sad that I don’t have any more problems since I changed ISP.
Had a scenario when the page said gateway reachable but nothing more. ISP issue. DHCP lease slowly ran out. There were a fiber cut between our town and the next. Not much I could do about it. Just configured the IP static and could reach some friends through IRC in the same city so we could talk about it.
The webpage itself was written in php that read icmp logs and showed the relevants logs of up and down. Very simple.
Lots of beer and a book
Coffee and any of my Chinese handhelds DS/PSP!
All services which I need access to when I’m not home I host on a vps. All services which need lots of storage, I host at home.
Yes seems very reasonable. I like keeping things in silicon I can touch… but I may need to look into a remote solution for some essential services
I’ve been in IT all my life, starting in the mid 80’s. Got an extensive home lab and host pretty much everything you tend to use as SAAS these days at home too. Home mail, cloud, web based office suite, etc.
But for the “what if your ISP goes down”, well, then I switch to my neighbors ISP XD.
There’s dozens of ISPs of various sizes where I live and there’s neighbors representing 8 of these ISPs. I have access to all their networks (most of them gave access).
So if my ISP goes down, I switch to another one.
That said, I haven’t had an outage longer than 30 minutes in 5 years and the average time between shorter outages (quick resets to minutes long) happen 1ce a year or so.
There are some announced outages, usually once per quarter, for network upgrades and system maintenance. But generally, my ISP has a 99,99% uptime.
i have cable, in the us, it goes out for awhile probably on a weekly basis. calling them is pointless.
if i really need internet–and i did a couple weeks ago when it happened (i don’t carry an internet-capable phone), my office is less than five minutes away and has dsl. the phone company has proven itself to be far more reliable than cable, even if they are scummy, greedy bastards just like cable and wireless companies.
Wait for it to go up gain 🥲. But now I’m curious how people use 4G as second option maybe I will try juat for fun.
If everything is local it doesn’t matter if your ISP goes down, it’ll all work fine.
I have two internet connections - one is fiber and the other is cable. My cable is the backup connection and is a lower tier offering with a 1.2 TB/month cap while my primary fiber is 1gig symmetrical with no data cap. I use pfsense to handle failover in case of an outage.