> It didn't cost too much and it's flexible - running Ubuntu server I can stick some Docker containers on it, run a/v for the network, Nagios, anything really.
All those things should be on separate machines.
All those things should be on separate machines.
To me a non-production system is one I can turn off for indeterminate periods of time without loss of any service I actually need to use in daily life.
No, pretty much everything is.
> Anything else is disposable, a convenience.
Fine, we'll your definition: If it causes an inconvenience if it goes down it is a production machine.
The OS on my gateway only goes down on kernel updates, and I can crontab them (unlike with the ISP supplied box).
My son and his mates can put any old malware infested phone on his SSID, but they can't get to my LAN. I can run my gitlab etc without affecting him, apart from QoS - any the latter is something the ISP gateway doesn't even offer.
Anybody sufficiently experienced can segregate services on a single box without any worry.
The wifi my partner and childs kit is connected to = VLANd off, goes straight out through a DMZ via its own interface.
The stuff i'm testing doesn't touch this and I can do what I like through those interfaces without affecting their stuff. Unlike the ISP supplied router if something crashes, I can restart the service rather than pull the power. It doesn't crash anyway, unlike the ISP kit which is temperamental at best.
ISP routers already have wifi. Shouldn't the wifi be separate, as rebooting the router will bring it down otherwise? Where do you draw the line?
Can you pull the power on your testing machine without affecting the wifi ? The point is not that you can usually do it without affecting any other services, the point is that even if you fuck up in the most spectacular way possible and literally fry all the hardware in that box it should not affect any other service than the one you were tinkering with. (Note that in a corporate setting that would not be acceptable either and you'd want failover and no single points of failure).
> unlike the ISP supplied router if something crashes, I can restart the service rather than pull the power. It doesn't crash anyway, unlike the ISP kit which is temperamental at best.
I'm not saying you should use the ISP-provided router, on the contrary, you should definitely build your own. But build a second machine for your experiments, and third for your fileserver, and a fourth for your torrents, and a fifth for.. etc. etc.
> ISP routers already have wifi. Shouldn't the wifi be separate, as rebooting the router will bring it down otherwise?
Yes it should certainly be separate. And it is, at least in my house. Router is a simple server-grade machine (IPMI, ECC, etc.) that ONLY does network routing. I use Ubiquiti access points for the WiFi.
> Where do you draw the line?
Functionally separate services on separate boxes.