[plug] Feedback so far

[Brad Campbell]

On 29/12/24 15:29, Harry McNally wrote:
> Brad C said:
> 
>> We have 4 that are permanent and a couple that get used wirelessly for things like programming PICs or as wireless serial ports for configuring stuff. [.. interesting applications follow ..]
> 
> These are all interesting applications although I can see it would be hard to bring physical hardware for the backup systems! It would be great to have you at the Raspberry Jam evening to talk about those applications or any that are pocket-able that you can bring along.

I'm happy to put it in the diary. What *I* personally could use some practical advice for is IPv6.

I run the home office from a server in the granny flat. I also have 2 VPS in the UK and one in Sydney. All devices have IPV4 available, and all have ipv6.disable=1 on their command line.
This is purely because while I can configure a mail server, web server or DNS with my eyes closed, setting up the network and firewall to v6 is something I've never really had enough motivation to spend time figuring out.

For example. I like NAT. I like the fact everything in the house has a single exit point. It makes firewalling easier and fingerprinting harder. I don't really want every device exposing a unique address to the world. I do this because it's the way I've always done it and it's like being wrapped in a nice comfortable and warm blanket. Now, whether that's right or misguided I don't have enough real work experience to judge. 

Likewise, all the hosted services could probably do with being set up to be IPv6 available (web, mail & DNS anyway), but not having any experience with configuring IPv6 it's easier to switch it off than spend time figuring out how to properly configure the firewalls. Even though the firewall is pretty damn simple.

I do get the point about personal hosting. I suppose where I come from is I do a lot of hosting from home. NBN and Western Power being what they are, even with 10 hours of UPS *and* a generator I've had "a bit" of downtime over the years. My hosting with the external provider has had less than 5 minutes downtime in 18 years (and that was a migration between machines due to a hardware failure). Sometimes you *need* reliable, and sometimes just having a 1Gb pipe with a terrabyte per month of bandwidth is useful.

Regards,
Brad