Network General - Had major crash in the network

I suffered a major crash in my network last weekend.  What ever happened it borked my PWS Raspberry Pi setup.  That was when I discovered that the network, specifically the Verizon Quantum router, was no longer getting DHCP assigned IP numbers.  I did some tracing and found out that all of my TiVo equipment no longer had IP addresses.

When I went to troubleshoot the Quantum, I discovered that it no longer recognized the FIOS cable that was plugged into it.  I checked everywhere for potential hardware breakages that would explain it but it would come up for a few seconds and then disappear.  That is when I decided to take the Quantum out of the loop.  For one, it was no longer issuing IP addresses from its DHCP server and the TV cable thing.  I ordered a Motorola MOCA 2.0 adapter even though the TiVo Bolt was capable of setting up a MOCA network (I might still use this at a later date though).  The real problem was the fact that the TiVo equipment (Bolt and 2 Minis) were not responding at all and had taken on Bonjour addresses.  The Mini was able to communicate with the Bolt, but could not get back to the TiVo home page to receive updates.  It also appeared that this was causing some issues in using the TiVo equipment.

I then added a vlan behind my Cisco router and moved all of the TiVo equipment there.  When the MOCA adapter came in, I put it on the FIOS cable and connected it to the same vlan as the TiVo equipment.  I then saw that my TiVo equipment had IP addresses and could be updated from the TiVo site.

I determined that the weewx setup on my Raspberry Pi had failed.  It was causing kernel panics.  I then changed out the RPi hardware and setup a new weewx software build and got the PWS back online.

All of my traceback seemed to indicate that the Quantum had undergone a hard failure, no amount of reseting the Quantum seemed to revive it's capabilities.  So I made the decision to phase out the Quantum router.  I was able to get to the outside through the Quantum, but only because my Cisco Router has a manually assigned IP address in the Quantum LAN subnet.  I did some research and it seems that it is a fairly simple matter to take down the Quantum and bring up the Cisco in its place.

Will report back when I get this working.

Change made to network due to Media streaming overload

As luck would have it, the new router that I received from Verizon has a number of issues.  One, there is one port on the router that I cannot close because that is used by Verizon to manage their network.  As a result, Verizon is able to get inside of the perimeter of the network and is the main reason that I have a second router.  Secondly, the Verizon Quantum router does not have vlan capability - at all, nada.  This causes some issues with what I want to do in that I need to isolate things to their own broadcast LAN.  It doesn't do well to have an Ethernet based media setup which cannot be isolated from other devices that need to share the bandwidth.  Also, interestingly enough, I have discovered that pushing a lot of media (and Bonjour messages for that matter) tend to bog this router down.

Verizon likes to be able to check on their cable card which is mounted in a TiVo Bolt on my network.  I can understand why they want to do this.  They want to be able to control what channels the cable card is able to receive.  I have no problem with this in that I am paying for specific parts of their service, they have that right.  The reason for the Ethernet traffic is that the TiVo Bolt transmits streams to the two TiVo Minis that I also have in the network.  SHMBO occasionally doesn't turn the Minis off when she is done with them and this causes the traffic to continue to stream.  She is getting better at it since she has started recording as many as three channels at the same time.  Since the Bolt only has 4 tuners, the Mini needs to be stopped after use so that it frees up the tuner that it has captured, but that is another story.

To accommodate the possibility that the connection between the Bolt and a Mini is still active and streaming I have moved the media streaming (Bolt and 2 Minis) to a separate set of Ethernet connections outside of my home network. I am doing this by connecting all of these devices on their own separate Ethernet cables and unmanaged switches, finally ending up coming into a separate unmanaged switch connected to the Quantum router.  If the Minis are streaming from the Bolt, the traffic is isolated to the switch and does not affect the Quantum bandwidth.  I have also connected the weather station feed through this same set of switches.  Normally, only the weather station feed uses the Quantum until we are using either Netflix or Amazon Prime Videos.  Meanwhile, if I need to connect to the internet I am free to do so.  Best way I know how to accomplish the goals.

Now if I bork something in the home network and it goes down, it doesn't affect the media which makes living with SHMBO much easier.  Just a tip to the weary husband that only wants peace in the house.

CC #7 - Finally settled on a partial solution

I modified the FIOS TV setup - I now have reduced the Extreme package down to the Custom TV package.  In addition, I have dumped the FIOS DVR and STB rental for a TiVo Bolt and 2 TiVo Minis.  The Bolt serves as the DVR in my setup and the two Minis are able to stream the shows and set the tuners (4 on the Bolt vs. 2 on the FIOS DVR) to stream TV.  The entire setup is running on Ethernet (the Media VLAN) through my house.  This is actually predicted to run about $70 per month less than my current Verizon bill.  I also went from 25/25 to 50/50 on the internet.

Update: I have had a chance to get a couple of bills since I posted this.  The difference between what I was paying and what I am paying now amounts to about $80 since my bill was over $200 per month.  So I am reasonably happy now with the new setup - and the wife seems to be happy as well.  I'm not missing paying the Sports Fee every month.

CC#5 - Going to try out some ideas over the weekend for Cord Cutting

So yesterday I signed up for SlingTv in an effort to look at things that I might use to do a little Cord Cutting.  In case you are mystified as to why I am doing this, consider that I will be retiring in as little as 2 years and I need to cut costs to my home budget.  I am currently spending over $2400 per year for FIOS.  That has got to change.  Fortunately, SlingTv has a 7 day trial offer on the table that really looks attractive.  The downside is that it is a single unit streamer and there is no cloud dvr capability.

I am not sure what I will be able to do with this since one of my "must haves" is to be able to record the Food Network.  I am aware that I can sort of get archived recordings but my wife likes to record the stream on our FIOS DVR and watch it later when we are not occupied with work or errands.  This is the nature of recording the shows, not that we are going to sell or trade the shows with someone, but that we are not around when the shows are on that we want to watch.  The networks end up penalizing customers who simply want to watch their shows in a different time slot when they prevent recording for personal use.  There is nothing illegal at all about recording for personal use, but the networks are using things like the DMCA to force everyone to use their business model. Well, I have to cut the cost or I drop everything - period.

So, this weekend the experiments are to:
(1) try out SlingTv to see what it has to offer and see how the streaming holds up on my internet connection.
(2) finish setting up Mythbuntu on a VM to connect to my OTA setup running through the HDHomeRun Connect system.  Need to figure out the connection to my upstairs tv though.
(3) potentially try out WMC using the OTA setup through my Ceton Echos.

More Later ...

CC#1 - Setting up for Cord Cutting

In just a very short number of years I will be retiring.  I already have my mortgage paid off and I have dropped what I owe to a minimum in preparation for that event.  If you still have a mortgage when you get ready to retire, by definition you will not be able to retire unless you are making oodles of money.  I am not that way.  One of the things that I need to do is start cutting household expenses to a minimum.  I am also planning to run for a couple of years on "retirement income" levels to see how I fare.

One of the larger household expenditures that I have is my cable bill.  I have Verizon FIOS and I am spending over $2400 per year on that service.  I have FIOS TV with one DVR and one STB, no premium movie channels, a telephone land line, and internet (25 up/25 down).  I want to cut that expenditure in half.  The issue is that I have been a Verizon customer for a good number of years but find myself ineligible to participate in ANY offer that Verizon FIOS has.  Every single one of their offers to save money makes the blanket statement that only new customers are eligible.  That means that I will have to quit Verizon and go somewhere else if I am to lower my monthly costs to the level that I need.  My goal is to halve the cost for my cable bill; which means that the service cannot cost more than $100 per month.

So my choices are: (1) to go elsewhere for a period of time until the other service raises their rates and then come back to Verizon and get their offers, or (2) do a Cord Cutting measure and reduce my dependence on Verizon FIOS to internet only.  I can get internet from other sources, but I would prefer to stick with Verizon FIOS internet.

First on the chopping block is the landline.  I already pay AT&T a lot of money for keeping up three iPhones.  I don't foresee that changing for a while although I could back off and go to flip phones which would reduce the bill to a minimum (my granddaughter would not be happy though).  If I have internet service, I would be able to convert over to VOIP (which is what I get from Verizon anyway).  I have an Obi110 in my bag of goodies which I can use to get the landline moved to something reasonable.

Next on the chopping block is the Verizon FIOS internet service.  The service by itself is expensive.  In my area, 25/25 by itself is $45 per month and 50/50 is $55 per month, which is half of the $100 per month in my budget.  I am not sure at this point if I can get those prices if I drop my Verizon FIOS TV and Land Line since I am an existing customer.  I have heard rumors that they will only drop the cost to $75 per month if you drop the rest of the services in an effort to keep you on the whole till.  I will need to explore this

Next on the chopping block is the Verizon FIOS TV.

To be continued ...

Rearranging the Network for Fun

Well how annoying.  I haven't been blogging to this page for a while so I might want to catch up with what has been going on in the network at home.  I recently added a Personal Weather Station (PWS) and a Cisco router to the mix.  I find that once again I am not really trusting of the Verizon folk and I want to keep separate from them as much as is possible.

I did some wiring changes to the 4th switch so that the router only needs 2 wires through the wall; one from the switch in the side room (connected to the other 3 switches, with trunk lines) and one directly from the Verizon FIOS ActionTec router (as the WAN input).  The PWS is connected from a Raspberry Pi to a 3rd wire into the side room and into the 4th switch where it goes into a port with a "patch" VLAN that keeps the flow of information outside of my home network.  This "patch" VLAN then goes from switch #1 to the ActionTec.  Thus, I only have two connections now to the ActionTec.  I have effectively isolated the traffic from the PWS from everything else (as long as the switch on the ActionTec router acts like a switch).

I am also in the process of standing up a Ceton InfiniTV 6 to replace my HD HomeRun Prime.  The difference is 6 tuners instead of 3, and this is a pooled device; meaning I just grab one of the tuners from whatever is connected to it.  Since I really don't believe that my ZTec will be able to keep up with 6 tuners, I am going to stand up a Windows VM in the Mac Mini to host the Windows Media Center to the two Ceton Echo WMC extenders.

I might also use the 1 to 1 NAT capability of the Cisco router so that I can access all media devices from the subnet on the ActionTec.  This will simplify the use of iPhone/iPad apps to control the media devices.

I have some time this weekend to start making all of this work together.  Hopefully, I can get it into some form that will be acceptable to the wife and we can start getting rid of the FIOS Stb and VCRs to save some rental fees ($33 each month).