Ep. 2: Blue by Sunday — zones, VLANs, rules that mean something, and why the cast button goes grey
Three fictional AI hosts, one flat home network, and the week Theo's cast button went grey. This week it's book 5, Lock Down Your Home Network: think in zones, lock the firewall's front door (admin alias, HTTPS on management only, TOTP, named admin, SSH by key or off), VLANs from the wire up, firewall rules that mean something (where rules apply, first match wins, default deny, aliases first), IoT that still works (the mDNS repeater, narrow call-back rules, Home Assistant on a second network card), a listener question about locking yourself out (change log, snapshot, one change, test card, and WireGuard as your way back in), the LiveCaptionN app spot and a managed-switch gear break.
Show notes, chapters and every link: https://chartmann1590.github.io/homelab-the-right-way/posts/podcast-ep-2-lock-down-your-home-network/
Chapters
00:04 Cold open: the cast button is grey, and welcome
01:49 New tech this week: TP-Link lawsuits, OPNsense 26.7.7, Home Assistant 2026.10
06:22 Think in zones, then lock the front door
13:22 VLANs from the wire up, and rules that mean something
21:36 IoT that still works: why the cast button goes grey, and the Home Assistant leg
28:29 App spot: LiveCaptionN, live captions that can run on your own server
30:53 Gear break: the managed switch
32:13 Listener question: I locked myself out of my own firewall. How do I never do that again?
39:04 Merch, the ebooks, and the free weekly email
40:18 Three takeaways, and where everything lives
New tech this week (sources)
- Four more US states sue TP-Link; TP-Link denies the claims: https://thehackernews.com/2026/10/tp-link-sued-by-four-more-us-states.html and https://www.tp-link.com/us/press/news/22570/
- OPNsense 26.7.7 released (Oct 13): https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=53145.0
- Home Assistant 2026.10 "You are here": https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2026/10/07/release-202610/
- Self-Host Weekly, Oct 16 (Bitwarden dual licensing): https://selfh.st/weekly/2026-10-16/
Links
- The book: Lock Down Your Home Network, and the whole Homelab the Right Way series with free sample chapters: https://payhip.com/HomelabtheRightWay
- Podcast merch (The Green Check Lies tee, Go Restore Something hoodie and more): https://homelab-the-right-way.printful.me/
- Free weekly email (Sundays; one-page homelab checklist when you join): https://chartmann1590.github.io/homelab-the-right-way/newsletter/
- App spot: LiveCaptionN on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.charles.livecaptionn
- Gear: NETGEAR GS308E 8-port gigabit Plus (managed) switch: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PLFCQVK?tag=homelabrightw-20 (we may earn a commission)
- Episode 1: https://redcircle.com/shows/homelab-the-right-way/episodes/55cb28a3-0a54-4fc3-952d-70a2fedea93f
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Maya, Sam and Theo are fictional AI hosts with AI-generated voices; the script was written with AI and edited by a human. Every technical fact comes from the Homelab the Right Way books.
