VLANs, tagged ports and trunks — explained
A straightforward way to think about segmentation, access ports and switch uplinks.
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Hi, I'm Jhalak Rai.
Engineer
I'm passionate about technology, networking, automation and building practical solutions. Here I share my homelab projects, technical guides, and free IT tools.
01 / UTILITIES
The toolkit.
Useful calculations and conversions, right in your browser. No account required.
02 / FIELD NOTES
From the blog.
Practical guides from Microsoft 365 administration, networking, Linux and self-hosting.
Remote access without port forwarding
Choosing between Tailscale and Cloudflare Tunnel for self-hosted services.
Safer PowerShell script execution
Understand execution policies, signing, and avoiding blanket bypasses.
Exchange hybrid migration checklist
Plan identity, mail flow, endpoints, batches and post-migration verification.
Two-node Proxmox: what to consider
Understand quorum, backups, shared storage and the limits of two-node HA.
Designing safer remote access
Separate public apps from private management interfaces and protect identities.
03 / THE LAB
My homelab.
A documented network design featuring pfSense, MikroTik switching, UniFi wireless and Proxmox virtualisation. VLAN assignments below represent the documented target design; deployment status is not independently verified.
EDGE
Virgin Media → pfSense
Virgin Media Hub in DMZ, forwarding to a dedicated pfSense firewall/router. No native modem mode in the documented setup.
NETWORK
MikroTik + Netgear
CSS326-24G-2S+RM core switch (SwOS) with a GS728TP-100NAS PoE switch downstream. Two UniFi APs connect to PoE trunk ports.
COMPUTE
Two Proxmox nodes
Each Proxmox host connects to a 10G SFP+ port on the core switch. NAS and self-hosted services support the environment.
Network architecture
PUBLIC-SAFE OVERVIEW☁ Internet / Virgin Media
↓
pfSense firewall / inter-VLAN routing
↓ 1G VLAN trunk
MikroTik CSS326 core switch
↙ 10G
Proxmox 1
↓ 1G trunk
Netgear PoE switch
2 UniFi APs · cameras · IoT↘ 10G
Proxmox 2
Simplified diagram based on the supplied topology. Detailed port mappings and private addressing are deliberately omitted.
Network segmentation plan
| VLAN | Name | Purpose | Typical devices |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LAN | Management and trusted clients | PCs, infrastructure management |
| 10 | Servers | Virtualisation and services | Proxmox and server workloads |
| 20 | Guests | Guest wireless clients | Guest devices |
| 30 | IoT | Isolated smart devices | Cameras, doorbell, IoT hubs |
Platforms and services
TrueNAS & OpenMediaVault
NAS storage and file-sharing experimentation, with backups and data integrity as priorities.
Home Assistant
Automations, cameras, sensors and tablet dashboards, with remote access considered separately from administration.
Pi-hole, Tailscale & Cloudflare
DNS filtering, private remote networking and selectively published web applications.
Documentation policy
This public page describes architecture, not a live status dashboard. No admin login URLs, credentials, public IPs, or full firewall configurations are published.
04 / ABOUT
Behind the keyboard.
An IT infrastructure engineer with a hands-on interest in systems administration, networking, automation, and self-hosting.
Jhalak Rai’s website is a place to share useful tools, document experiments, and turn real-world troubleshooting into reusable knowledge.
Microsoft 365ExchangePowerShellNetworkingLinuxProxmoxHome Assistant
FEATURED PROJECTS
Infrastructure & automation
Exchange hybrid administration, Active Directory, Microsoft 365, PowerShell deployment automation, VLAN design and self-hosted infrastructure.
Project summaries are generalised to avoid disclosing employer or internal infrastructure details.
Contact details will be added once a public contact address is configured.
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GitHub projects.
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Repositories
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