I just wanted to see what other selfhosters backup emergency plan is if the primary internet router goes offline but the internet isn’t out (ie a router reboot would fix the problem), leaving you without access to your stuff even via vpn.
the options I’ve considered so far:
- cellular smart plug to reboot router
I tried a ubibot smart plug (SP1) that is supposed to work with cellular, but the device or sim is bad. I’m currently troubleshooting. The problem with this one is it requires a proprietary cloud service, it’s supposedly self hostable, but it’s a pia to setup and their app port can’t be changed easily allowing for a reverse proxy setup on VPS.
- the other option I am considering is cellular wifi router and a wifi smart plug connected to that device to reboot router
what other options have I overlooked? Also, specific models of devices would be helpful info from others doing this already.
TIA!
Edit: also just thought of possibly a cellular internet backup on my opnsense box, but from everything I’ve read that’s also very involved to setup
I buy better gear that doesn’t regularly require a reboot
My mikrotik has not NEEDED a reboot ever, except when I run upgrades. Everything is set up to auto recover when disconnects happen, and power up properly if there’s an extended power failure that causes UPS shutdowns.
I will never understand why people think rebooting their router regularly is a normal thing. That just means your gear or setup is crap.
I get what you mean, I only use L3 top-of-rack data center switches, what a bunch of amateur peasants !
That’s called unnecessary overkill and you’ll introduce failures from excess complexity.
Actually they are a reduction in complexity, yes I am not using most of the features, they run in L2, but their backbone runs off a x86 single board computer and they run a mostly hardware agnostic OS (Sonic).
This is what I mean by a reduction in complexity, it’s basically running debian os with pcie switchdev interfaces on a PC. It’s familiar and stable, not locked in to proprietary hardware, they’re cheap and plentiful
My Mikrotik routers and switches also reboot in seconds (even for upgrades), which I’ve never seen consumer gear do!
Even my Ubiquiti switches seem to take a minute or so to start forwarding traffic after a reboot; whilst my Mikrotik switches reboot faster than any of my unmanaged switches start up.