[PLUG] How best to connect a subnet of Pi Zeros?

[Ben Koenig]

There was a twit.tv podcast on this a few years ago in the context of IP 
connected security cameras. They walked through the ideal topology for a 
home network where 10-20 IP cameras are hooked up to a small 
NAS/Zoneminder computer. I can't find the exact video though and it had 
some relevant ideas.


What are you planning to do with these Zeros? Are they going to be part 
of a cluster or just doing randomly things independently of each other?

-Ben



On 1/16/21 8:51 PM, Eric House wrote:
> I'm playing with Raspberry Pi Zeros, trying to integrate a handful of
> them into my home network. I'm thinking they could replace the VM that
> currently handles http[s] traffic to my home domain.
>
> Zeros, for those who don't know, are $5 512M/single-core ARM devices
> with only a micro-USB OTG port for connectivity. If you configure them
> correctly, you can provide power and networking over the same cable so
> there's not too much cable clutter added.
>
> pi at pz1:~ $ cat /proc/cpuinfo
> processor : 0
> model name : ARMv6-compatible processor rev 7 (v6l)
> BogoMIPS : 997.08
> Features : half thumb fastmult vfp edsp java tls
> CPU implementer : 0x41
> CPU architecture: 7
> CPU variant : 0x0
> CPU part : 0xb76
> CPU revision : 7
>
> Hardware : BCM2835
> Revision : 900093
> Model : Raspberry Pi Zero Rev 1.3
>
> So far I've succeeded in building a version of OpenWRT that runs on a
> Pi 4, which has standard USB ports. I've plugged a four-port USB hub
> into one of them. As Zeros connected to the hub come up, usb<n>
> entries are created in the output of 'ip addr'. I added an interface
> that bridges them together, gets them networked via DHCP, and
> generally convinces me that what I'm doing will work.
>
> The question is: what's the best way to integrate them into my
> network? I'm not sure I need another OpenWRT box, as most of what it
> does -- firewalling, dhcp, etc. -- can already be done by my gateway
> router. Really the only requirement of the box they connect through is
> that it have a USB port (which my Ubiquity X doesn't). If there were a
> package like OpenWRT but focussed on load-balancing rather than
> routing perhaps it'd be a better choice.
>
> Thanks!
>
> --Eric
>