I recently learned about LocalSend and was intrigued by how it functioned by only using the WiFi network of the devices. I did not know my LAN had these capabilities.
Now that I’ve learned about it, I am excited to know if there is anything else I can do with it. Perhaps there could be a way to send prank notifications to all the connected devices, create a private chat room, or have custom LAN parties.
I genuinely do not know anything about how WiFi or LAN in general works in this matter. Is it possible for me to build my own applications that make use of these features? If so, I would love to get a direction on what resources or guides I should be looking for. If not, I would still be happy to use similar pre-built applications.
Check out Pihole. It’s a network filtering tool. It runs on a raspberry pi. You can access it via ssh (command line) or webgui (local LAN web interface.) You can leave the raspberry pi hooked up to your router headless (meaning not hooked up to a display). Pihole is fun to mess around with. You can block all sorts of bullshit, such as ads on smart tvs/devices and stuff like that. It won’t block youtube ads though since those are served from the main youtube domain. You need ublock origin for that. Same with Twitch. Everything else basically you can block though.
Check out !selfhosted@lemmy.world
I made a similar thing on my home network. It uses php’s built in file upload and runs in the web browser so you don’t even need an app. It’s just basic beginner level html and php in 2 files that goes on my lan server. Makes it super easy to transfer files between phones, windows pcs and Linux pcs.
I gave up on fighting with windows pcs to try getting them to connect to samba shares a long time ago and you’ll never access a samba or windows network share on a smartphone without paying money for some shitty app anyway. Despite this relatively low-tech solution it ends up being more practical just because it’s easy and convenient.
A simple network share.
Does your router have a USB port?
Plug in a thumb drive (32-64gb is fine) and configure it in your router’s admin interface to share on the network. (FTP and SMB shares)
An easy way to have all devices in a house able to access a shared directory. (Pictures, movies, music, files)
You can buy a raspberry pi and have Pihole setup on it. It’ll act as your local dns server and block any ad domains for the whole household.
I had done this for several years but recently I’m running into the issue where my home router won’t let me specify a DNS server that is on the same subnet. I dont have multiple networks running at home so I can’t make a Pihole work anymore.
That’s a weird situation. Have you tried spinning up a second subnet on your modem?
Congrats on dipping your toes into networking! Don’t let it suck you in too much or you’ll end up with a career change.
Plenty of resources out there to learn from, just pick a project and try to implement it. Or just play around with netcat (just ‘nc’ nowadays).
Look into the TCP/IP stack (or the OSI model, both cover the core concepts) for an overview of how applications talk to each other. This will also help you understand how LocalSend probably works (my guess is broadcasting to your network and seeing what devices are listening on a certain port. Some LAN-enabled games work like this, others aren’t as magical and ask you to provide an address and a port).
Maybe crosspost to !selfhosted@lemmy.world and/or !selfhosting@slrpnk.net since this is in the ballpark of what we talk about there.
As far as the administration side goes, I think whitelisting is a pretty awesome feature on most routers. This gives you an extra layer of security on top of your password for your WiFi. Someone may get your code from someone else or you may have let a neighbor use it for a moment, but then what? Change the password and then have to update all your other devices?
Nah, just whitelist and you can remove devices as you wish any time you want.
It’s not foolproof as MAC spoofing is a thing, but it’s a cool layer to have.
You can also more safely create a QR code for getting on the WiFi with whitelisting enabled. So if someone happens to see it, they don’t necessarily get access just by scanning it. That’s just the first step. But this makes QR codes a little safer to have for joining the WiFi easily.
I think creating your own DNS server at home with a Raspberry Pi through PiHole is also another cool thing to do. Gives you the ability to block ads as well as many other things like known malware websites and even restricting adult sites easily if you have kids or just wanting to do it for yourself.
Combine that with a VPN server on that same Raspberry Pi so you can remote into your network from anywhere and also have the adblocking from the PiHole server at home. I did this for a while but disabled it because I wanted to ensure my home network was a little more secure before opening that up again. But it was a cool thing to have and use.
Guest networks are also a quick and easy way to allow strangers into your network without giving them privileges to change anything, and prevent others from messing up your network if they get a hold of the password.
Syncthing.org is a fun and useful tool that works over local wifi.
Use netcat (nc) or similar for local unencrypted one to one chats (half joking)
