Project 04 — Networking / Documentation

Home Network
Documentation

A complete map of my home network — every connected device, its IP address, how it was discovered, and how traffic flows from the LAN out to the internet. Written to the standard I'd hand off to another tech.

LAN IP Addressing DNS DHCP ARP Verizon Router

Goal

Produce accurate, current documentation of my home network: what devices are connected, what IPs they hold, how DNS resolves names, and what the traffic path looks like from a device to the internet.

Environment

  • ISP: Verizon (home broadband)
  • Router/Gateway: Verizon-provided router
  • Subnet: 192.168.1.0/24
  • Desktop PC — wired ethernet
  • Raspberry Pi 4 — WiFi (192.168.1.174)
  • Personal devices — wireless (phone, tablet)

Network topology

Verizon Internet (ISP) Verizon Router / Gateway 192.168.1.1 · DHCP server · DNS forwarder WiFi + wired ports built-in wireless wired wireless wireless Raspberry Pi 4 192.168.1.174 (WiFi) lighttpd · SSH · Cloudflare Tunnel running Desktop PC 192.168.1.x (DHCP) Windows 11 Pro VirtualBox host Smartphone 192.168.1.x (DHCP) WiFi — 2.4/5 GHz Other Tablets, TV WiFi Subnet: 192.168.1.0/24 Gateway: 192.168.1.1 DNS: router → Verizon/8.8.8.8
Full device map — coming soon

Detailed IP inventory, ARP/DHCP discovery steps, and annotated screenshots are in progress. The topology above reflects the current setup.

What I learned

ARP is your first look at the LAN

arp -a shows devices your machine has recently talked to. A ping sweep first, then re-run ARP, fills in the rest of the subnet.

Static leases beat static IPs

Setting a DHCP reservation in the router is cleaner than hardcoding an IP on the Pi — the router stays in control of addressing, and the Pi's config doesn't need touching.

tracert reveals the real path

I assumed traffic went directly from my router to Google. tracert showed an ISP intermediate hop I hadn't accounted for — useful for understanding where latency actually comes from.

Documentation forces precision

Writing this up as a handoff doc forced me to verify every detail rather than assume. Found two devices I'd forgotten were connected and one IP I had listed wrong.