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How do you isolate a printer in your homelab? (lemmy.zip)

submitted 3 days ago by rearview@lemmy.zip to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

53 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi all, I've gotten a Brother machine (DCP series) that can do wifi printing/scanning over their proprietary app. However, I'd like to lock it down from my network, because having it on the same LAN as my other devices and the ability to phone out to the internet seem like room for mischievious activities.

For context, I have OpenWRT on my router, and my clients can access the Brother using their iPrint&Scan app and AirPrint on wifi, as well as the traditional USB port. But I'm not good in networking. In my research, I drafted out the following solutions:

Create a firewall rule to block the printer itself from making outbound requests. Seems simple, but I'm not sure if this can persist after IP changes or not.
Create a VLAN for "IoT devices" that cannot send outbound requests to my normal VLAN nor the internet. Inspiration from this video, I'd need to manage a new SSID but it may come in handy for more IoT devices later.
Hook the Brother up to a Raspberry Pi via USB, and install CUPS + SANE on the Pi. Assuming the Pi cannot "phone home" on behalf of the printer, this makes it a local-only "print+scan service" on my normal network and doesn't require an extra VLAN.

I'd like to ask: which solution above is best for "neutering" the Brother? Or are there any alternatives/details I might've missed? I'm not sure if blocking outbound requests this way is enough of a security hardening for an untrusted device, and if there are any usability issues I've overlooked so far.

Thanks for any advice, and please share any printer/scanner setup you have in your networks as well. So hopefully I can get more inspiration!

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[–] rmuk@feddit.uk 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

FWIW, I use the VLAN approach. I have a VLAN (101) specifically for IoT shit. The firewall allows devices on other VLANs - general purpose (104), infrastructure (102) and servers (103) to connect in to 101, but nothing can reach out. Works seamlessly. The only issue you might bump into is that some devices use UPnP/mDNS for discovery, but OpenWRT has a proxy module you can install to facilitate that.

You may be wondering why the tags I use for my VLANs are so odd. I also wonder that sometimes.

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Are those also the aame subnet or in different network (e.g. 192.168.101.0/24 and 192.168.104.0/24)?

[–] rmuk@feddit.uk 1 points 2 days ago

Different subnets, similar to how you describe. It would be really tricky to have them on the same subnet, especially if you want a firewall between them.