What a home network is
Every phone, laptop, TV and server in your house connects to one box: the router. Your internet provider usually supplies it, and it does several jobs at once. It runs the Wi-Fi, it gives every device a number so they can find each other, and it passes traffic between your devices and the internet.
A homelab doesn’t need a new router or a networking course. It needs you to understand what the router is already doing, and to change one setting so your server stays where you left it. The rest of this page is here so the words in other guides stop being a mystery.
Two kinds of address: know which one you’re looking at
Most confusion comes from mixing up two different addresses.
- Private addresses belong to the devices inside your home, such as 192.168.1.20. The router hands them out, they only work inside your house, and every home in the street can use the same ones without clashing.
- Your public address belongs to your whole home. It’s the one the rest of the internet sees, every device in the house shares it, and your provider can change it.
When a guide says “open the server’s address in a browser”, it means the private one. When a website shows “your IP address”, that’s the public one. Remote access tools such as Tailscale exist so you never have to hand your public address to anyone.
How a request gets from your phone to your server
Here’s what happens when you open an app on your server from your phone at home:
| Step | What does it | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Joining the network | DHCP, in the router | Your phone gets a private address, and is told where the router and DNS are |
| Finding a name | DNS | A name such as jellyfin.org is turned into an address. At home you often skip this by typing the address itself |
| Picking the app | The port | The number after the colon, such as :8096, says which app on the server you want |
| Leaving the house | NAT, in the router | Traffic to the internet goes out under your public address, and replies come back to the right device |
Each of those words is explained in the list below. The one that matters most for a homelab is the first. DHCP hands out addresses as devices join, and it doesn’t promise to give a device the same one next time.
What you need
- The router’s login. Most routers have a settings page at an address such as 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1, and many providers also have a phone app. The address and the admin password are usually printed on a sticker on the router. If you’ve changed the password and forgotten it, the reset button returns the router to the sticker settings, but it also wipes your Wi-Fi name and password, so keep that as a last resort.
- About fifteen minutes, at a moment when nobody minds the server restarting.
- A network cable for the server, ideally. A machine that never moves is faster and steadier on a cable than on Wi-Fi.
Why the fixed address matters
Giving your server a fixed address is the one setting this page asks you to change, and it pays off every day:
- Bookmarks keep working. The address you saved for Jellyfin or your dashboard is still right next month.
- Apps keep finding the server. Phone apps, the Jellyfin app on your TV and your backup software all point at one address. If it changes, they all break at once.
- Whole-house ad blocking keeps working. With AdGuard Home or Pi-hole, every device is told to use the server for DNS. If the server moves, websites stop loading for everyone.
- Problems are easier to trace. When something stops working, you can rule out “the server moved” straight away.
The easy way to set it up
This happens in the router’s own settings page or app. There’s no terminal involved.
- Plug the server in and switch it on, so the router can see it.
- Open the router’s settings page in a browser, using the address on its sticker, and log in. If your provider has an app, it may have the same settings.
- Find the list of connected devices. It’s often called Devices, Attached devices, Client list or DHCP clients. Find your server by its name and note the address next to it.
- Find the reservation setting. Look under LAN, DHCP or Network for something called address reservation, static lease or fixed IP. Some routers put a button for it next to each device in the list.
- Reserve the address the server already has, so nothing else needs to change, and save.
- Restart the server, then check in the same list that it came back with the same address.
If your router has no reservation setting, give the server a fixed address in its own network settings instead, choosing one outside the range the router hands out. The router’s DHCP page shows that range. How you set it depends on the server’s operating system, so follow its documentation. A reservation on the router is still the better choice where you can, because the router then knows not to give that address to anything else.
Questions people ask
Why does my server’s address start with 192.168 when websites say my IP is something else?
They’re different addresses. A 192.168 address is private and only means something inside your home. Websites see your home’s single public address, which all your devices share.
How do I know if I’m behind CGNAT?
Compare the internet address (often labelled WAN) on your router’s status page with the one a “what is my IP” website shows. If they’re different, or the router’s starts with anything from 100.64 to 100.127, your provider is sharing one address between homes, or there’s a second router in the way. Port forwarding won’t work, but Tailscale will.
Should the server use Wi-Fi or a cable?
A cable, if you can get one to it. The server is the one device everything else depends on, and a cable gives it a connection that doesn’t slow down when the house is busy. If the router is in the wrong room, a long flat cable along the skirting board usually beats Wi-Fi.
Do I need a better router for a homelab?
Usually not. Any router that can reserve addresses is enough to start. Replacing it is worth thinking about when you want separate networks for guests and gadgets, or a VPN built in, and the firewalls and router firmware page covers that.
What’s the difference between a modem and a router?
The modem connects to your provider’s line, whether that’s fibre, cable or a phone line. The router shares that connection around the house. Most providers give you one box that does both, which is why people use the words for the same thing.
