I just wanted to see what other selfhosters backup emergency plan is if the primary internet router goes offline but the internet isn’t out (ie a router reboot would fix the problem), leaving you without access to your stuff even via vpn.
the options I’ve considered so far:
- cellular smart plug to reboot router
I tried a ubibot smart plug (SP1) that is supposed to work with cellular, but the device or sim is bad. I’m currently troubleshooting. The problem with this one is it requires a proprietary cloud service, it’s supposedly self hostable, but it’s a pia to setup and their app port can’t be changed easily allowing for a reverse proxy setup on VPS.
- the other option I am considering is cellular wifi router and a wifi smart plug connected to that device to reboot router
what other options have I overlooked? Also, specific models of devices would be helpful info from others doing this already.
TIA!
Edit: also just thought of possibly a cellular internet backup on my opnsense box, but from everything I’ve read that’s also very involved to setup
Edit2: I’ve setup a homeassistant automation to reboot a zigbee smart plug if 2 external hosts are down for 15 mins, will try this out for a bit. I still need tp troubleshoot why the device goes down in General. Thanks for all the responses and ideas!
I’ve got one of those KeepConnect smart plugs which monitors a few different external servers and their own cloud, and automatically power cycles its outlet if things don’t work. They’ve damn near doubled in price since I’ve bought mine but it does work very well for me. Annual fee is reasonable too.
I could build something similar but I have too many projects as it is, and I feel I’d be fiddling with it endlessly just because I can. This is literally set and forget and in the last 2y it’s cycled the outlet 48 times, most of them in the middle of the night, presumably with my cable provider maintenance windows.
I’m thinking this is probably my best option if I can get past the using cloud service issue in my head lol.
I do recall seeing the keepconnect a while ago, but completely forgot about it. will definitely look into this! I guess the main issue I see is that it uses a cloud service, what happens when that service goes offline permanently?
If you were able to capture some traffic, you could probably figure out what its hitting and the response its looking for and then override that dns entry and fake that from your homelab or you’re own cloud hosted app/lambda/api.