this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2026
45 points (100.0% liked)

Selfhosted

63677 readers
602 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

Detailed Rules Post

  1. Be civil.

  2. No spam.

  3. Posts are to be related to self-hosting.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or readme if you're providing a link.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title.

  6. No trolling.

  7. Promotion posts require active participation, with an account that is at least 30 days old. F/LOSS without a paywall has exceptions, with requirements. See the rules link for details. Tags [CBH] or [AIP] are required, see the links in Rule 8 for details.

  8. AI-related discussions and AI-involved promotional posts have additional requirements for tagging, as noted in Rule 7 and the AI & Promotional Post Expanded Rules post, and find example disclosures here.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
ruud@lemmy.world
Loki@lemmy.world
CannaVet@lemmy.world
devve@lemmy.world
ayyy@sh.itjust.works
curbstickle@anarchist.nexus
curbstickle_lw@lemmy.world
45
How do you isolate a printer in your homelab? (lemmy.zip)
submitted 9 hours ago by rearview@lemmy.zip to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
34 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Mordikan@kbin.earth 2 points 47 minutes ago

I use VLANs for this as others have mentioned. You can create VLANs for the logical grouping of devices (ex. Home, Work, IoT, etc), then you create firewall rules to block specific traffic sourced from the IoT VLAN to the other VLANs or out the WAN interface. This still allows traffic originating from the Home/Work VLANs to talk to the printer but doesn't let devices from that VLAN scan the network.