5 ms·

def had myself set up to have wifi-only during power outages when i was a student in my first apartment in SF, but the no-SPoF here is above and beyond. i'm re

def had myself set up to have wifi-only during power outages when i was a student in my first apartment in SF, but the no-SPoF here is above and beyond. i'm really curious about the switch configs, nothing like UniFi existed the last time I tried to do network-HA.

halbritt 8y ago
I love Unifi. They're the only consumer-grade access points that will do roaming worth a damn. They're access points, though, and don't function as a router. I use the UAP-AC and an EdgeRouter. The EdgeRouter has relatively sophisticated capabilities for a piece of consumer great network gear. I have GigE fiber to the home and get ~900Mbps through the router (and ~400Mpbs through the access points). I generally don't recommend the USG, which has similar functionality and is integrated with the Unifi management platform.
- pedrocr 8y ago
  >I love Unifi. They're the only consumer-grade access points that will do roaming worth a damn. What advantage do you get with that versus just running a bunch of APs with the same SSID/password bridging to a single router? I do that with 3 cheap tp-link routers (1 as router, 2 as APs) and LEDE and both my laptop and phone work seamlessly. At one point I considered actually doing full 802.11r AP roaming but the only actual use case I had for that was doing VoIP calls while roaming between APs with no drops. Everything else works fine with the small interruption of switching APs.
  - evil-olive 8y ago
    Unifi has a centralized controller that each AP talks to, and is able to coordinate roaming. Gives you 802.11r-like functionality but with close to zero setup beyond what's already needed to set up each AP (which is also centralized at the controller, so adding an Nth AP to an existing site is almost trivial). > Note that UniFi Fast Roaming is not a direct implementation of 802.11r - it is a solution taking inspiration from 802.11r, with a few key proprietary differences. We've found that Fast Roaming provides about 90% of the roaming improvement offered by BSS Transition. However, Fast Roaming does not require client support, allowing backwards compatibility with all clients. https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/115004662107-UniFi-Fast-Roaming https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/115004662107-UniFi-F...
    - halbritt 8y ago
      Reiterating this: Management and updates are wonderful through the unifi app. It functions similarly to Meraki, better in my experience and there's no recurring fees. The app can be self-hosted, run in the cloud, or on something they call a "cloud key" that's not much more than a Raspberry Pi. I've run it on a Pi3, and it's a little bit laggy, but tolerable. I prefer to run it on my little x86 server. Both the self-hosted and the cloud version can be managed remotely, which is neat. There are a host of other benefits, but given the price (around $100 per AP), I see no reason to use the more commonplace consumer grade stuff. Check out the unifi demo here: https://demo.ubnt.com/manage/site/outlets/dashboard https://demo.ubnt.com/manage/site/outlets/dashboard
      - pedrocr 8y ago
        For me LEDE/OpenWRT are easy enough to configure and fully open source. APs are also about half the price you quote and the selection is much wider as it works with most manufacturers (including UniFi's). So I see no reason to depend on a more expensive closed-source solution that I never know when it might go away.
        halbritt 8y ago
        OpenWRT is pretty powerful, certainly. If you prefer an open source solution, that's definitely the way to go. I've used OpenWRT which I liked quite a lot, but I prefer the ease of having an integrated solution with the Unifi products.
    - pedrocr 8y ago
      I knew that. My question is what advantage do you get out of roaming. I don't use 802.11r because I don't need it. It's not easy to configure in LEDE but it's doable.
- r1ch 8y ago
  Wifi roaming is pretty poor because it's entirely a client side decision (unless you have the AP forcibly disassociate a client - this is rarely done as it interrupts streaming / VoIP etc). APs can provide the client with a list of neighboring APs and things like 802.11r speed up the reassociation process when there's a complex backend authentication process like 802.1x, but it's still entirely up to the client when to roam. Ubiquiti's early products did provide a "zero roaming" option which faked one big network, but this was very inefficient bandwidth-wise as it required all APs to share a single channel. Proper network design such as minimizing TX power to encourage a client to roam due to a "weak" signal and maximizing coverage with lots of APs typically is the best way to get clients to roam reliably.
- myrandomcomment 8y ago
  Why do you not recommend the USG? I have one and it works great - now to be clear I am not doing anything fancy and my Internet is only 50Mbps.
  - halbritt 8y ago
    It's great in that it integrates with the unifi app and provides complete visibility. However, I've had a couple of the USG fail under certain circumstances with enough bandwidth (>200mbps) or tickling a certain feature of the firewall. The EdgeRouter has been more reliable for me. I'm not recommending against them, I suppose. I've just been bitten on a couple issues that I imagine have likely been corrected at this point. I was a bit disappointed that it took Ubiquiti a couple of years to stabilize the product. I do have one on hand that I intend to replace my EdgeRouter with at some point so that I can manage all the devices with one app. (edit) I think I was also waiting on IPv6 which it looks like they've added at this point: https://medium.com/@poolski/setting-up-ipv6-on-unifi-security-gateway-1bdf64722733 https://medium.com/@poolski/setting-up-ipv6-on-unifi-securit...
    - myrandomcomment 8y ago
      Yes, I enabled v6 the other day and it worked fine.
- voltagex_ 8y ago
  What don't you like about the USG? I went with a US8-60W and a UAP to start doing Power over Ethernet everywhere I could (it's annoying that the USG doesn't support this). The USG hasn't arrived yet, but it'll let me do PPPoE, firewalling and stats for the network.

halbritt 8y ago

I love Unifi. They're the only consumer-grade access points that will do roaming worth a damn. They're access points, though, and don't function as a router. I use the UAP-AC and an EdgeRouter. The EdgeRouter has relatively sophisticated capabilities for a piece of consumer great network gear. I have GigE fiber to the home and get ~900Mbps through the router (and ~400Mpbs through the access points). I generally don't recommend the USG, which has similar functionality and is integrated with the Unifi management platform.

pedrocr 8y ago
>I love Unifi. They're the only consumer-grade access points that will do roaming worth a damn. What advantage do you get with that versus just running a bunch of APs with the same SSID/password bridging to a single router? I do that with 3 cheap tp-link routers (1 as router, 2 as APs) and LEDE and both my laptop and phone work seamlessly. At one point I considered actually doing full 802.11r AP roaming but the only actual use case I had for that was doing VoIP calls while roaming between APs with no drops. Everything else works fine with the small interruption of switching APs.
- evil-olive 8y ago
  Unifi has a centralized controller that each AP talks to, and is able to coordinate roaming. Gives you 802.11r-like functionality but with close to zero setup beyond what's already needed to set up each AP (which is also centralized at the controller, so adding an Nth AP to an existing site is almost trivial). > Note that UniFi Fast Roaming is not a direct implementation of 802.11r - it is a solution taking inspiration from 802.11r, with a few key proprietary differences. We've found that Fast Roaming provides about 90% of the roaming improvement offered by BSS Transition. However, Fast Roaming does not require client support, allowing backwards compatibility with all clients. https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/115004662107-UniFi-Fast-Roaming https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/115004662107-UniFi-F...
  - halbritt 8y ago
    Reiterating this: Management and updates are wonderful through the unifi app. It functions similarly to Meraki, better in my experience and there's no recurring fees. The app can be self-hosted, run in the cloud, or on something they call a "cloud key" that's not much more than a Raspberry Pi. I've run it on a Pi3, and it's a little bit laggy, but tolerable. I prefer to run it on my little x86 server. Both the self-hosted and the cloud version can be managed remotely, which is neat. There are a host of other benefits, but given the price (around $100 per AP), I see no reason to use the more commonplace consumer grade stuff. Check out the unifi demo here: https://demo.ubnt.com/manage/site/outlets/dashboard https://demo.ubnt.com/manage/site/outlets/dashboard
    - pedrocr 8y ago
      For me LEDE/OpenWRT are easy enough to configure and fully open source. APs are also about half the price you quote and the selection is much wider as it works with most manufacturers (including UniFi's). So I see no reason to depend on a more expensive closed-source solution that I never know when it might go away.
      - halbritt 8y ago
        OpenWRT is pretty powerful, certainly. If you prefer an open source solution, that's definitely the way to go. I've used OpenWRT which I liked quite a lot, but I prefer the ease of having an integrated solution with the Unifi products.
  - pedrocr 8y ago
    I knew that. My question is what advantage do you get out of roaming. I don't use 802.11r because I don't need it. It's not easy to configure in LEDE but it's doable.
r1ch 8y ago
Wifi roaming is pretty poor because it's entirely a client side decision (unless you have the AP forcibly disassociate a client - this is rarely done as it interrupts streaming / VoIP etc). APs can provide the client with a list of neighboring APs and things like 802.11r speed up the reassociation process when there's a complex backend authentication process like 802.1x, but it's still entirely up to the client when to roam. Ubiquiti's early products did provide a "zero roaming" option which faked one big network, but this was very inefficient bandwidth-wise as it required all APs to share a single channel. Proper network design such as minimizing TX power to encourage a client to roam due to a "weak" signal and maximizing coverage with lots of APs typically is the best way to get clients to roam reliably.
myrandomcomment 8y ago
Why do you not recommend the USG? I have one and it works great - now to be clear I am not doing anything fancy and my Internet is only 50Mbps.
- halbritt 8y ago
  It's great in that it integrates with the unifi app and provides complete visibility. However, I've had a couple of the USG fail under certain circumstances with enough bandwidth (>200mbps) or tickling a certain feature of the firewall. The EdgeRouter has been more reliable for me. I'm not recommending against them, I suppose. I've just been bitten on a couple issues that I imagine have likely been corrected at this point. I was a bit disappointed that it took Ubiquiti a couple of years to stabilize the product. I do have one on hand that I intend to replace my EdgeRouter with at some point so that I can manage all the devices with one app. (edit) I think I was also waiting on IPv6 which it looks like they've added at this point: https://medium.com/@poolski/setting-up-ipv6-on-unifi-security-gateway-1bdf64722733 https://medium.com/@poolski/setting-up-ipv6-on-unifi-securit...
  - myrandomcomment 8y ago
    Yes, I enabled v6 the other day and it worked fine.
voltagex_ 8y ago
What don't you like about the USG? I went with a US8-60W and a UAP to start doing Power over Ethernet everywhere I could (it's annoying that the USG doesn't support this). The USG hasn't arrived yet, but it'll let me do PPPoE, firewalling and stats for the network.