9 ms·

My network home setup v3.0

Nextgrid 4y ago
All of that hardware in a wooden box scares me. I'd recommend keeping all that in a metal enclosure in a utility room where the hardware can catch fire without setting the entire house ablaze.
- giuliomagnifico 4y ago
  Ahah yes correct, I’m a bit scared too. This is why I have put inside the cabine a SwitchBot connected thermostat and I have a Homebridge plug-in that sends me various alerts via push notifications (using Pushover app) when the temperature inside the cabinet goes above “28-32-36-it’s_on_fire ºC”. And it works, see alerts screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/BvEesUD.png https://i.imgur.com/BvEesUD.png I’ve explained my setup at the beginning of the post, there’s also the “temperatures alerts” in my previous blog post. Also if the temperature raise too much, the A/C above the wooden cabinet turns on and cools down all the hardware. During the night thishappened various times during this hot summer! > I'd recommend keeping all that in a metal enclosure in a utility room where the hardware can catch fire without setting the entire house ablaze Yes but you cannot agree with me that the metal racks are terrible/ugly =] I want to have my network things inside my house, possibly where I can see them, and I don’t want to have a metal rack inside my living room, see my first post with all the house rooms (http://giuliomagnifico.blog/networking/2022/01/14/my-home-setup.html http://giuliomagnifico.blog/networking/2022/01/14/my-home-se...). Anyway I can’t say that the fire risk is concrete, as always with electrical things. But I prefer to monitor this risk with sensors and maintenance instead of “move the risk in the garage/car park or cellar” (I also have a fire extinguisher hidden inside a wardrobe, just in case…)
  - vladvasiliu 4y ago
    Alerts and a fire extinguisher are great, but what can you do about them if they trigger while you're away? The A/C starting if things get too hot is great, especially if it doesn't depend on any of said things not being out of order (say because it shut down because of the heat).
    - giuliomagnifico 4y ago
      I can turn off the devices remotely if something gets too hot (via WireGuard), but I’ve never done it for the temperature. But in my house, like every house, there’s a fridge, a boiler, the A/Cs, burners with gas, etc… everything could get on fire. I can also call my parents or neighbors to ask if they are seeing smoke out of my house =] that’s the most efficient alarm!
      - Nextgrid 4y ago
        > there’s a fridge, a boiler, the A/Cs, burners with gas, etc… everything could get on fire. Most of these appliances don't actually have flammable materials right next to the active components that can catch fire. A circuit board can catch fire but it'll likely self-extinguish because it's in a metal enclosure away from anything flammable.
        giuliomagnifico 4y ago
        My house is all made of wood: http://giuliomagnifico.blog/networking/2022/01/14/my-home-setup.html http://giuliomagnifico.blog/networking/2022/01/14/my-home-se...
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    I wouldn't be worried about overheating - most hardware will shut down for safety way before you reach temperatures capable of igniting a fire. Instead I'm worried about catastrophic failure (especially of power-related components such as PSUs or that UPS) where the thing explodes out of the blue and spits out sparks and flames. In this case, you'll very quickly get a self-sustaining fire (thanks to all that firewood around it) and will need to actively extinguish it - turning the power off or starting the AC will not save you. The best solution, short of an active fire suppression system such as sprinklers (which obviously come with their own problems) is to put the hardware in a place where you can have a device catch fire and be confident that the fire won't spread or get out of hand.
    - giuliomagnifico 4y ago
      The floor, like the ceiling, are made of wood, I have other UPS on the floor, also my desk with the notebook is made of wood… http://giuliomagnifico.blog/networking/2022/01/14/my-home-setup.html http://giuliomagnifico.blog/networking/2022/01/14/my-home-se... I understand what you say, unfortunately! I hope that nothing will ever happen…
  - 57FkMytWjyFu 4y ago
    The AC is probably not going to turn on if the UPS is discharging.
- 57FkMytWjyFu 4y ago
  I was thinking you were too worried, and then I went back and saw the UPS. I wouldn't put that inside any enclosure. From the manual "• Provide 5 cm clearance on top and sides for adequate airflow around the unit."
  - giuliomagnifico 4y ago
    The UPS is not even lukewarm. I was scared too, first time I put UPS in another position (see other posts/releases of the setup) with more space but then, after one year of monitoring, I always see that its temperature is the lowest of all the hardware inside, I moved it there (anyway I can move it 5cm from the left side, there’s plenty of space). I have others UPS (another range of APC UPS) that are getting a bit warm, but not this one.
    - exitb 4y ago
      I imagine its temperature habits might be different in case it becomes active with a power loss or when it recharges after an incident.
- criddell 4y ago
  Is it much different from putting a bunch of A/V gear in a wooden cabinet? It's not that uncommon for a receiver, game console, cable box, blue ray player, etc... to be in wood furniture.
  - vladvasiliu 4y ago
    The main difference I see is that, at least in my case, the A/V gear will be off when I'm not actively using it, i.e., sitting in front of it. My network gear runs 24/7, even if I'm away from home for multiple days at a time. I usually only turn it off when I leave for longer (>1 week) holidays.
    - VLM 4y ago
      If it has a working remote control or a soft start power switch its never "off". Most cheap hardware does not have X or Y safety class capacitors so if there's any exposed conductor you're probably marginally safer on an insulator like wood.
      - Nextgrid 4y ago
        I'd expect most components to fail under stress which is not the case in a low-power standby mode where only a single 5V power rail is active and sources a few milliamps. Not great and I personally wouldn't put equipment in cabinets, but I'd expect most failures to occur when the equipment is actively being used & under stress, not during standby.
        VLM 4y ago
        There is a self heating failure mode for capacitors that would depend a little bit on current drawn, but the voltage across a cap would be constant regardless of current drawn so safety and fire related failures are primary based on time. "Name Brand" products with legitimate UL listings almost entirely use Class X or Y caps where safety regulations require them and would be immune to this problem due to internal construction differences. "No name gray market off aliexpress" would be an unwise choice. It's surprising how few fires we have from household electronics. The odds are it'll be fine.
jnsaff2 4y ago
For this setup I would rather go with some of the Mikrotik gear. I have the hEX S as a router and if you only need 4 device ports it saves you having a separate switch. This one has a newish CPU so routing performance is pretty much line-rate and it also has an SFP cage so depending on your provider setup you might even get the fiber directly into this device (mine sadly uses GPON with dedicated crypto built into the media converter so I could not use it). It is very feature rich and only costs about 75EUR here. The upgrade pick would be the RB5009 with SFP+, 2.5GBe and 8GBe ports, much-much more CPU. The availability of this is pretty bad tho, I have the PoE version on order.
- giuliomagnifico 4y ago
  Thanks for the suggestion! When this router will be not sufficient, I’ll give a change to Mikrotik, I like their stuff! (But also the nanoPi R5S is nice for 2.5Gb)
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    Mikrotik is a great cost/performance ratio but the complexity and user experience of configuring it is horrible.
    - vetinari 4y ago
      I switched to Mikrotik from Unifi. With Unifi, I was always fighting it, with "most users do not need that, why you do?" (like site-to-site ipsec tunnel with the other side having valid dns hostname, but not fixed ip). With Mikrotik, I just set up the way I need it and it's done. So yes, the difference is like this: https://i.redd.it/slaeayro0o061.png https://i.redd.it/slaeayro0o061.png But in the end, it is worth it.
      - PenguinCoder 4y ago
        Agreed; Ubiquiti/unifi is easier to get started with. But as soon as you want to do anything more 'complex', it often can't do it or won't let YOU do it. Mikrotik is at better at not getting in your way. Though, Mikrotik setup is more involved and requires a bit more knowledge about networking than Unifi does. Only thing I really don't like about Mikrotik is the CAPSMAN/AP situation. They're pretty bad and very difficult in my experience, to get working right/seamlessly.
m_eiman 4y ago
Related: what's the current best option for those of us who like old UniFi's ease of use, but don't like new Unifi's "use our cloud, or else..." attitude and the constant firmware issues?
- giuliomagnifico 4y ago
  Some Ubiquity devices support OpenWrt: https://openwrt.org/toh/ubiquiti/start https://openwrt.org/toh/ubiquiti/start
- jnsaff2 4y ago
  None is probably the "best option" but this is the evolution I went through in the past few months: 1. had the UDM for about a year, then at some point found out that some firmware update had completely trashed 2.4GHz wifi. Like you can connect to it but if you transfer more than 1MB or so it just hangs, reconnect works but basically unusable, 5GHz works fine but in my house the office just did not get good enough coverage. Like, dude, you had ONE JOB! 2. Bought a Ruckus AP and an Mikrotik hEX S to do routing. Wifi is better but office still did not have good enough coverage. 3. Finally gave up and just ran some CAT 6A from the router to my office. Night and day. From my research Ruckus gear is really good and requires no controller nor cloud connectivity whatsoever but expensive. Mikrotik is nice for wired stuff, but mostly quite dated for wireless, also they still carry a lot of their previous generation gear .. a lot of it has really wimpy CPU's, so do some research. Also the configuration can be a bit involved, tho lot of internet advice on a decent setup.
- VLM 4y ago
  The firmware issue is probably very individual device dependent. I remember the old USG plus an old cloud key (both no longer sold for a long time) had some stability issues maybe two or three years ago if you enabled every possible monitoring feature simultaneously, that issue is long gone. UniFi is much like MS or IBM in that they sell such an incredibly wide range of products its quite possible our experiences have nothing in common. The original cloud key is quite slow but totally usable; there's a docker container and running on anything faster than a Pi its quite fast and snappy.
- 4y ago
blurrybird 4y ago
Please look into CAKE to replace your SQM configuration. Dave Taht and the team have done some incredible work on this through their bufferbloat.net project.
- giuliomagnifico 4y ago
  Yes I’m using CAKE on the OpenWrt router/WAN interface. The screenshot is only the switch SQM.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
vachina 4y ago
The last thing you’d probably want at home is a whiny router/switch/IoT device.
- vladvasiliu 4y ago
  True, especially if the setup is directly in the living space. I'm not familiar with any of OP's components, but it's absolutely possible to have a silent setup. In my case, I have an HP EliteDesk (salvage from work) that does the routing, etc, which is dead quiet, and it's connected to a fanless Brocade (Ruckus) switch. There's no coil while or anything. The most annoying parts are the blinking lights, which I fixed with some red tape.
- giuliomagnifico 4y ago
  Whiny? There’s no noise, it doesn’t make any sound (no moving parts/fans, including electrical noise)
- danesparza 4y ago
  Huh? I have a pfSense firewall, a 16 port PoE switch, and several MacBook mini servers. All in the living room. They are all essentially silent (since that was a hard requirement for me). Silent (and good) gear definitely exists for spaces that require it.
  - vachina 4y ago
    Sorry for the misunderstanding. Whiny in a sense that it is capable of sending notifications (that are of little importance).
pantalaimon 4y ago
Looks like it's IPv4 only?
- giuliomagnifico 4y ago
  Yes, my ISP has some issues with IPv6. I will switch all to IPv6 as soon as I get the FTTH connection (I hope!)
tibbydudeza 4y ago
The bane of my existence has always been wireless - family stopped complaining when I switched all the AP's to Ubiquity. Never rebooted - uptimes in months and they are on battery backup. It is amazing how much the stock firmware shipped by the likes of Broadcom/Realtek sucks so much - it is not like Mikrotik/Ubiquiti makes their own SOC's to make it more realizable.
- hotcoffeebear 4y ago
  I am seeing mixed reviews about ubiquity these days.
  - open-paren 4y ago
    I just swapped out my Ubiquiti Dream Machine for an eero Pro 6e because the UDM kept needing a hard reboot in the middle of the night and was very, very noisy. It's the only consumer router I can think of that both needs a fan and idles at 80℃.
    - jaywalk 4y ago
      You must have had defective hardware. I can never hear the fans on my UDM Pro, and it idles right around 40℃.
      - open-paren 4y ago
        It was a non-pro model. From my limited research a while ago, I came to the conclusion that it's common among the non-pro models.
  - mbesto 4y ago
    Been using for 6+ years now. Around ~10 APs purchased. I've never looked back. I think the mixed reviews are from HN where people are complaining about their security posture (for good reason).
    - 4y ago
wiradikusuma 4y ago
Does anyone know a "for dummies" guide for setting up home network, esp. for "smart" home (CCTV, smart TV, speakers, Google Home)? Not only software-level, but "hardware" e.g. best location, enclosure, cabling, etc.
- jamiegreen 4y ago
  Definitely also need this. I am too dumb to understand this setup haha
- Fabricio20 4y ago
  I want to share my small take on this, from someone who runs a decent smart home setup. You want to avoid cloud stuff, if you keep that in mind a lot of options you can just exclude and your horizon becomes limited (in a sense) - but you get the best parts! If you have a strong 2.4GHz wireless network already (a proper mesh system in your home), look into having your smart stuff run over wireless, no point in having zigbee. If you don't have a strong wireless network, first consider getting one, else look into zigbee devices. Run home assistant, doesn't matter what devices you want to have on your network, home assistant is a must for a decent smart home experience. You can run it on a raspberry pi 3b+ or a spare server in a docker container. Spare server is faster but the pi can handle it. Setup all your devices to talk to home assistant, then make home assistant expose the devices to Google Home or Alexa, instead of directly exposing the devices to the cloud services. Smart TVs are not good, my experience with LG and Samsung has been of ADs and abandoned software, instead get a good TV (image quality, etc..) and plug a Mi Box or Roku or Amazon Firestick into it. CCTV is a mixed topic, you can go the closed circuit camera option (NVRs and suff) or you can go with ip cameras. Just don't use wireless cameras, everything wired for this. If you want some hardware brands and comparisons, check out The Hook Up on youtube for the specific topic. I can vouch for Sonoff, Shelly, Reolink, etc..
  - archi42 4y ago
    I'm not happy with ZigBee: Only a single, flaky edge between two floors means one floor sometimes craps out and can't be talked to by the coordinator/home assistant. The WiFi devices (Shelly&Sonoff) are much better thanks to great WiFi (3 indoor APs, one outdoor). However, we have a few ZigBee remotes/portable buttons and sensors (motion and temperature/humidity), which are a great addition. I already know where to put another ZigBee router to finally make that floor reliable. But I can only do so once my SO&I agree on what fixture to put there, and that's complicated ;-) Maybe look at the nVidia Shield as a more privacy-friendly alternative to FireTV et al. (at least that's what Mozilla says). Sadly it's pretty expensive. Can't say anything about NVR. The remainder I can totally agree with. If I unplug my modem, only thing lost are weather report and mower bot control.
dont__panic 4y ago
I see that Giulio here has attained an A+ buffer bloat rating for his or her home network. I've tried this in the past with limited success, mostly because I don't want to introduce another failure point (dedicated router, separate from wireless access point) to my network. Am I being silly? I'm concerned about what could happen if there's a failure when I'm not home to maintain everything, since I'm the only person who can or wants to work with this equipment. I'd love to reduce my buffer bloat to improve the quality of my my video and audio calls. But I'm not sure it's worth it. Or if the results in this post demonstrate an average use case with a crappy ISP.
- kkielhofner 4y ago
  If your router+ap supports OpenWRT you can reflash and have best of breed QoS up and running in a few clicks via the Luci web interface that IMO is vastly superior to the goofy web UIs that come on SOHO routers. Bonus is OpenWRT also seems to be much more stable than manufacturer hardware as long as your hardware is well supported. Plus you don't have to worry about your manufacturer no longer supporting firmware on your model and OpenWRT is much faster to respond to the occasional security issue, etc. OpenWRT has gotten some flak over the years by leaving devices behind when they no longer have enough flash and/or RAM. That said OpenWRT is likely going to support your hardware longer than the manufacturer will.
  - dont__panic 4y ago
    I have a router similar to the router in the linked post, and OpenWRT was a mess on there. Turns out that my router was saddled with a crappy processor downgrade at some point after initial release, and I got one of the crap CPUs. OpenWRT didn't even support the CPU by default, and when I managed to get OpenWRT on there, I had serious QoS problems because the CPU wasn't up to snuff. I liked OpenWRT a lot but it was a really frustrating experience.
    - EricE 4y ago
      to be fair, the real problem was the crappy hardware you tried to run it on - not OpenWRT :p
aliljet 4y ago
Out here in the Bay Area, I've been trying to figure out how to efficiently (and interestingly) use a 10gbe FTTH symmetric setup from Sonic. It's surprisingly hard to find anything for the thrifty consumer that can consume this kind of connection. I'm curious if there is something like the nanoPi R4S targetted at the 10gbe world.
- sliken 4y ago
  10gbe and thrifty is at least for now not a good match. Could put in a PCIe dual x 10GBe card into an old PC and if that's not enough ports buy a vlan capable switch with a 10GBe uplink and enough 2.5gbe/1gbe ports for your needs.
- stephen_g 4y ago
  I’ve been thinking about using maybe Netgate hardware running pfSense in an business setup. Apparently the 1537 model [1] can do over 10 Gbps routing and firewall according to their marketing tests. Base model is a bit over two grand in USD. But probably not super ‘efficient’ throwing a Xeon at it and not especially thrifty. It looks like a branded generic Supermicro machine but seems convenient to get it out of the box and the price doesn’t seem bad considering what’s in it. 1. https://shop.netgate.com/collections/rack-appliances/products/1537-base-pfsense https://shop.netgate.com/collections/rack-appliances/product...
- newman314 4y ago
  I was just waiting for a comment like this as I anticipate getting the 10G at some point. From what I've been able to tell, at 10G speeds, you pretty much have to build your own. Currently, I'm planning to get a SFFPC, stick a quad port 10G card in it, maybe run ESXi, router OS TBD: VyOS, DANOS, OpenWRT?
Pxtl 4y ago
It's infuriating that this is necessary -- now that printers are pretty optional and those of us that need one have settled on Brother laser-printers, consumer routers are now the 21st century home appliance of "holy shit why is this the worst device I own?" I have a home network powered by Asus routers, but that's only after years of trial-and-error with other brands (Netgear, Linksys, TP-Link). The fact that Asus is the "crappy inconsistent B-minus grade devices" company normally and that's way above average in routers is a massive step forwards. The extended features are a joke and I have to reset the routers maybe once a year at worst but they're the first solid home internet connection I've ever had. If I have to go through the mayhem again, I'll be cribbing from guides like this, but I'll be really really angry about it. How do normies live?
- nix0n 4y ago
  > why is this the worst device I own? Part of the problem is, most consumer-grade routers use CPUs that can kind of get by most of the time on passive cooling. Then when the weather is hot or your usage is above-average, it has problems. Most people want to avoid active cooling on a router, because you've got it out in the open for line-of-sight / signal propagation purposes, and there's kind of a reliability argument for avoiding moving parts. I'm not trying to say the only advantage of a pro setup is having fans on it, but it's definitely one of the advantages.
- shepherdjerred 4y ago
  > How do normies live? I think the phrase 'ignorance is bliss' explains this
  - Pxtl 4y ago
    A crapload of people have gone remote, though. Meaning they're experiencing the normal hiccups and drops as "oh shit I can't show up to my meeting". So they can't ignore it anymore.
- dangus 4y ago
  Necessary? Not really. How do the normies live? Quite easily. I use my Internet carrier's WiFi 6 router/modem combination. It works fine. It's free, and I don't get a discount for bringing my own equipment. I spent zero time configuring anything. I have Internet. I haven't noticed any problems making Zoom calls or playing games online. What I don't know about my bufferbloat score doesn't really hurt me. Anything I host is in a VPS so I don't need any advanced routing or VLANs.
bilal4hmed 4y ago
Anyone have experience with TP-link omada. The cost to set up Ubiquiti ( not to mention space for racks etc ) is just to much. I have gigabit internet so the UDR is out of the question for me. I wfh so I just need something that is solid and works ( I tend to run the same equipment at my parents house as well )
- gre 4y ago
  I have been happy with the TP-Link AXE-5300 mesh three-pack that I got from Costco for $300. The wifi 6e is slightly disappointing as my Samsung devices tend to pick the wifi 6 network instead. It's been reliable the whole time. Currently I'm using: ATT fiber modem, Mikrotik CRS354-48P-4S+2Q+RM for PoE+, tplink deco axe5300 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B087X7KNWS https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B087X7KNWS https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-AXE5300-Tri-Band-Whole-Home-System/dp/B09XGKHSRB https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-AXE5300-Tri-Band-Whole-Home-S...
  - bilal4hmed 4y ago
    thank you :)
ryandrake 4y ago
Very useful, informative and timely! I'm moving into a different house soon, and this has given me the motivation and opportunity to update my outdated consumer modem/router/wifi hardware. I'm still living in the past with 802.11n! At my old home, I personally ran ethernet to each room, but I'm older now and the thought of crawling around in a dusty crawlspace drilling holes and running cords no longer appeals to me like it used to. I'm almost ready to swallow my pride and accept the heresy that WiFi might be good enough, now that we are in the world of 802.11ax. I also like OP's choice to separate their router/switching hardware from their AP hardware. Might go down that route too.
- causi 4y ago
  I'm almost ready to swallow my pride and accept the heresy that WiFi might be good enough, now that we are in the world of 802.11ax Wireless is fine if it's only half of your loop. For example, suppose you want to stream a game from your powerful computer/console to your phone/tablet. There's a perceptible difference between having just the receiver wireless and having the sender and receiver both wireless.
- kcb 4y ago
  The primary factor for Wifi performance really is congestion. My Wifi in a rural location performs way better with just the isp router than my multi access point setup in a fairly tight suburb. So far there's just no way around that except temporary fixes with new bands like with Wifi 6E.
ufo 4y ago
While we're on this topic... What's the deal with having multiple wifi access points with the same SSID? I have heard some people say you should always use a single SSID because the clients know how to automatically pick the best one. But I have heard others disagreeing and saying that to ensure you're using the right access point you need to use different names for each one and also 2.4ghz vs 5ghz. Anyway, who's right here?
- cmer 4y ago
  You should use the same SSID for 2.4GHz and 5GHz. You should also use the same SSID for all APs if they support roaming. Unifi does, for example. If you just get two random independent wifi routers, they won't and you might stay connected to the wrong antenna for a while. https://community.ui.com/questions/Wireless-LAN-Roaming-FAQ/3044afc5-55ac-4c52-804d-2fbb91381e60 https://community.ui.com/questions/Wireless-LAN-Roaming-FAQ/...
  - unethical_ban 4y ago
    Some cheap IoT hardware seems to be incapable of connecting to a mixed network, and I have had to have a dedicated 2.4 only SSID for them.
    - cmer 4y ago
      I use a separate 2.4GHz-only SSID and VLAN for my IoT devices, because I just don't trust them.
- dsr_ 4y ago
  All five APs in the house use the same SSID. Four of them have both 2.4 and 5Ghz radios; they use the same SSIDs. All of them are connected via ethernet to the switch. It all works very nicely.
404mm 4y ago
Should the flow be described as: Internet -> Modem -> router -> managed switch - access point ? Anyway, thanks for sharing the setup. I love how everybody here has a different takeaway from this. For me, it was nanoPi. I just ordered R4SE for my tinkering with OpenWrt. I have a symmetric fiber gig connection that is quite stable but I’m thinking about getting a secondary connection from a different provider. My “dream” is to have HA (active/passive) routers that can fall back on the backup (slower) line and back when there’s need. The rest of my HW is small and spread out throughout a house than not a single failure will severely affect my home.
- giuliomagnifico 4y ago
  > Internet -> Modem -> router -> managed switch - access point Yes, also. depends if you are in download or upload =) be careful with the R4SE (the model with inside eMMC storage), I don't know if the R4S OpenWrt build will run also in the R4SE.
  - 404mm 4y ago
    I checked their wiki before ordering and they sort of consider the SE model as a newer revision of R4S. So I’m hopeful. It if that doesn’t work, I’ll find some other use for it. Anything that does not run the Chinese flavor of Ubuntu or WRT lol
    - giuliomagnifico 4y ago
      The only difference is the SE has the 32gb emmc inside and I’m skeptic that OpenWrt will run fine, surely it will not recognize the internal storage. Anyway you can use the FriendlyElect WRT, basically it’s an old release of OpenWrt with some customizations.
logotype 4y ago
I’m currently running a Cisco ASA 5540 as the perimeter device (with NAT and DHCPD) at home. Replaced the stock fans because it was seriously noisy. Getting about 920Mbp/s. Also running a site-to-site VPN to AWS. It’s been working great for many years with absolutely no issues whatsoever. The only problem is that it’s starting to show some ageing with no firmware updates since 2018, so I’m replacing this with a recent Palo Alto Networks NGFW with 1+ Gbp/s firewall capability. The FW is then connected with OM3 fiber to a SFP port on a 48-port gigabit Cisco switch (2960G), with trunking ports to other managed Cisco switches in the house. The server is connected to the switch using 4 ports in LACP mode for better bandwidth and redundancy. If you can live with the noise I highly recommend old enterprise gear as it can be found for cheap.
btgeekboy 4y ago
Saw that they’re using a NanoPi - I just picked up an R5S (dual 2.5gbe + single 1gbe) and it’s a pretty neat device. Haven’t done any significant benchmarks yet, but I was able to use the FriendlyElec wiki to build FriendlyWRT and run it, which makes me feel a little better about running no-name hardware out of China.
sliken 4y ago
Anyone have recommendations for a small, passively cooled router with 2x2.5 gbe or better? Ideally with some extra ram for a service or two. Maybe the RK3588.
- giuliomagnifico 4y ago
  NanoPi R5S
tinglymintyfrsh 4y ago
So tidy. I have a whole closet with a 512 GiB/96 thread/120 TiB HDD/16 TiB SSD server running ESXi, OPNsense 740, Google Fiber 2 Gb, a Ubiquiti 6 mesh AP (POE switch powered), Philips Hue bridge, Flic bridge, Ring bridge, and DMX512 bridge. I'm about to install 10 GbE links between things to get the server up to 2 Gbps.
vanillax 4y ago
Why not run opnsense on a actual PC for router?
- giuliomagnifico 4y ago
  Because I don’t want a full “computer” as a router. The nanoPi is sufficient to me.
  - vanillax 4y ago
    Cool never heard of nanoPi. I'll have to check it out.

All of that hardware in a wooden box scares me. I'd recommend keeping all that in a metal enclosure in a utility room where the hardware can catch fire without setting the entire house ablaze.

giuliomagnifico 4y ago
Ahah yes correct, I’m a bit scared too. This is why I have put inside the cabine a SwitchBot connected thermostat and I have a Homebridge plug-in that sends me various alerts via push notifications (using Pushover app) when the temperature inside the cabinet goes above “28-32-36-it’s_on_fire ºC”. And it works, see alerts screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/BvEesUD.png https://i.imgur.com/BvEesUD.png I’ve explained my setup at the beginning of the post, there’s also the “temperatures alerts” in my previous blog post. Also if the temperature raise too much, the A/C above the wooden cabinet turns on and cools down all the hardware. During the night thishappened various times during this hot summer! > I'd recommend keeping all that in a metal enclosure in a utility room where the hardware can catch fire without setting the entire house ablaze Yes but you cannot agree with me that the metal racks are terrible/ugly =] I want to have my network things inside my house, possibly where I can see them, and I don’t want to have a metal rack inside my living room, see my first post with all the house rooms (http://giuliomagnifico.blog/networking/2022/01/14/my-home-setup.html http://giuliomagnifico.blog/networking/2022/01/14/my-home-se...). Anyway I can’t say that the fire risk is concrete, as always with electrical things. But I prefer to monitor this risk with sensors and maintenance instead of “move the risk in the garage/car park or cellar” (I also have a fire extinguisher hidden inside a wardrobe, just in case…)
- vladvasiliu 4y ago
  Alerts and a fire extinguisher are great, but what can you do about them if they trigger while you're away? The A/C starting if things get too hot is great, especially if it doesn't depend on any of said things not being out of order (say because it shut down because of the heat).
  - giuliomagnifico 4y ago
    I can turn off the devices remotely if something gets too hot (via WireGuard), but I’ve never done it for the temperature. But in my house, like every house, there’s a fridge, a boiler, the A/Cs, burners with gas, etc… everything could get on fire. I can also call my parents or neighbors to ask if they are seeing smoke out of my house =] that’s the most efficient alarm!
    - Nextgrid 4y ago
      > there’s a fridge, a boiler, the A/Cs, burners with gas, etc… everything could get on fire. Most of these appliances don't actually have flammable materials right next to the active components that can catch fire. A circuit board can catch fire but it'll likely self-extinguish because it's in a metal enclosure away from anything flammable.
      - giuliomagnifico 4y ago
        My house is all made of wood: http://giuliomagnifico.blog/networking/2022/01/14/my-home-setup.html http://giuliomagnifico.blog/networking/2022/01/14/my-home-se...
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  I wouldn't be worried about overheating - most hardware will shut down for safety way before you reach temperatures capable of igniting a fire. Instead I'm worried about catastrophic failure (especially of power-related components such as PSUs or that UPS) where the thing explodes out of the blue and spits out sparks and flames. In this case, you'll very quickly get a self-sustaining fire (thanks to all that firewood around it) and will need to actively extinguish it - turning the power off or starting the AC will not save you. The best solution, short of an active fire suppression system such as sprinklers (which obviously come with their own problems) is to put the hardware in a place where you can have a device catch fire and be confident that the fire won't spread or get out of hand.
  - giuliomagnifico 4y ago
    The floor, like the ceiling, are made of wood, I have other UPS on the floor, also my desk with the notebook is made of wood… http://giuliomagnifico.blog/networking/2022/01/14/my-home-setup.html http://giuliomagnifico.blog/networking/2022/01/14/my-home-se... I understand what you say, unfortunately! I hope that nothing will ever happen…
- 57FkMytWjyFu 4y ago
  The AC is probably not going to turn on if the UPS is discharging.
57FkMytWjyFu 4y ago
I was thinking you were too worried, and then I went back and saw the UPS. I wouldn't put that inside any enclosure. From the manual "• Provide 5 cm clearance on top and sides for adequate airflow around the unit."
- giuliomagnifico 4y ago
  The UPS is not even lukewarm. I was scared too, first time I put UPS in another position (see other posts/releases of the setup) with more space but then, after one year of monitoring, I always see that its temperature is the lowest of all the hardware inside, I moved it there (anyway I can move it 5cm from the left side, there’s plenty of space). I have others UPS (another range of APC UPS) that are getting a bit warm, but not this one.
  - exitb 4y ago
    I imagine its temperature habits might be different in case it becomes active with a power loss or when it recharges after an incident.
criddell 4y ago
Is it much different from putting a bunch of A/V gear in a wooden cabinet? It's not that uncommon for a receiver, game console, cable box, blue ray player, etc... to be in wood furniture.
- vladvasiliu 4y ago
  The main difference I see is that, at least in my case, the A/V gear will be off when I'm not actively using it, i.e., sitting in front of it. My network gear runs 24/7, even if I'm away from home for multiple days at a time. I usually only turn it off when I leave for longer (>1 week) holidays.
  - VLM 4y ago
    If it has a working remote control or a soft start power switch its never "off". Most cheap hardware does not have X or Y safety class capacitors so if there's any exposed conductor you're probably marginally safer on an insulator like wood.
    - Nextgrid 4y ago
      I'd expect most components to fail under stress which is not the case in a low-power standby mode where only a single 5V power rail is active and sources a few milliamps. Not great and I personally wouldn't put equipment in cabinets, but I'd expect most failures to occur when the equipment is actively being used & under stress, not during standby.
      - VLM 4y ago
        There is a self heating failure mode for capacitors that would depend a little bit on current drawn, but the voltage across a cap would be constant regardless of current drawn so safety and fire related failures are primary based on time. "Name Brand" products with legitimate UL listings almost entirely use Class X or Y caps where safety regulations require them and would be immune to this problem due to internal construction differences. "No name gray market off aliexpress" would be an unwise choice. It's surprising how few fires we have from household electronics. The odds are it'll be fine.

jnsaff2 4y ago

For this setup I would rather go with some of the Mikrotik gear. I have the hEX S as a router and if you only need 4 device ports it saves you having a separate switch. This one has a newish CPU so routing performance is pretty much line-rate and it also has an SFP cage so depending on your provider setup you might even get the fiber directly into this device (mine sadly uses GPON with dedicated crypto built into the media converter so I could not use it). It is very feature rich and only costs about 75EUR here. The upgrade pick would be the RB5009 with SFP+, 2.5GBe and 8GBe ports, much-much more CPU. The availability of this is pretty bad tho, I have the PoE version on order.

giuliomagnifico 4y ago
Thanks for the suggestion! When this router will be not sufficient, I’ll give a change to Mikrotik, I like their stuff! (But also the nanoPi R5S is nice for 2.5Gb)
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  Mikrotik is a great cost/performance ratio but the complexity and user experience of configuring it is horrible.
  - vetinari 4y ago
    I switched to Mikrotik from Unifi. With Unifi, I was always fighting it, with "most users do not need that, why you do?" (like site-to-site ipsec tunnel with the other side having valid dns hostname, but not fixed ip). With Mikrotik, I just set up the way I need it and it's done. So yes, the difference is like this: https://i.redd.it/slaeayro0o061.png https://i.redd.it/slaeayro0o061.png But in the end, it is worth it.
    - PenguinCoder 4y ago
      Agreed; Ubiquiti/unifi is easier to get started with. But as soon as you want to do anything more 'complex', it often can't do it or won't let YOU do it. Mikrotik is at better at not getting in your way. Though, Mikrotik setup is more involved and requires a bit more knowledge about networking than Unifi does. Only thing I really don't like about Mikrotik is the CAPSMAN/AP situation. They're pretty bad and very difficult in my experience, to get working right/seamlessly.

m_eiman 4y ago

Related: what's the current best option for those of us who like old UniFi's ease of use, but don't like new Unifi's "use our cloud, or else..." attitude and the constant firmware issues?

giuliomagnifico 4y ago
Some Ubiquity devices support OpenWrt: https://openwrt.org/toh/ubiquiti/start https://openwrt.org/toh/ubiquiti/start
jnsaff2 4y ago
None is probably the "best option" but this is the evolution I went through in the past few months: 1. had the UDM for about a year, then at some point found out that some firmware update had completely trashed 2.4GHz wifi. Like you can connect to it but if you transfer more than 1MB or so it just hangs, reconnect works but basically unusable, 5GHz works fine but in my house the office just did not get good enough coverage. Like, dude, you had ONE JOB! 2. Bought a Ruckus AP and an Mikrotik hEX S to do routing. Wifi is better but office still did not have good enough coverage. 3. Finally gave up and just ran some CAT 6A from the router to my office. Night and day. From my research Ruckus gear is really good and requires no controller nor cloud connectivity whatsoever but expensive. Mikrotik is nice for wired stuff, but mostly quite dated for wireless, also they still carry a lot of their previous generation gear .. a lot of it has really wimpy CPU's, so do some research. Also the configuration can be a bit involved, tho lot of internet advice on a decent setup.
VLM 4y ago
The firmware issue is probably very individual device dependent. I remember the old USG plus an old cloud key (both no longer sold for a long time) had some stability issues maybe two or three years ago if you enabled every possible monitoring feature simultaneously, that issue is long gone. UniFi is much like MS or IBM in that they sell such an incredibly wide range of products its quite possible our experiences have nothing in common. The original cloud key is quite slow but totally usable; there's a docker container and running on anything faster than a Pi its quite fast and snappy.
4y ago

blurrybird 4y ago

Please look into CAKE to replace your SQM configuration. Dave Taht and the team have done some incredible work on this through their bufferbloat.net project.

giuliomagnifico 4y ago
Yes I’m using CAKE on the OpenWrt router/WAN interface. The screenshot is only the switch SQM.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

vachina 4y ago

The last thing you’d probably want at home is a whiny router/switch/IoT device.

vladvasiliu 4y ago
True, especially if the setup is directly in the living space. I'm not familiar with any of OP's components, but it's absolutely possible to have a silent setup. In my case, I have an HP EliteDesk (salvage from work) that does the routing, etc, which is dead quiet, and it's connected to a fanless Brocade (Ruckus) switch. There's no coil while or anything. The most annoying parts are the blinking lights, which I fixed with some red tape.
giuliomagnifico 4y ago
Whiny? There’s no noise, it doesn’t make any sound (no moving parts/fans, including electrical noise)
danesparza 4y ago
Huh? I have a pfSense firewall, a 16 port PoE switch, and several MacBook mini servers. All in the living room. They are all essentially silent (since that was a hard requirement for me). Silent (and good) gear definitely exists for spaces that require it.
- vachina 4y ago
  Sorry for the misunderstanding. Whiny in a sense that it is capable of sending notifications (that are of little importance).

pantalaimon 4y ago

Looks like it's IPv4 only?

giuliomagnifico 4y ago
Yes, my ISP has some issues with IPv6. I will switch all to IPv6 as soon as I get the FTTH connection (I hope!)

tibbydudeza 4y ago

The bane of my existence has always been wireless - family stopped complaining when I switched all the AP's to Ubiquity. Never rebooted - uptimes in months and they are on battery backup. It is amazing how much the stock firmware shipped by the likes of Broadcom/Realtek sucks so much - it is not like Mikrotik/Ubiquiti makes their own SOC's to make it more realizable.

hotcoffeebear 4y ago
I am seeing mixed reviews about ubiquity these days.
- open-paren 4y ago
  I just swapped out my Ubiquiti Dream Machine for an eero Pro 6e because the UDM kept needing a hard reboot in the middle of the night and was very, very noisy. It's the only consumer router I can think of that both needs a fan and idles at 80℃.
  - jaywalk 4y ago
    You must have had defective hardware. I can never hear the fans on my UDM Pro, and it idles right around 40℃.
    - open-paren 4y ago
      It was a non-pro model. From my limited research a while ago, I came to the conclusion that it's common among the non-pro models.
- mbesto 4y ago
  Been using for 6+ years now. Around ~10 APs purchased. I've never looked back. I think the mixed reviews are from HN where people are complaining about their security posture (for good reason).
  - 4y ago

wiradikusuma 4y ago

Does anyone know a "for dummies" guide for setting up home network, esp. for "smart" home (CCTV, smart TV, speakers, Google Home)? Not only software-level, but "hardware" e.g. best location, enclosure, cabling, etc.

jamiegreen 4y ago
Definitely also need this. I am too dumb to understand this setup haha
Fabricio20 4y ago
I want to share my small take on this, from someone who runs a decent smart home setup. You want to avoid cloud stuff, if you keep that in mind a lot of options you can just exclude and your horizon becomes limited (in a sense) - but you get the best parts! If you have a strong 2.4GHz wireless network already (a proper mesh system in your home), look into having your smart stuff run over wireless, no point in having zigbee. If you don't have a strong wireless network, first consider getting one, else look into zigbee devices. Run home assistant, doesn't matter what devices you want to have on your network, home assistant is a must for a decent smart home experience. You can run it on a raspberry pi 3b+ or a spare server in a docker container. Spare server is faster but the pi can handle it. Setup all your devices to talk to home assistant, then make home assistant expose the devices to Google Home or Alexa, instead of directly exposing the devices to the cloud services. Smart TVs are not good, my experience with LG and Samsung has been of ADs and abandoned software, instead get a good TV (image quality, etc..) and plug a Mi Box or Roku or Amazon Firestick into it. CCTV is a mixed topic, you can go the closed circuit camera option (NVRs and suff) or you can go with ip cameras. Just don't use wireless cameras, everything wired for this. If you want some hardware brands and comparisons, check out The Hook Up on youtube for the specific topic. I can vouch for Sonoff, Shelly, Reolink, etc..
- archi42 4y ago
  I'm not happy with ZigBee: Only a single, flaky edge between two floors means one floor sometimes craps out and can't be talked to by the coordinator/home assistant. The WiFi devices (Shelly&Sonoff) are much better thanks to great WiFi (3 indoor APs, one outdoor). However, we have a few ZigBee remotes/portable buttons and sensors (motion and temperature/humidity), which are a great addition. I already know where to put another ZigBee router to finally make that floor reliable. But I can only do so once my SO&I agree on what fixture to put there, and that's complicated ;-) Maybe look at the nVidia Shield as a more privacy-friendly alternative to FireTV et al. (at least that's what Mozilla says). Sadly it's pretty expensive. Can't say anything about NVR. The remainder I can totally agree with. If I unplug my modem, only thing lost are weather report and mower bot control.

dont__panic 4y ago

I see that Giulio here has attained an A+ buffer bloat rating for his or her home network. I've tried this in the past with limited success, mostly because I don't want to introduce another failure point (dedicated router, separate from wireless access point) to my network. Am I being silly? I'm concerned about what could happen if there's a failure when I'm not home to maintain everything, since I'm the only person who can or wants to work with this equipment. I'd love to reduce my buffer bloat to improve the quality of my my video and audio calls. But I'm not sure it's worth it. Or if the results in this post demonstrate an average use case with a crappy ISP.

kkielhofner 4y ago
If your router+ap supports OpenWRT you can reflash and have best of breed QoS up and running in a few clicks via the Luci web interface that IMO is vastly superior to the goofy web UIs that come on SOHO routers. Bonus is OpenWRT also seems to be much more stable than manufacturer hardware as long as your hardware is well supported. Plus you don't have to worry about your manufacturer no longer supporting firmware on your model and OpenWRT is much faster to respond to the occasional security issue, etc. OpenWRT has gotten some flak over the years by leaving devices behind when they no longer have enough flash and/or RAM. That said OpenWRT is likely going to support your hardware longer than the manufacturer will.
- dont__panic 4y ago
  I have a router similar to the router in the linked post, and OpenWRT was a mess on there. Turns out that my router was saddled with a crappy processor downgrade at some point after initial release, and I got one of the crap CPUs. OpenWRT didn't even support the CPU by default, and when I managed to get OpenWRT on there, I had serious QoS problems because the CPU wasn't up to snuff. I liked OpenWRT a lot but it was a really frustrating experience.
  - EricE 4y ago
    to be fair, the real problem was the crappy hardware you tried to run it on - not OpenWRT :p

aliljet 4y ago

Out here in the Bay Area, I've been trying to figure out how to efficiently (and interestingly) use a 10gbe FTTH symmetric setup from Sonic. It's surprisingly hard to find anything for the thrifty consumer that can consume this kind of connection. I'm curious if there is something like the nanoPi R4S targetted at the 10gbe world.

sliken 4y ago
10gbe and thrifty is at least for now not a good match. Could put in a PCIe dual x 10GBe card into an old PC and if that's not enough ports buy a vlan capable switch with a 10GBe uplink and enough 2.5gbe/1gbe ports for your needs.
stephen_g 4y ago
I’ve been thinking about using maybe Netgate hardware running pfSense in an business setup. Apparently the 1537 model [1] can do over 10 Gbps routing and firewall according to their marketing tests. Base model is a bit over two grand in USD. But probably not super ‘efficient’ throwing a Xeon at it and not especially thrifty. It looks like a branded generic Supermicro machine but seems convenient to get it out of the box and the price doesn’t seem bad considering what’s in it. 1. https://shop.netgate.com/collections/rack-appliances/products/1537-base-pfsense https://shop.netgate.com/collections/rack-appliances/product...
newman314 4y ago
I was just waiting for a comment like this as I anticipate getting the 10G at some point. From what I've been able to tell, at 10G speeds, you pretty much have to build your own. Currently, I'm planning to get a SFFPC, stick a quad port 10G card in it, maybe run ESXi, router OS TBD: VyOS, DANOS, OpenWRT?

Pxtl 4y ago

It's infuriating that this is necessary -- now that printers are pretty optional and those of us that need one have settled on Brother laser-printers, consumer routers are now the 21st century home appliance of "holy shit why is this the worst device I own?" I have a home network powered by Asus routers, but that's only after years of trial-and-error with other brands (Netgear, Linksys, TP-Link). The fact that Asus is the "crappy inconsistent B-minus grade devices" company normally and that's way above average in routers is a massive step forwards. The extended features are a joke and I have to reset the routers maybe once a year at worst but they're the first solid home internet connection I've ever had. If I have to go through the mayhem again, I'll be cribbing from guides like this, but I'll be really really angry about it. How do normies live?

nix0n 4y ago
> why is this the worst device I own? Part of the problem is, most consumer-grade routers use CPUs that can kind of get by most of the time on passive cooling. Then when the weather is hot or your usage is above-average, it has problems. Most people want to avoid active cooling on a router, because you've got it out in the open for line-of-sight / signal propagation purposes, and there's kind of a reliability argument for avoiding moving parts. I'm not trying to say the only advantage of a pro setup is having fans on it, but it's definitely one of the advantages.
shepherdjerred 4y ago
> How do normies live? I think the phrase 'ignorance is bliss' explains this
- Pxtl 4y ago
  A crapload of people have gone remote, though. Meaning they're experiencing the normal hiccups and drops as "oh shit I can't show up to my meeting". So they can't ignore it anymore.
dangus 4y ago
Necessary? Not really. How do the normies live? Quite easily. I use my Internet carrier's WiFi 6 router/modem combination. It works fine. It's free, and I don't get a discount for bringing my own equipment. I spent zero time configuring anything. I have Internet. I haven't noticed any problems making Zoom calls or playing games online. What I don't know about my bufferbloat score doesn't really hurt me. Anything I host is in a VPS so I don't need any advanced routing or VLANs.

bilal4hmed 4y ago

Anyone have experience with TP-link omada. The cost to set up Ubiquiti ( not to mention space for racks etc ) is just to much. I have gigabit internet so the UDR is out of the question for me. I wfh so I just need something that is solid and works ( I tend to run the same equipment at my parents house as well )

gre 4y ago
I have been happy with the TP-Link AXE-5300 mesh three-pack that I got from Costco for $300. The wifi 6e is slightly disappointing as my Samsung devices tend to pick the wifi 6 network instead. It's been reliable the whole time. Currently I'm using: ATT fiber modem, Mikrotik CRS354-48P-4S+2Q+RM for PoE+, tplink deco axe5300 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B087X7KNWS https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B087X7KNWS https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-AXE5300-Tri-Band-Whole-Home-System/dp/B09XGKHSRB https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-AXE5300-Tri-Band-Whole-Home-S...
- bilal4hmed 4y ago
  thank you :)

ryandrake 4y ago

Very useful, informative and timely! I'm moving into a different house soon, and this has given me the motivation and opportunity to update my outdated consumer modem/router/wifi hardware. I'm still living in the past with 802.11n! At my old home, I personally ran ethernet to each room, but I'm older now and the thought of crawling around in a dusty crawlspace drilling holes and running cords no longer appeals to me like it used to. I'm almost ready to swallow my pride and accept the heresy that WiFi might be good enough, now that we are in the world of 802.11ax. I also like OP's choice to separate their router/switching hardware from their AP hardware. Might go down that route too.

causi 4y ago
I'm almost ready to swallow my pride and accept the heresy that WiFi might be good enough, now that we are in the world of 802.11ax Wireless is fine if it's only half of your loop. For example, suppose you want to stream a game from your powerful computer/console to your phone/tablet. There's a perceptible difference between having just the receiver wireless and having the sender and receiver both wireless.
kcb 4y ago
The primary factor for Wifi performance really is congestion. My Wifi in a rural location performs way better with just the isp router than my multi access point setup in a fairly tight suburb. So far there's just no way around that except temporary fixes with new bands like with Wifi 6E.

ufo 4y ago

While we're on this topic... What's the deal with having multiple wifi access points with the same SSID? I have heard some people say you should always use a single SSID because the clients know how to automatically pick the best one. But I have heard others disagreeing and saying that to ensure you're using the right access point you need to use different names for each one and also 2.4ghz vs 5ghz. Anyway, who's right here?

cmer 4y ago
You should use the same SSID for 2.4GHz and 5GHz. You should also use the same SSID for all APs if they support roaming. Unifi does, for example. If you just get two random independent wifi routers, they won't and you might stay connected to the wrong antenna for a while. https://community.ui.com/questions/Wireless-LAN-Roaming-FAQ/3044afc5-55ac-4c52-804d-2fbb91381e60 https://community.ui.com/questions/Wireless-LAN-Roaming-FAQ/...
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  Some cheap IoT hardware seems to be incapable of connecting to a mixed network, and I have had to have a dedicated 2.4 only SSID for them.
  - cmer 4y ago
    I use a separate 2.4GHz-only SSID and VLAN for my IoT devices, because I just don't trust them.
dsr_ 4y ago
All five APs in the house use the same SSID. Four of them have both 2.4 and 5Ghz radios; they use the same SSIDs. All of them are connected via ethernet to the switch. It all works very nicely.

404mm 4y ago

Should the flow be described as: Internet -> Modem -> router -> managed switch - access point ? Anyway, thanks for sharing the setup. I love how everybody here has a different takeaway from this. For me, it was nanoPi. I just ordered R4SE for my tinkering with OpenWrt. I have a symmetric fiber gig connection that is quite stable but I’m thinking about getting a secondary connection from a different provider. My “dream” is to have HA (active/passive) routers that can fall back on the backup (slower) line and back when there’s need. The rest of my HW is small and spread out throughout a house than not a single failure will severely affect my home.

giuliomagnifico 4y ago
> Internet -> Modem -> router -> managed switch - access point Yes, also. depends if you are in download or upload =) be careful with the R4SE (the model with inside eMMC storage), I don't know if the R4S OpenWrt build will run also in the R4SE.
- 404mm 4y ago
  I checked their wiki before ordering and they sort of consider the SE model as a newer revision of R4S. So I’m hopeful. It if that doesn’t work, I’ll find some other use for it. Anything that does not run the Chinese flavor of Ubuntu or WRT lol
  - giuliomagnifico 4y ago
    The only difference is the SE has the 32gb emmc inside and I’m skeptic that OpenWrt will run fine, surely it will not recognize the internal storage. Anyway you can use the FriendlyElect WRT, basically it’s an old release of OpenWrt with some customizations.

logotype 4y ago

I’m currently running a Cisco ASA 5540 as the perimeter device (with NAT and DHCPD) at home. Replaced the stock fans because it was seriously noisy. Getting about 920Mbp/s. Also running a site-to-site VPN to AWS. It’s been working great for many years with absolutely no issues whatsoever. The only problem is that it’s starting to show some ageing with no firmware updates since 2018, so I’m replacing this with a recent Palo Alto Networks NGFW with 1+ Gbp/s firewall capability. The FW is then connected with OM3 fiber to a SFP port on a 48-port gigabit Cisco switch (2960G), with trunking ports to other managed Cisco switches in the house. The server is connected to the switch using 4 ports in LACP mode for better bandwidth and redundancy. If you can live with the noise I highly recommend old enterprise gear as it can be found for cheap.

btgeekboy 4y ago

Saw that they’re using a NanoPi - I just picked up an R5S (dual 2.5gbe + single 1gbe) and it’s a pretty neat device. Haven’t done any significant benchmarks yet, but I was able to use the FriendlyElec wiki to build FriendlyWRT and run it, which makes me feel a little better about running no-name hardware out of China.

sliken 4y ago

Anyone have recommendations for a small, passively cooled router with 2x2.5 gbe or better? Ideally with some extra ram for a service or two. Maybe the RK3588.

giuliomagnifico 4y ago
NanoPi R5S

tinglymintyfrsh 4y ago

So tidy. I have a whole closet with a 512 GiB/96 thread/120 TiB HDD/16 TiB SSD server running ESXi, OPNsense 740, Google Fiber 2 Gb, a Ubiquiti 6 mesh AP (POE switch powered), Philips Hue bridge, Flic bridge, Ring bridge, and DMX512 bridge. I'm about to install 10 GbE links between things to get the server up to 2 Gbps.

vanillax 4y ago

Why not run opnsense on a actual PC for router?

giuliomagnifico 4y ago
Because I don’t want a full “computer” as a router. The nanoPi is sufficient to me.
- vanillax 4y ago
  Cool never heard of nanoPi. I'll have to check it out.