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Devian666
Aug 20, 2008

Take some advice Chris.

Fun Shoe
There's no way we can predict if the quality of the wireless signal will be good. The best you can do is pick one of the pieces of software from the op and test the signal strength with a laptop or smart phone. Even with a weak signal you can still get good performance if the signal quality is high. So, try it and see.

Changing routers won't necessarily help at all with poor wireless reception.

USB wireless adapters are bad at the best of times. I'd recommend using an internal wireless card with a decent looking aerial or three.

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PUBLIC TOILET
Jun 13, 2009

Pram posted:

I'm planning on wiring my place with ethernet, what face plates do you guys use?

I like to use Panduit for home wiring projects. As long as you have some of the special tools they make, it's really drat easy to use their materials and get good, solid connections. In a corporate environment, I like to use AMP. Holds up well over time, somewhat easy to install and they have a handy tool for terminating SL-style jacks. I've used Leviton before but wasn't impressed. Maybe I just didn't have the right tools for their materials, but I've found their stuff to be a pain in the rear end to work with compared to other vendors.

In my experience, Panduit materials/equipment have also been considerably cheaper compared to AMP & Leviton. I just finished wiring the second floor of a duplex apartment house with Panduit and have used AMP & Leviton countless times for the past six years or so in corporate settings. I've had to use both in roughly 3 infrastructure re-cabling projects, all three structures over 30,000 square feet each.

PUBLIC TOILET fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Oct 13, 2011

CuddleChunks
Sep 18, 2004

Devian666 posted:

USB wireless adapters are bad at the best of times. I'd recommend using an internal wireless card with a decent looking aerial or three.
ugh. Internal cards are a pain in the rear end. USB wifi work fine, allow you to move the antenna the hell away from your big dumb metal tower, can be rigged into sweet long distance radios and are cheap as hell compared to internal cards.

Get a little USB adapter and a nice long cable and get it that much closer to your wireless signal. Remember to turn off power save mode for your USB hub.

devmd01
Mar 7, 2006

Elektronik
Supersonik

COCKMOUTH.GIF posted:

I like to use Panduit for home wiring projects.

I may or may not have my entire house wired with panduit netkey gig rated keystone jacks and plates, courtesy of our wiring supply closet.

Strict 9
Jun 20, 2001

by Y Kant Ozma Post
I'm the IT guy at a small (15 person) office. We currently have two 15 port Netgear switches, Comcast cable, DSL backup, and a Fortinet router.

I'd like to replace the Fortinet with something I have more control over. For one, doing port forwarding is a pain with this. Second, I'd like to setup some kind of QOS for things like Spotify, Rdio, Netflix and other things - we're a laid back office but I can't have those things interfering with actual work.

Lastly, I need a way to limit upload speeds. We produce videos on Youtube and when those upload they basically shutdown the network.

I use DD-WRT at home, but is this something I can accomplish with one of the routers listed on the home page? Would those handle 20 computers? Also, I believe I'd need something with two WAN ports if I want to switch to our backup, right?

feld
Feb 11, 2008

Out of nowhere its.....

Feldman

Strict 9 posted:

I'm the IT guy at a small (15 person) office. We currently have two 15 port Netgear switches, Comcast cable, DSL backup, and a Fortinet router.

I'd like to replace the Fortinet with something I have more control over. For one, doing port forwarding is a pain with this. Second, I'd like to setup some kind of QOS for things like Spotify, Rdio, Netflix and other things - we're a laid back office but I can't have those things interfering with actual work.

Lastly, I need a way to limit upload speeds. We produce videos on Youtube and when those upload they basically shutdown the network.

I use DD-WRT at home, but is this something I can accomplish with one of the routers listed on the home page? Would those handle 20 computers? Also, I believe I'd need something with two WAN ports if I want to switch to our backup, right?


You should visit the Mikrotik thread.

edit: I hate to be that guy, but after reading the first post.... really? I know you mention Mikrotiks further down, but Mikrotiks do everything you could want out of DDWRT and Tomato, and unless you need to run custom software + crons it covers the base of OpenWRT too. And Ubiquiti? Mikrotiks do it much better as well. I know there's already a nice big Mikrotik thread here but it seems silly that people keep pushing Tomato, DDWRT, etc when they're always on horrible, flaky consumer hardware. They were wonderful firmwares 5 years ago when we didn't have much for options, but these days you can't beat the functionality and power of the Mikrotiks.

/end rant.

feld fucked around with this message at 15:27 on Oct 13, 2011

PUBLIC TOILET
Jun 13, 2009

feld posted:

You should visit the Mikrotik thread.

edit: I hate to be that guy, but after reading the first post.... really? I know you mention Mikrotiks further down, but Mikrotiks do everything you could want out of DDWRT and Tomato, and unless you need to run custom software + crons it covers the base of OpenWRT too. And Ubiquiti? Mikrotiks do it much better as well. I know there's already a nice big Mikrotik thread here but it seems silly that people keep pushing Tomato, DDWRT, etc when they're always on horrible, flaky consumer hardware. They were wonderful firmwares 5 years ago when we didn't have much for options, but these days you can't beat the functionality and power of the Mikrotiks.

/end rant.

I've been getting that vibe for a while now having kept an eye on trip reports from people loving around with N-based consumer routers throughout the forums. It seems like a lot of the home-based N routers out there are flaky and problematic which is why I'm still stuck with the WRT54GL. I've been more interested in making the jump from the WRT54GL/Tomato experience into the Mikrotik experience with wireless-N support.

PuTTY riot
Nov 16, 2002

feld posted:

You should visit the Mikrotik thread.

edit: I hate to be that guy, but after reading the first post.... really? I know you mention Mikrotiks further down, but Mikrotiks do everything you could want out of DDWRT and Tomato, and unless you need to run custom software + crons it covers the base of OpenWRT too. And Ubiquiti? Mikrotiks do it much better as well. I know there's already a nice big Mikrotik thread here but it seems silly that people keep pushing Tomato, DDWRT, etc when they're always on horrible, flaky consumer hardware. They were wonderful firmwares 5 years ago when we didn't have much for options, but these days you can't beat the functionality and power of the Mikrotiks.

/end rant.

If mikrotik could make a functional web gui and a 'quick set up' type feature (dhcp client/server/nat/wifi already set up out of the box), I think they would blow all the other consumer stuff out of the water.


e: Nobody can tell me with a straight face that they'd recommend their mom buy a mikrotik.

enotnert
Jun 10, 2005

Only women bleed

American Jello posted:

If mikrotik could make a functional web gui and a 'quick set up' type feature (dhcp client/server/nat/wifi already set up out of the box), I think they would blow all the other consumer stuff out of the water.


e: Nobody can tell me with a straight face that they'd recommend their mom buy a mikrotik.

Uhm, as far as I know, every mikrotik I've bought has been "plug port1 to cable modem, plug other stuff into other ports, works"

If you want more complicated junk you need to learn winBox and the terminology.

The_Franz
Aug 8, 2003

American Jello posted:

If mikrotik could make a functional web gui and a 'quick set up' type feature (dhcp client/server/nat/wifi already set up out of the box), I think they would blow all the other consumer stuff out of the water.

Web configuration (Webfig) on the current RouterOS versions works just fine.

Sprawl
Nov 21, 2005


I'm a huge retarded sperglord who can't spell, but Starfleet Dental would still take me and I love them for it!
If you live in a condo like me and have ~60+ ap that you can easily detect i would strongly recommend home power line kits they work wonders compared to a congested wireless spectrum.

CuddleChunks
Sep 18, 2004

American Jello posted:

If mikrotik could make a functional web gui and a 'quick set up' type feature (dhcp client/server/nat/wifi already set up out of the box), I think they would blow all the other consumer stuff out of the water.

I haven't tried webmin (their web configuration tool) in the latest 4.x or 5.x firmwares but the earlier versions were dreadful. Who cares? Winbox takes care of 95% of all configuration tasks and a command line fills in the rest of the gaps.

I agree that if they had a more accessible interface or a dummy mode that you could start with they'd definitely be more consumer friendly. But they aren't competing in that market and I don't think they can drive their price down low enough to do so.

On the other hand, every night I go and give a sweet sensual massage to my RB750G. Then I pull out the oils and really go to town. UNF UNF UNF! I LOVE YOU SO loving MUCH YOU LITTLE HUNK OF NETWORKING SEX! UNF UNF UNF!


You probably could get a cold, clammy handy from your Linksys but you'll never know the raw passion I feel every single night from my Mikrotik. Face it, it's too much RouterOS for you.


Strict 9 - No poo poo please look at a Mikrotik for your office. They are inexpensive, have fantastic features and will do everything you've asked about. They are NOT simple to setup though I think my little guide will get you going. As enotnert pointed out, the units come with a default configuration that works just fine for home use. Best of all, once you have the unit configured you can dump the configuration out to a text file and keep that somewhere safe. If your mikrotik dies, you can buy a new one, dump your script on there and be back up and running in hardly any time at all.

PuTTY riot
Nov 16, 2002

CuddleChunks posted:

I haven't tried webmin (their web configuration tool) in the latest 4.x or 5.x firmwares but the earlier versions were dreadful. Who cares? Winbox takes care of 95% of all configuration tasks and a command line fills in the rest of the gaps.

I agree that if they had a more accessible interface or a dummy mode that you could start with they'd definitely be more consumer friendly. But they aren't competing in that market and I don't think they can drive their price down low enough to do so.

On the other hand, every night I go and give a sweet sensual massage to my RB750G. Then I pull out the oils and really go to town. UNF UNF UNF! I LOVE YOU SO loving MUCH YOU LITTLE HUNK OF NETWORKING SEX! UNF UNF UNF!


You probably could get a cold, clammy handy from your Linksys but you'll never know the raw passion I feel every single night from my Mikrotik. Face it, it's too much RouterOS for you.


Strict 9 - No poo poo please look at a Mikrotik for your office. They are inexpensive, have fantastic features and will do everything you've asked about. They are NOT simple to setup though I think my little guide will get you going. As enotnert pointed out, the units come with a default configuration that works just fine for home use. Best of all, once you have the unit configured you can dump the configuration out to a text file and keep that somewhere safe. If your mikrotik dies, you can buy a new one, dump your script on there and be back up and running in hardly any time at all.

Your guide owns btw.


How feasible is this idea: I have a 2wire uverse RG, which doesn't really do bridge mode or even DMZ very well, but forwards ports fine. I also have a wrt-350n that does wifi and acts as a switch. Could I set up a VM on my desktop that's on all the time that runs routerOS and set that up as a VPN server? I don't really know why I have such a boner about this, but I want to encrypt all my iPhone traffic through my home connection.

I've tried a few dd-wrt VPN guides and just haven't had much luck with it.

PUBLIC TOILET
Jun 13, 2009

CuddleChunks posted:

If your mikrotik dies, you can buy a new one, dump your script on there and be back up and running in hardly any time at all.

I'd buy it for that feature alone. Not too long ago I had exported the configuration from one WRT54GL running Tomato and tried to import it into another WRT54GL also running Tomato. Wouldn't allow it because it wasn't the same exact router the original configuration came from. That kind of defeats an important purpose of having an export configuration feature now doesn't it?

CuddleChunks
Sep 18, 2004

American Jello posted:

Could I set up a VM on my desktop that's on all the time that runs routerOS and set that up as a VPN server?

What OS are you using on your desktop? If it's one of the pro versions (WinXP Pro, Vista Pro, Win7 Pro) then you can just enable the PPTP server that's built into the OS. It's straightforward with the online guides available.

I've had that running on my home computer for years. Oh sure, it's super easy to add it to the mikrotik as well, but this works and once I've got a working solution it's a lot more effort to want to fiddle around with it.

Thanks for the kind words about the guide. I had a lot of fun making that and horrifying my coworkers with its prettiness.

cockmouth - urgh, I deal with Sonicwalls and other mid-range routers. Hahah have fun importing a config between units. That kind of thinking isn't solely the domain of crappy home gear.

Strict 9
Jun 20, 2001

by Y Kant Ozma Post

CuddleChunks posted:

Strict 9 - No poo poo please look at a Mikrotik for your office. They are inexpensive, have fantastic features and will do everything you've asked about. They are NOT simple to setup though I think my little guide will get you going. As enotnert pointed out, the units come with a default configuration that works just fine for home use. Best of all, once you have the unit configured you can dump the configuration out to a text file and keep that somewhere safe. If your mikrotik dies, you can buy a new one, dump your script on there and be back up and running in hardly any time at all.

This looks pretty sweet, thanks! In your guide you mention the RB433, but in this thread you mention making sweet, sweet love to the RB750G. I assume your guide still applies to that, and the RB750G is the one you'd recommend getting?

Also do you have a recommended vendor? Since these don't appear to be carried at the major online retail sites.

Ragingsheep
Nov 7, 2009
My wireless router is currently behind a double brick wall and another single brick wall since it's at the front of the house while I'm at the back. Because of the way everyone is set up, I'd rather not move it.

My desktop is fine since I just run a CAT5 cable from the router to my main machine but my laptop has trouble picking up the wireless signal. Is it possible to get a USB wireless dongle and use that to get a wireless signal?

PuTTY riot
Nov 16, 2002

CuddleChunks posted:

What OS are you using on your desktop? If it's one of the pro versions (WinXP Pro, Vista Pro, Win7 Pro) then you can just enable the PPTP server that's built into the OS. It's straightforward with the online guides available.

I've had that running on my home computer for years. Oh sure, it's super easy to add it to the mikrotik as well, but this works and once I've got a working solution it's a lot more effort to want to fiddle around with it.

Thanks for the kind words about the guide. I had a lot of fun making that and horrifying my coworkers with its prettiness.

cockmouth - urgh, I deal with Sonicwalls and other mid-range routers. Hahah have fun importing a config between units. That kind of thinking isn't solely the domain of crappy home gear.

I'm using win 7 pro, set up the pptp vpn, opened a port on the 2wire, works great! The only time it doesn't work on my phone is if I'm on the local wifi, which is fine with me. Oddly enough though my win7 laptop does fine using the wan IP from my local network.

PuTTY riot
Nov 16, 2002

Ragingsheep posted:

My wireless router is currently behind a double brick wall and another single brick wall since it's at the front of the house while I'm at the back. Because of the way everyone is set up, I'd rather not move it.

My desktop is fine since I just run a CAT5 cable from the router to my main machine but my laptop has trouble picking up the wireless signal. Is it possible to get a USB wireless dongle and use that to get a wireless signal?

Yes, or you could get an additional AP and put it on the other side of the wall if that's feasible (hoping that's where the PC is), I think you will have better luck doing that than messing around with a USB dongle on a laptop.

Ragingsheep
Nov 7, 2009
Actually what I was thinking was if I could stick the dongle into the desktop and use it to broadcast the signal.

PuTTY riot
Nov 16, 2002
Dongles don't really work very well, I wouldn't recommend doing that. do you have a separate modem where the AP is now?

TLG James
Jun 5, 2000

Questing ain't easy

Ragingsheep posted:

Actually what I was thinking was if I could stick the dongle into the desktop and use it to broadcast the signal.

Yes. If it is running windows you can use ICS.

However, it is not very reliable in my experience.

Ashex
Jun 25, 2007

These pipes are cleeeean!!!
I'm looking to get a tiny wireless AP that can be connected to a laptop via ethernet, essentially a tiny router.

The reason I want this is I have a bunch of trainers who go out and do demos of software products and part of the demo is to have users connect to it, when they're in an office with locked down wireless/network they need to be able to server it up somehow so we're looking at wireless.

I have a FON router with DDWRT on it that we're testing so I wanted to see if you guys knew of routers of the same size as this one.

CuddleChunks
Sep 18, 2004

Strict 9 posted:

This looks pretty sweet, thanks! In your guide you mention the RB433, but in this thread you mention making sweet, sweet love to the RB750G. I assume your guide still applies to that, and the RB750G is the one you'd recommend getting?

The RB433 is what I had on my desk at work while writing the guide. I rarely do much fiddling with my home unit because it works and I don't want to go home to a broken network. The RB750G is the one I'd recommend though.

I ordered my gear from these fine folks: http://www.roc-noc.com/

American Jello - that's great to hear.

Nitr0
Aug 17, 2005

IT'S FREE REAL ESTATE

Ashex posted:

I'm looking to get a tiny wireless AP that can be connected to a laptop via ethernet, essentially a tiny router.

The reason I want this is I have a bunch of trainers who go out and do demos of software products and part of the demo is to have users connect to it, when they're in an office with locked down wireless/network they need to be able to server it up somehow so we're looking at wireless.

I have a FON router with DDWRT on it that we're testing so I wanted to see if you guys knew of routers of the same size as this one.

http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/

Ashex
Jun 25, 2007

These pipes are cleeeean!!!

That actually fits pretty well except it's a bit pricey, is there anything similar to that form factor?

BlackMK4
Aug 23, 2006

wat.
Megamarm

Ashex posted:

That actually fits pretty well except it's a bit pricey, is there anything similar to that form factor?
$30 off work?
http://store.apple.com/us/product/FB321LL/A?mco=MTA4MjcyODY

Ashex
Jun 25, 2007

These pipes are cleeeean!!!

That does sound a bit better, I did some searching and found a TrendNet Wireless Router that had a good review and another one from a manufacturer I've never heard of, CNet Wireless Router.


I'll probably get those two and test them out as we go through CDW so I won't get the refurbished price.

cannibustacap
Jul 7, 2003

Brrrruuuuuiinnssss
If I am connected wirelessly to a friends Wifi or to a free wifi spot, can a hacker track my web usage, even if I am on an HTTPS/SSL web page and I am using SSL email too (like gmail)?

Magic Underwear
May 14, 2003


Young Orc

cannibustacap posted:

If I am connected wirelessly to a friends Wifi or to a free wifi spot, can a hacker track my web usage, even if I am on an HTTPS/SSL web page and I am using SSL email too (like gmail)?

They can track it, sure. Anyone on the network can, by setting their wireless NIC to promiscuous. The owner of the AP could also be logging all traffic.

That doesn't give them the CONTENT that you're looking at, but at the very least, even on an SSL connection, somebody could see what IP addresses you were accessing (from TCP header) as well as domains/subdomains (from DNS requests). I believe that in an HTTPS connection the full address you are requesting would be encrypted. So for example I would be able to see that you were requesting data from forums.somethingawful.com but I would not know whether it was to read a thread, make a post, edit a post, or whatever (assuming the whole thing was https, which it isn't).

Magic Underwear fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Oct 16, 2011

Malloc Voidstar
May 7, 2007

Fuck the cowboys. Unf. Fuck em hard.
Only the hostnames. URLs are encrypted.

cannibustacap
Jul 7, 2003

Brrrruuuuuiinnssss

Magic Underwear posted:

They can track it, sure. Anyone on the network can, by setting their wireless NIC to promiscuous. The owner of the AP could also be logging all traffic.

That doesn't give them the CONTENT that you're looking at, but at the very least, even on an SSL connection, somebody could see what IP addresses you were accessing (from TCP header) as well as domains/subdomains (from DNS requests). I believe that in an HTTPS connection the full address you are requesting would be encrypted. So for example I would be able to see that you were requesting data from forums.somethingawful.com but I would not know whether it was to read a thread, make a post, edit a post, or whatever (assuming the whole thing was https, which it isn't).

Okay cool! That is good to know. There are lots of "free wireless hotspots" and I am concerned about doing any real internet shopping/banking while on there.

Magic Underwear
May 14, 2003


Young Orc

cannibustacap posted:

Okay cool! That is good to know. There are lots of "free wireless hotspots" and I am concerned about doing any real internet shopping/banking while on there.

Yep, that's basically the coolest thing about TLS. As long as the endpoints (your computer and the destination) are legit, you pretty much don't have to worry about anybody in between snooping your cookies, impersonating your bank, or anything like that.

All bets are off if the endpoints are jacked though. This applies to either your computer being compromised by a virus or the destination site being badly coded and not encrypting everything it should (see Firesheep, which snorts up unencrypted cookies sent over the air for Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, etc.). For banking and big shopping sites you're probably OK though.

Ninja Rope
Oct 22, 2005

Wee.
That is assuming you didn't click through any SSL certificate mismatch warnings, have malware install an untrusted certificate on your box (via an exploit injected while you were browsing unencrypted websites?), run into attackers with any one of the numerous stolen but valid signed certificates, fall prey to BEAST, etc.

Triikan
Feb 23, 2007
Most Loved
I was never sure whether or not this was purely necessary, but when I used to be out and about grabbing wifi when I could, I would VPN into my home network with the highest security settings available and do my banking through that. Now I just tether my phone. I hope Sprint isn't stealing my banking info :ohdear:

feld
Feb 11, 2008

Out of nowhere its.....

Feldman

American Jello posted:

If mikrotik could make a functional web gui and a 'quick set up' type feature (dhcp client/server/nat/wifi already set up out of the box), I think they would blow all the other consumer stuff out of the water.


e: Nobody can tell me with a straight face that they'd recommend their mom buy a mikrotik.

It has always come with a default config, which I tend to just wipe off. Mikrotik comes with a default network of 192.168.88.0/24 and it's all setup for you to just plug in your modem into eth1.

diehlr
Apr 17, 2003
Remember not to use restricted post tags next time.
Ran across an interesting, yet annoying problem when trying to use repeater bridge mode between two ASUS RT-N16 routers. When streaming an HD video from either router, it causes ping times to jump all over the place and packets to drop. I am running the latest recommended build in the dd-wrt peacock thread. Also, seemingly randomly, the two routers will drop their wireless link. When the routers are in the same room, it appears to be a little more stable, although not as solid as I feel it should be. When placed at moderate distances (although strong enough for a wireless client to be pretty much rock solid to the main router), the repeating function seemed to be quite flakey. Does anyone know if this is an issue with this specific build of dd-wrt? Are there any other more recent builds that are known to work better in repeater bridge mode?

The_Franz
Aug 8, 2003

CuddleChunks posted:

The RB750G is the one I'd recommend though.

The 750G is discontinued. It was replaced with the 750GL which has twice the RAM but a slower CPU. It should still be more than adequate unless your WAN connection exceeds 100mbps.

Scaramouche
Mar 26, 2001

SPACE FACE! SPACE FACE!

Ashex posted:

That does sound a bit better, I did some searching and found a TrendNet Wireless Router that had a good review and another one from a manufacturer I've never heard of, CNet Wireless Router.


I'll probably get those two and test them out as we go through CDW so I won't get the refurbished price.

You probably already got them, but I would warn you to stay clear of TrendNET; it's basically the cheapest crappiest stuff out there in my experience. I've had their hubs and switches foisted on me by past employers ('oh they're so cheap!') but they always have died on me within a year.

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Fap of Death
Oct 17, 2011

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

I posted about it in the recently-closed thread, but I just wanna throw out some love for the AirPort Extreme Base Station. It's pricey, but it's got dual-band 802.11n, guest network support, disk sharing, printer sharing, and has never locked up or crashed on me.

Much love for the AEBS. The repeater mode also works very well for creating a "mesh" network in your residence. Although I suppose you could get one main AEBS, then use DD-WRT on cheaper hardware to extend a network if you are cost-conscious.

On a related note, does anyone know if Apple has allowed AEBS + USB Drives to be used for Time Machine backups, or do you need to explicitly buy a Time Capsule for this purpose ? Too lazy to check. Have a 1TB Time Capsule for my main base station + Time Machine, then AEBS' for relays.

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