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Three-Phase
Aug 5, 2006

by zen death robot
I have run into one other thing and this is with my cable modem:

Generally my downstream power level is around +4.5 to 6dBmv. Recently it's crept up as high as 7.5dBmv. However the signal to noise ratio is sitting around 39-ish which to my understanding is excellent but the downstream power is marginal.

One thing I don't understand - does a higher downstream level mean that the signal is "loud" to the modem, and a negative dbmv level is "quiet" to the modem? Or is it the other way around? I think the basic idea is if the signal is too strong it distorts and clips and if it's too low it can't be heard and is drowned out by the SNR.

I have had some occasional slowdowns, a short outage once and awhile, as well as situations where I get high errors on some of the channels but it seems pretty solid 99.9% of the time. Better than my old DSL.

ADDED: I did some additional searching and it seems like +7dbmv is a warm but not especially hot signal (it's "loud" to the modem). Probably best just to leave it be.

Three-Phase fucked around with this message at 00:17 on May 17, 2017

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Three-Phase
Aug 5, 2006

by zen death robot
Just wanted to say I grew up dialing in with a 9600bps modem. Had to wait 30 seconds to load a simple GIF weather map. Use more data a day on my cellphone than we used a year back then.

Not jaded, that's all.

skipdogg
Nov 29, 2004
Resident SRT-4 Expert

If you want to mess with it you can grab a 3 or 6 db attenuator and stick them inline with the cable modem and see if It helps, but your numbers are good as they are

KingKapalone
Dec 20, 2005
1/16 Native American + 1/2 Hungarian = Totally Badass
Anyone have CenturyLink gigabit and using the provided Technicolor C2000T router/modem? Is it really garbage? I've seen people online bypassing it with their own router. I have noticed that the wifi speed is slow but my ethernet devices is getting almost 900mbit.

I'm having trouble enabling remote access to my Plex server. Didn't have this problem on my old network before moving into this gigabit apartment. It isn't working automatically using the default UPnP/NAT setup. I also tried manual port forward and it isn't working. I've also tried checking if the port is open at https://www.canyouseeme.org and it says no access as well.

Sidesaddle Cavalry
Mar 15, 2013

Oh Boy Desert Map
My family bought a newly built 4,000 sq. ft. house recently. One family member runs a home office for a business. I have been tasked with making most of its rooms convenient for Internet access. The current cable plan is 150Mbps down and either 10 or 20 up. They've already brought in some pretty impressive consumer equipment from their old places, an Apple AirPort Extreme ac and a Netgear R7800.

The way the plans work out, there will be six ethernet lines run along the same lengths where coaxial cable runs have already been established/installed.

Sanity check: I've read the OP quite a few times over and have already set up and run an EdgeRouter X in my own experience before. Will that be enough to work with the cable plan and run an 8-port switch for the ethernet runs and the two consumer wireless routers acting as access points? Would an EdgeRouter Lite be a better choice since I'd be hooking it up to a switch anyways? Is it a bad idea to have two different wireless routers from two different vendors broadcasting the same Wi-fi network(s), especially as they have different antenna connections?

E: The plans for the ethernet lines can be modified. Would it be nicer and practical to run 2 ethernet lines per coaxial line and terminate in a 16-port switch, thus minimizing the need for switches in the house's respective rooms?

E2: Forgot to mention that there's also a cable modem already that I can self-activate: an SB6143, which I assume will also be able to handle the 150 plan.

Sidesaddle Cavalry fucked around with this message at 20:06 on May 17, 2017

Hexyflexy
Sep 2, 2011

asymptotically approaching one
Thanks for the thread and OP, just got an EdgeRouter lite and a bunch of other stuff recommended here to support my business, it all works rather nicely. Time from starting using the GUI to having to bail over to the CLI to do what I wanted, approx 35 seconds.The GUI is pretty nice though.

Internet Explorer
Jun 1, 2005





Sidesaddle Cavalry posted:

My family bought a newly built 4,000 sq. ft. house recently. One family member runs a home office for a business. I have been tasked with making most of its rooms convenient for Internet access. The current cable plan is 150Mbps down and either 10 or 20 up. They've already brought in some pretty impressive consumer equipment from their old places, an Apple AirPort Extreme ac and a Netgear R7800.

The way the plans work out, there will be six ethernet lines run along the same lengths where coaxial cable runs have already been established/installed.

Sanity check: I've read the OP quite a few times over and have already set up and run an EdgeRouter X in my own experience before. Will that be enough to work with the cable plan and run an 8-port switch for the ethernet runs and the two consumer wireless routers acting as access points? Would an EdgeRouter Lite be a better choice since I'd be hooking it up to a switch anyways? Is it a bad idea to have two different wireless routers from two different vendors broadcasting the same Wi-fi network(s), especially as they have different antenna connections?

E: The plans for the ethernet lines can be modified. Would it be nicer and practical to run 2 ethernet lines per coaxial line and terminate in a 16-port switch, thus minimizing the need for switches in the house's respective rooms?

E2: Forgot to mention that there's also a cable modem already that I can self-activate: an SB6143, which I assume will also be able to handle the 150 plan.

Yes, run multiple ethernet lines per drop. It shouldn't add much cost. Always better to have less dumb switches laying around. Either EdgeRouter should work. Having different vendors broadcasting the same wifi networks is not a problem, but you should considering picking up some Unifi WAPs instead if that is an option. Easier to manage them all together. Modem should be fine.

Hexyflexy posted:

Thanks for the thread and OP, just got an EdgeRouter lite and a bunch of other stuff recommended here to support my business, it all works rather nicely. Time from starting using the GUI to having to bail over to the CLI to do what I wanted, approx 35 seconds.The GUI is pretty nice though.

Just out of curiosity, what did you need to use CLI for?

Hexyflexy
Sep 2, 2011

asymptotically approaching one

Internet Explorer posted:

Yes, run multiple ethernet lines per drop. It shouldn't add much cost. Always better to have less dumb switches laying around. Either EdgeRouter should work. Having different vendors broadcasting the same wifi networks is not a problem, but you should considering picking up some Unifi WAPs instead if that is an option. Easier to manage them all together. Modem should be fine.


Just out of curiosity, what did you need to use CLI for?

Changing the DNS servers provided over DHCP to use googles rather than the ISPs in all circumstances.

e: I'm on Virgin fibre internet in the UK, they do that loving annoying thing where they'll rewrite a bad DNS query to point to what they *think* you want. So it needs to be eliminated immediately.

Sidesaddle Cavalry
Mar 15, 2013

Oh Boy Desert Map

Internet Explorer posted:

Yes, run multiple ethernet lines per drop. It shouldn't add much cost. Always better to have less dumb switches laying around. Either EdgeRouter should work. Having different vendors broadcasting the same wifi networks is not a problem, but you should considering picking up some Unifi WAPs instead if that is an option. Easier to manage them all together. Modem should be fine.

Unifi WAPs are indeed an option, though I've never used one before. It looks like the standard bracket that everything from the house will terminate at will be a 24-port panel. Would a 24-port managed switch like the EdgeSwitch be necessary to take care of all those runs and run PoE to the Unifi WAPs? Are EdgeSwitches evil scary CLI-only devices that will explode my brain?

Matt Zerella
Oct 7, 2002

Norris'es are back baby. It's good again. Awoouu (fox Howl)

Sidesaddle Cavalry posted:

Unifi WAPs are indeed an option, though I've never used one before. It looks like the standard bracket that everything from the house will terminate at will be a 24-port panel. Would a 24-port managed switch like the EdgeSwitch be necessary to take care of all those runs and run PoE to the Unifi WAPs? Are EdgeSwitches evil scary CLI-only devices that will explode my brain?

Unless you're loving around with VLANs, this should be plug and play. The controller for the WiFI will pick it up and you should be able to make any needed changes from there.

Internet Explorer
Jun 1, 2005





I'm fairly sure what you linked does not supply PoE, you'd need this model if your concern is powering your WAPs.

That being said, you do not need a PoE switch if you are willing to live with a few power injectors in that closet. That is the route I'd go unless I was looking at more than a handful of WAPs. My advice would be to get whatever switch you want.

According to this PDF those have web consoles.

So yeah, the original one you linked would be fine if you can live with power injectors and would have a web console.

CheddarGoblin
Jan 12, 2005
oh

Hexyflexy posted:

Changing the DNS servers provided over DHCP to use googles rather than the ISPs in all circumstances.

e: I'm on Virgin fibre internet in the UK, they do that loving annoying thing where they'll rewrite a bad DNS query to point to what they *think* you want. So it needs to be eliminated immediately.

Not that it matters now, but FYI you can do this and almost everything else from the GUI.

CheddarGoblin fucked around with this message at 22:36 on May 17, 2017

Sidesaddle Cavalry
Mar 15, 2013

Oh Boy Desert Map
Oh whoops, I must have linked the wrong switch since the one recommended right below it in the OP is the PoE-capable switch I was thinking about. Thanks! I'll probably be going for that Edgeswitch or a UniFi switch since that integrates with the UniFi Controller.

astral
Apr 26, 2004

Hexyflexy posted:

e: I'm on Virgin fibre internet in the UK, they do that loving annoying thing where they'll rewrite a bad DNS query to point to what they *think* you want. So it needs to be eliminated immediately.

I had that experience with TWC in the US, but I was able to get a level 3 support agent to disable that "feature". He said it was the first time he'd heard about it (undoubtedly, anyone talking to tier 1 support was told they had some kind of virus/malware), so he had to spend some time researching it before he was finally able to fix it. He also mentioned he'd bring it up at their next meeting so the other level 3 agents would be aware of the issue and how to resolve it. :unsmith:

SEKCobra
Feb 28, 2011

Hi
:saddowns: Don't look at my site :saddowns:

Hexyflexy posted:

Changing the DNS servers provided over DHCP to use googles rather than the ISPs in all circumstances.

e: I'm on Virgin fibre internet in the UK, they do that loving annoying thing where they'll rewrite a bad DNS query to point to what they *think* you want. So it needs to be eliminated immediately.

You can set the DNS servers used by the Router and by the DHCP clients in the GUI.

smax
Nov 9, 2009

SEKCobra posted:

You can set the DNS servers used by the Router and by the DHCP clients in the GUI.

Yep, one good way to set it up is to point the DHCP clients to the router in the DHCP service tab, then point the router at whatever DNS servers you want in the System tab at the bottom. This way you can take advantage of DNS caching on the router.

jackpot
Aug 31, 2004

First cousin to the Black Rabbit himself. Such was Woundwort's monument...and perhaps it would not have displeased him.<

jackpot posted:

What could it mean if my wife and I are getting different results on video conferencing in our house? People can see/hear her ok, but she's receiving super choppy video and audio. When I'm on the same call (using appear.in) I'm getting everything crystal clear, no problems at all down or up. She's on an Air, I'm on a Macbook Pro, for what it's worth, and it doesn't matter where in the house we are - she's usually sitting right next to the router.
I finally got around to testing this wired the other night, here are the results. If I should test at different times of day I can do that.

Plugged in
Wife: 38mbps down, 47 up
Me: 26 down, 54 up

Wifi
Wife: 11 down, 31 up
Me: 8 down, 52 up

So she gets faster downloads than me, but I get better uploads. Disregarding the fact that it seems weird (to me) to get such varying speeds, why would she have such a poo poo time conferencing with people? I'm a bad sample because I don't do it as often as she does, but I never have any problems on either end. She says she's receiving terribly from others, but they see her just fine. She uses Skype, Facetime, and Zoom. Any ideas?

n0tqu1tesane
May 7, 2003

She was rubbing her ass all over my hands. They don't just do that for everyone.
Grimey Drawer

jackpot posted:

I finally got around to testing this wired the other night, here are the results. If I should test at different times of day I can do that.

Plugged in
Wife: 38mbps down, 47 up
Me: 26 down, 54 up

Wifi
Wife: 11 down, 31 up
Me: 8 down, 52 up

So she gets faster downloads than me, but I get better uploads. Disregarding the fact that it seems weird (to me) to get such varying speeds, why would she have such a poo poo time conferencing with people? I'm a bad sample because I don't do it as often as she does, but I never have any problems on either end. She says she's receiving terribly from others, but they see her just fine. She uses Skype, Facetime, and Zoom. Any ideas?

Wireless is pretty terrible for video/audio calls, due to problems with packet loss and jitter.

Also, those wifi speed tests seem to indicate that something is going on with your wireless. At that kind of wired download speed, there shouldn't be that big a discrepancy between wired/wireless download speeds.

Are you in a high density area with lots of wireless networks? How old is your wireless router/access point?

jackpot
Aug 31, 2004

First cousin to the Black Rabbit himself. Such was Woundwort's monument...and perhaps it would not have displeased him.<

n0tqu1tesane posted:

Are you in a high density area with lots of wireless networks? How old is your wireless router/access point?
Not really, I can only see one or two other networks at any given time; we're in a neighborhood. The router is just a few months old.

One thing that's always been an issue is we're in an older house, built in '49 - the walls are made of plaster, with metal lathing. But any issues we had with that (and we had plenty - I once had a Verizon rep tell me "Well sir, you know we can only guarantee a wifi signal within 10 uninterrupted feet of the router" - thanks guys, that's one room of the goddamn house) were largely fixed with the last router we got (don't know what model - whatever they hand out for Verizon Fios). I haven't had any problems at all since then, on any device, it's just my wife and her video conferencing.

I'll just tell her that to be sure she'll have to plug in from now on; I've run cable downstairs for the Apple TV so it's not the end of the world.

Internet Explorer
Jun 1, 2005





The walls of that house are basically a giant Faraday cage. You're saying it's fine other than video conferencing, but it's really not. Your best bet is to have multiple WAPs throughout the house so you're not going through multiple walls in any situation.

Wireless is awesome, but it's not magic, and thick walls made of plaster and metal are pretty much your worst case scenario.

redeyes
Sep 14, 2002

by Fluffdaddy

jackpot posted:

I finally got around to testing this wired the other night, here are the results. If I should test at different times of day I can do that.

Plugged in
Wife: 38mbps down, 47 up
Me: 26 down, 54 up

Wifi
Wife: 11 down, 31 up
Me: 8 down, 52 up

So she gets faster downloads than me, but I get better uploads. Disregarding the fact that it seems weird (to me) to get such varying speeds, why would she have such a poo poo time conferencing with people? I'm a bad sample because I don't do it as often as she does, but I never have any problems on either end. She says she's receiving terribly from others, but they see her just fine. She uses Skype, Facetime, and Zoom. Any ideas?

Could be as simple as your antennas are not as good as wifes. Or the wifi chipset has problems with the chipset on the AP.

stevewm
May 10, 2005

smax posted:

Yep, one good way to set it up is to point the DHCP clients to the router in the DHCP service tab, then point the router at whatever DNS servers you want in the System tab at the bottom. This way you can take advantage of DNS caching on the router.

Another benefit to this is that many routers register the hostnames of DHCP clients in their own DNS server. So the router's DNS server will answer requests for local hostnames with the correct local IP address. Thus making it so every device on your network is addressable by its hostname, rather than IP address. Without relying on other mechanisms such as Bonjour/upnp/windows network browsing, etc...

KingKapalone
Dec 20, 2005
1/16 Native American + 1/2 Hungarian = Totally Badass
Anyone have an opinion on this beast? https://omnia.turris.cz/en/

An engineer at work has one and could sell it to me. Looks like way too much router for me, but maybe not if I'm considering getting an EdgeRouter Lite and a wireless AP. I have no idea what price I should ask for since it's not even available in the US.

bobfather
Sep 20, 2001

I will analyze your nervous system for beer money

KingKapalone posted:

Anyone have an opinion on this beast? https://omnia.turris.cz/en/

An engineer at work has one and could sell it to me. Looks like way too much router for me, but maybe not if I'm considering getting an EdgeRouter Lite and a wireless AP. I have no idea what price I should ask for since it's not even available in the US.

$339 Euros! It wouldn't be as pretty as this setup, but $200 for a J3355-based ITX self-built computer, plus a $30 smart switch and a $70 Ubiqiti AP would let you run pfSense on a basically-bulletproof setup that's way more configurable, powerful, and likely more stable than an ARM-based OpenWRT router.

KingKapalone
Dec 20, 2005
1/16 Native American + 1/2 Hungarian = Totally Badass

bobfather posted:

$339 Euros! It wouldn't be as pretty as this setup, but $200 for a J3355-based ITX self-built computer, plus a $30 smart switch and a $70 Ubiqiti AP would let you run pfSense on a basically-bulletproof setup that's way more configurable, powerful, and likely more stable than an ARM-based OpenWRT router.

Oh I should have specified that I'm in the US and he got it through the indiegogo campaign so he only paid $211. It's sitting unused at his house since it didn't have the range he needed and I don't think he cares much about money so I could probably get it for $150 or lower. Another friend mentioned pfSense, but making my own router sounds like I'm signing myself up for a lot of personal customer service hell.

jackpot
Aug 31, 2004

First cousin to the Black Rabbit himself. Such was Woundwort's monument...and perhaps it would not have displeased him.<

Internet Explorer posted:

Your best bet is to have multiple WAPs throughout the house so you're not going through multiple walls in any situation.
Got any recommendations? Things to look for when shopping, things to avoid?

n0tqu1tesane
May 7, 2003

She was rubbing her ass all over my hands. They don't just do that for everyone.
Grimey Drawer

jackpot posted:

One thing that's always been an issue is we're in an older house, built in '49 - the walls are made of plaster, with metal lathing. .

My dad's house is the same construction, and he had issues with wireless connection no more than 30 feet from the router due to a couple of walls between him and the router. I moved his modem/router to his den where he did the vast majority of his wifi computing, and he hasn't had any problems since.

Also, you may not have noticed any problems, but for MOST internet applications, there's plenty of error correction and resiliency that mask the problems. Real-time video and audio conferencing rely on low-latency, low packet loss connections that tend to show all of the problems that other protocols mask.

jackpot posted:

Got any recommendations? Things to look for when shopping, things to avoid?

The Ubiquiti UniFi access points are well liked, and work well with multiple access points.

n0tqu1tesane fucked around with this message at 20:24 on May 19, 2017

Irritated Goat
Mar 12, 2005

This post is pathetic.
Our TP-Link C7 wireless router keeps dropping signal. The weird part is, it looks like the 5ghz was working at one point then stopped. The 2ghz side has gone out twice in 2 days. It isn't even a year old so I'm not sure why it'd be crashing like this.

Are there any common issues it has I'm not seeing?

bobfather
Sep 20, 2001

I will analyze your nervous system for beer money

KingKapalone posted:

Oh I should have specified that I'm in the US and he got it through the indiegogo campaign so he only paid $211. It's sitting unused at his house since it didn't have the range he needed and I don't think he cares much about money so I could probably get it for $150 or lower. Another friend mentioned pfSense, but making my own router sounds like I'm signing myself up for a lot of personal customer service hell.

$150 sounds right, then. Also pfSense takes some knowledge and configuration to set up, but no more than OpenWRT does. What I really enjoy about pfSense is the ability to configure a firewall in exactly the configuration I'd want to feel safe.

DizzyBum
Apr 16, 2007


Irritated Goat posted:

Our TP-Link C7 wireless router keeps dropping signal. The weird part is, it looks like the 5ghz was working at one point then stopped. The 2ghz side has gone out twice in 2 days. It isn't even a year old so I'm not sure why it'd be crashing like this.

Are there any common issues it has I'm not seeing?

I had similar issues with my C5 over the last year while I was on U-Verse. I'd inevitably have to reboot my wireless router once every 2-3 days, so I just scheduled a daily reboot on the router at 4 AM and that sorta fixed it; I'd still occasionally have to do a manual reboot. Also, 5GHz wifi was particularly hosed.

My best guess is it had something to do with the U-Verse multicast traffic doing weird things to my home network. These issues completely went away when I moved and switched to cable internet (Spectrum). I haven't seen my wifi drop out once on any of my devices and I haven't needed to reboot anything.

I dunno what service you have, but if it's U-Verse that could be it.

Armacham
Mar 3, 2007

Then brothers in war, to the skirmish must we hence! Shall we hence?

Irritated Goat posted:

Our TP-Link C7 wireless router keeps dropping signal. The weird part is, it looks like the 5ghz was working at one point then stopped. The 2ghz side has gone out twice in 2 days. It isn't even a year old so I'm not sure why it'd be crashing like this.

Are there any common issues it has I'm not seeing?

I've been having some random drop out issues with mine lately that's about the same age. Do you have default firmware on yours? I have OpenWRT on it right now, but I was thinking of just flashing it back to see if that helps at all.

Irritated Goat
Mar 12, 2005

This post is pathetic.

Armacham posted:

I've been having some random drop out issues with mine lately that's about the same age. Do you have default firmware on yours? I have OpenWRT on it right now, but I was thinking of just flashing it back to see if that helps at all.

Default firmware. It's done fine so far.


DizzyBum posted:

I had similar issues with my C5 over the last year while I was on U-Verse. I'd inevitably have to reboot my wireless router once every 2-3 days, so I just scheduled a daily reboot on the router at 4 AM and that sorta fixed it; I'd still occasionally have to do a manual reboot. Also, 5GHz wifi was particularly hosed.

My best guess is it had something to do with the U-Verse multicast traffic doing weird things to my home network. These issues completely went away when I moved and switched to cable internet (Spectrum). I haven't seen my wifi drop out once on any of my devices and I haven't needed to reboot anything.

I dunno what service you have, but if it's U-Verse that could be it.

I'm on Cox so don't think it's that.

I did see someone say in a post from like 2015 to turn off Hardware NAT. I'll try that. I really don't want to replace it considering it's under a year old but we need internet for my wife's work. :sigh:

DizzyBum
Apr 16, 2007


Irritated Goat posted:

I'm on Cox so don't think it's that.

I did see someone say in a post from like 2015 to turn off Hardware NAT. I'll try that. I really don't want to replace it considering it's under a year old but we need internet for my wife's work. :sigh:

Yeah, if it's cable internet I'm pretty sure you're multicast-free.

Definitely give the Hardware NAT option a try, and also make sure the firmware is fully updated and there aren't any known issues with a particular revision.

PRADA SLUT
Mar 14, 2006

Inexperienced,
heartless,
but even so
I have an odd situation.

I live in a building with fiber internet directly to my unit. I have a router hooked up in the closet, and three ethernet cables that go into the wall and terminate at different jacks throughout my unit.

When I run a speed test from two of the three jacks, I get in the 600mb range. When I run it from the other, I get 100mb.

I'm assuming for some reason one jack is wired up as 100, the others as 1000. However, all the jacks looks identical, and all the cables running through the wall look identical. A switch wired into the jack has the "100" light on, instead of the "1000" in the other jacks.


I've tried that particular jack on multiple computers with multiple configurations, and I've rearranged the port wiring on the router so I know it's something specific to that cable or that jack. Is there any troubleshooting I can do?

KS
Jun 10, 2003
Outrageous Lumpwad
Yeah! You can reterminate both ends of the bad cable. Home Depot sells the jacks.

100 mbit ethernet is only using two of the four pairs, while gigabit requires all four, so you can get wacky poo poo like that. Hopefully it's a bad termination and not a bad cable run.

A cable tester will tell you for sure, but guessing you don't have access to one.

KS fucked around with this message at 02:00 on May 20, 2017

Rap Game Goku
Apr 2, 2008

Word to your moms, I came to drop spirit bombs


Got the fiber installed at my office today and the edgerouter & ap set up. Works great! Just wanted to thank y'all for pointing me in the right direction.

KingKapalone
Dec 20, 2005
1/16 Native American + 1/2 Hungarian = Totally Badass
I have CenturyLink gigabit and I'm interested in bypassing the default Technicolor C2000T router because it's not so great. It's only 802.11n, I can't seem to port forward for Plex remote access, and also can't connect remotely to manage my various Usenet services.

The router was already installed in the apartment when I moved in and I simply activated an account to get gigabit (or pick from the two other plans). I guess the modem is somewhere in the building and there's Ethernet running into the router. The other ports on the router run out to connect to the in-wall Ethernet jacks. I'm just using one right now which leads to a switch with all my devices.

In another thread Internet Explorer provided some help since he did the same thing with the EdgeRouter Lite. I can't really tell the difference between the Lite and the X other than the physical differences and the fact that the X specifically mentions only getting 650mbps. I'd need a wireless AP too. Can the EdgeRouter Lite power the Unifi AC Lite? The always on idea seems odd, but I do have a FreeNAS which is also running an ubuntu VM if that takes care of that.

Other than all this I suppose an Archer C9 would be fine for gigabit WAN-LAN. I'd just need it to allow the basic stuff like port forwarding and remote access. All these extra features fall under "I don't know what I don't know."

Another option is a barely turned on used version of this https://omnia.turris.cz/en/ which I posted above. Could probably get it for $150 or less which would be a better price point to dabble with the more advanced stuff. Any red flags on that not working with replacing my previous router?

Internet Explorer
Jun 1, 2005





KingKapalone posted:

I have CenturyLink gigabit and I'm interested in bypassing the default Technicolor C2000T router because it's not so great. It's only 802.11n, I can't seem to port forward for Plex remote access, and also can't connect remotely to manage my various Usenet services.

The router was already installed in the apartment when I moved in and I simply activated an account to get gigabit (or pick from the two other plans). I guess the modem is somewhere in the building and there's Ethernet running into the router. The other ports on the router run out to connect to the in-wall Ethernet jacks. I'm just using one right now which leads to a switch with all my devices.

In another thread Internet Explorer provided some help since he did the same thing with the EdgeRouter Lite. I can't really tell the difference between the Lite and the X other than the physical differences and the fact that the X specifically mentions only getting 650mbps. I'd need a wireless AP too. Can the EdgeRouter Lite power the Unifi AC Lite? The always on idea seems odd, but I do have a FreeNAS which is also running an ubuntu VM if that takes care of that.

Other than all this I suppose an Archer C9 would be fine for gigabit WAN-LAN. I'd just need it to allow the basic stuff like port forwarding and remote access. All these extra features fall under "I don't know what I don't know."

Another option is a barely turned on used version of this https://omnia.turris.cz/en/ which I posted above. Could probably get it for $150 or less which would be a better price point to dabble with the more advanced stuff. Any red flags on that not working with replacing my previous router?

If no one else has an answer I'll post something tomorrow.

Antillie
Mar 14, 2015

KingKapalone posted:

I have CenturyLink gigabit and I'm interested in bypassing the default Technicolor C2000T router because it's not so great. It's only 802.11n, I can't seem to port forward for Plex remote access, and also can't connect remotely to manage my various Usenet services.

The router was already installed in the apartment when I moved in and I simply activated an account to get gigabit (or pick from the two other plans). I guess the modem is somewhere in the building and there's Ethernet running into the router. The other ports on the router run out to connect to the in-wall Ethernet jacks. I'm just using one right now which leads to a switch with all my devices.

In another thread Internet Explorer provided some help since he did the same thing with the EdgeRouter Lite. I can't really tell the difference between the Lite and the X other than the physical differences and the fact that the X specifically mentions only getting 650mbps. I'd need a wireless AP too. Can the EdgeRouter Lite power the Unifi AC Lite? The always on idea seems odd, but I do have a FreeNAS which is also running an ubuntu VM if that takes care of that.

Other than all this I suppose an Archer C9 would be fine for gigabit WAN-LAN. I'd just need it to allow the basic stuff like port forwarding and remote access. All these extra features fall under "I don't know what I don't know."

Another option is a barely turned on used version of this https://omnia.turris.cz/en/ which I posted above. Could probably get it for $150 or less which would be a better price point to dabble with the more advanced stuff. Any red flags on that not working with replacing my previous router?

I can give a bit of info here. The Edgeroute Lite PoE can power a Unifi AP. The "standard" Edgerouter Lite can't. The maximum speed of the Edgerouter X depends a lot on your traffic patterns, 650mpbs is a somewhat conservative estimate, but it will not do full gigabit speeds. The standard Edgerouter Lite will do full gigabit speeds without breaking a sweat. The real difference between the two is that the ERL is based on dedicated routing hardware and the ERX is based on dedicated switching hardware. (And the ERL has a crypto hardware accelerator if you want to do IPSec VPN stuff.)

So if you put two ports in the same network (vlan) on the ERL traffic between them will be slower than gigabit because the ERL isn't very good at being a switch. But if you put two ports in different networks they will see gigabit transfer speeds since that's routing and the ERL is really good at routing. The ERX is the exact opposite, it can do gigabit speed switching between ports that are in the same network but will slow down when handling traffic between ports that are in different networks.

Now if you bring in the Edgeroute Lite PoE things get a bit complex. The ERL-PoE has a built in three port switch. So if you look at the picture on Amazon the three ports that are underlined together can do gigabit speeds between each other if they are in the same network. The other ports need to be in different networks to get gigabit speeds.

It sounds like you are only using one LAN port on your current router with a dedicated switch. So the ERL would be a perfect fit for you in that regard. The decision between the ERL-PoE and the standard ERL depends on if you want to power a Unifi AP directly from the router. Now I don't know if it makes more sense for your AP to be in the same location as your router or in the same location as your switch. But if you want to use an ERL-PoE then you should plug the internet into eth0, the wired LAN into eth2 and the AP into eth3. Then place eth2 and eth3 in the same network. This will allow you to get gigabit speeds everywhere.

The Turris Omnia looks pretty cool but at €331.35 ($371.36) its more expensive than an ERL and Unifi AP combined. It also isn't available in the US. But if your in Europe and don't mind the price it looks like a great option. Although it seems to lack a crypto hardware accelerator for VPN stuff. No the random number generator chip they talk about doesn't count. IPSec/TLS aren't really slowed down much by random number generation since they don't need to do it all that much. Its the actual encryption, usually AES, that takes lots of CPU power without an accelerator. Routers actually have a great entropy source already, the network traffic that they see. That's what Linux uses to seed /dev/random and its basically perfect. Random number generation may be CPU intensive but a typical VPN only needs to do it once every 8 hours or so. I would rather offload the AES to an accelerator and do the random number generation in software (which can be patched). AES is well studied and known to be solid, and unlikely to ever need to be updated. A random number generator might need to be updated at some point, something you can't do with a hardware chip. But then again maybe their random number chip has been around for over 15 years and been extensively analysed by the crypto community, I don't know. Either way it isn't going to provide a performance increase for VPN traffic. The SPF port is pretty cool though.

Antillie fucked around with this message at 16:16 on May 21, 2017

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KingKapalone
Dec 20, 2005
1/16 Native American + 1/2 Hungarian = Totally Badass
Thanks for all that info. How do you use one of the APs with the Lite then? Does it also have AC power?

All of my traffic would be within one network, I only have one network. For the one LAN port I'm using, that's just how I'm using it now. If I were to get another TV and put it in my bedroom for example, I'd want to plug it into the ethernet wall jack that runs back to the router which is in the coat closet. I'd need an additional switch in the closet hooked up to the router then if the router only has one port.

For the Turris Omnia, I mentioned I'd be getting it barely used for probably $150, so would that change your opinion? I also don't really understand anything you said in the last paragraph about it so I have no plans of doing any of that.

Here's just a list of things I've never heard of before reading the last page or so of this thread: IPSec, VLAN, PoE, SPF, TLS, L2TP, PPTP, and I've only used a VPN to connect to my work network from my work laptop when at home or to use a chrome extension to change my location to Brazil to buy cheaper games. Don't know what to do with one normally.

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