Home Networking as a Hobby Gone Crazy

[kyuu]

This is what my network looks like when my wife peeks behind the AV rack….and that’s after I have tidied up and dusted…

View attachment 425179

Hey! How did you get into my organization's network room??

 

[pablolie]

Depends. It may seem pointless to you, but for those who are into networking as a hobby having a lot of ports, management, etc. might be necessary or simply desirable what they want to do. I mean, you can get a couple of Bluetooth speakers that will put out sound just the same as those giant speakers and racks of gear.

Also, what is this about placing access points next to each other? If you're referring to mesh access points, those are great and anyone who lives in a home bigger than a one bedroom apartment should really be using them.

to me it is not a hobby. it is my profession. and mesh access points are useless stacked next to each other. set them up for needed coverage. the video clearly is about a *lab*, not a home network. and as a lab, i miss a full featured router there.

 

[beeface]

It certainly explains the existence of this series of capsule toys:

Wow. Can’t believe that that exists. I’ll admit that it’s kinda cool though

 

[amirm]

to me it is not a hobby. it is my profession. and mesh access points are useless stacked next to each other. set them up for needed coverage.

On mesh technology.... I have two Unifi access points: one where we always are (10 feet away) and another that is downstairs. I was troubleshooting something else, only to find out the local access point was in mesh mode, routing traffic to the downstairs access point instead of its wired connection!!! It was running at half speed! I guess it is "good" news that it was running so well that we didn't notice it but still, it should never do that.

 

[kyuu]

to me it is not a hobby. it is my profession. and mesh access points are useless stacked next to each other. set them up for needed coverage.

I must have missed the part where they were actually stacked next to each other. That is indeed missing the entire point.

 

[Brian Hall]

I prefer keeping the network as simple as possible. No need for multiple routers. Switches work fine unless you really need to support multiple separate networks.

Starlink -> Asus router.

Asus router to Eero main unit (wired), 8 port switch and a wired connection to another 8 port switch in the living room.
The 8 port switch in my office is for various PCs (one is my Plex server), Fire TV 4k stick and a DMP-A6.

Wired connection from the living room switch to another Eero mesh unit and to Wiim Ultra, Fire TV 4k stick, Xbox Series X.

The Eero app shows I have 47 devices connected to my network currently (includes one more Eero mesh unit non-wired).

The wifi connections are tablets, Kindles, cell phone, home automation stuff (outlets, switches, lights, fans), multiple doorbell cameras and outdoor security cameras, Amazon Echos in every room.

The Eero wifi mesh works very well. Strong signal anywhere in the house, good signal in at least a 50 foot circle around the outside of the house and even a decent signal out in my barn.

 

[pablolie]

I must have missed the part where they were actually stacked next to each other. That is indeed missing the entire point.

Look at the reference picture. In any case, I don't get paid to do this so feel free to slow down your home network adding resource contention.

 

[pablolie]

I prefer keeping the network as simple as possible. No need for multiple routers. Switches work fine unless you really need to support multiple separate networks....

Right. You don't ride faster by trying to pedal 4 bicycles at once. Simplicity and single layers are key.

If you are passionate about networking, set up a lab. Setting up multiple resource-competing devices is silly.

Nvidia has a pretty good free course to learn about an open networking approach based on Sonic to learn about things like BGP and OSPF and EVPN and stuff that is about real networking scalability. Stacking up access points and switches makes you learn zero about networking other than 1970s spanning tree 101 basics and wifi wavelength contention.

And deep networking courses like JNCIE (if you want to spend months on it) are temporarily free.

 

[Mnyb]

A single wrt1600 router and a bunch of small unmanaged switches? All we need for 4 people ( there some gizmo that converts the fibre to copper somewhere )
I figured I pull actual cat5 cables to most things that sits in one place . It could be better but works in practice if I where more obsessed I would not fork the network with a cheap switches to reach some rooms but rather pulled longer cables to a central location

 

[sam_adams]

I too have a small swinging rack . . .

If this was Fark, I would have posted several suggestive comments and images to illustrate this statement . . .

 

[DWPress]

Stacking up access points and switches makes you learn zero about networking other than 1970s spanning tree 101 basics and wifi wavelength contention.

And yet it works. And I'd contest that there's plenty to learn just to successfully pull it off.

 

[Brian Hall]

And yet it works. And I'd contest that there's plenty to learn just to successfully pull it off.

It is just as pointless as Streamer -> DAC -> ADC -> DAC -> ADC -> DAC -> ADC -> DAC

Sure, it can be done, but why?

 

[DWPress]

We've got the same gear @Brian Hall so not sure what you're on about - Starlink>Asus Router>Asus Router in bridge>Asus router in bridge + couple switches all hard wired. I've got at least an acre here to cover. We're still talking about home networks aren't we?

 

[Brian Hall]

We've got the same gear @Brian Hall so not sure what you're on about - Starlink>Asus Router>Asus Router in bridge>Asus router in bridge + couple switches all hard wired. I've got at least an acre here to cover. We're still talking about home networks aren't we?

From what you were replying to, it sounded like you were advocating for unnessesary complications and learning from that.

Guess I misunderstood.

 

[DWPress]

No problem. I'm sure people are far more motivated to figure out home internet than the nuances of an audio signal chain at any rate. Now back to my doom scrolling....

 

[JeffS7444]

The almighty engagement algorithm served this up to me last night, and I gotta admit that a wee 10" rack seems cute as heck, maybe even practical.

 

[Hayabusa]

Also, he says he has 'dual fibre WAN' whilst pointing at two copper cables

Its where his fiber links go in, there is an other box fiber <-> utp
He does not say its a fiber cable....

 

[Trdat]

I'm absolutely confused what is this? Just a computer on steroids? Why would you need more than one router for home and what is a NAS, just hard drive? My apologies but I am fascinated to what purpose this holds compared to just a standard PC.

 

[majingotan]

At least I don't see snake oils like these on his home network setup

 

[dedobot]

I'm absolutely confused what is this? Just a computer on steroids? Why would you need more than one router for home and what is a NAS, just hard drive? My apologies but I am fascinated to what purpose this holds compared to just a standard PC.

NAS - network attached storage. You're accessing the data via network file sharing protocol. Simple example - client PC to other PC with shared folder/s/ . External hard drive connected to laptop's usb is a simple example of DAS - direct attached storage. You're accessing the data at block level, exactly like file on the internal drive of the laptop. Both NAS and DAS can be encapsulated in various types of networking.
p.s.
I can't think of a reason why you would need more than one router at home. If you want to separate different networks, the easy and elegant solution is just a switch with VLANs. Most domestic routers have switching subsystem capable of this.