networks-security-and-home-servers

[runic kayak]

I live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

We have lots of fiber up here, PFN, Highline, Michigan Broadband.

All running off of one another though.

[molten umbra]

I'm in TX where they say they will get internet going but never do.

my Dad was being told they'd get fiber in their old neighborhood for many years now and they just finally got it a few months ago, just in time to sell his house.

and that wasn't rural, that was a very popular part of houston

[odd epoch]

1Gbps on LAN specifically, I don't get that on WAN even in my suburban apartment

[molten umbra]

ah, fair. I got 1.2gbps in my old apartment. I miss it so much lol.

[runic kayak]

I get gig WAN for $108 a month.

Around $150 a month for 2 Gbps.

[odd epoch]

That's not too bad all things considered. I pay $60 for 650Mbps.

[runic kayak]

My Charter was $80 for 150 Mbps lmao

[molten umbra]

I was paying 80 for 1.2gbps. Now we're paying i think 60 for about 300mbps? but it also drops a lot.

cries in rural again

[glass moat]

used to pay 60 for 40mbps

which wasnt even that stable and would occasionally drop to like 4mbps down

or 0.4

or 0.04mbps

now we pay 70 for 3 gigabit

speaking of which

is pretty much useless because of their policy

[odd epoch]

Capped download totals?

[glass moat]

they dont explicitly cap anything but it's like, no commercial use (which is kinda interesting because i looked at their business pricing and it's like $5 more per month than residential, but as a 3 year contract minimum)
and they also say that they will terminate your service if you use too much bandwidth and disrupt the service or something like that, i dont remember the exact wording, but they make it at least sound like you're not supposed to be using the full bandwidth for too long (though i also dont really know what you could do that would use the full bandwidth for that long)

[odd epoch]

You could run a TOR exit node

[half eagle]

We have only 1gig right now for 60 (with a discount), with the availability of more, but they want too much haha. so should be fine.

[muted moss]

$60 is pretty aight for 1Gbps

I pay $80 for 1.2Gbps currently before I switch to fiber

[half eagle]

For a switch is this a decent enough one? On-sale for 30

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00K4DS5KU/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[odd epoch]

Personally I'd just get a used one for $15

It's not like there's any moving parts to go bad

[half eagle]

That's true.

[half eagle]

With these switches, can I run another switch. Example. 1 port from router to switch, then 1 port from switch to another switch ( which will have 4 devices such as Xbox, Playstation, TV, wii) or is there interface doing this?

[odd epoch]

Absolutely you can do that. It's exactly how big business does it.

[half eagle]

Niceeee can save a bit on wite haha

Wire

[tawdry pollen]

how the hell... We pay 150/mo for gigabit

[nimble sigil]

some people have said they prefer netgear over TPLink

something about reliability, but I don't know if it's founded by any actual truth

[muted moss]

For switches or routers?

[junior mulch]

nighthawk gud

Man, it just dawned on me I do the like "Asus is good" stuff I hate but for networking

[muted moss]

I was telling someone (as a joke) they should go spend exorbitant money on Gundam Asus routers

😆

[nimble sigil]

Switches lol

[nimble sigil]

If they make a router that is straight up just a Gundam then maybe

Not this color inspired spider looking router

[junior mulch]

It was

Oh you mean like a robot

[glass moat]

Buy mikrotik

[glass moat]

Buy HPE Aruba

[glass moat]

Buy Arista

[karmic wedge]

Huh?

You good bro?

[glass moat]

buy cisco

[karmic wedge]

Too political bro

[glass moat]

i curse you to use fortinet

[nimble sigil]

Not the Fortnite internet

[karmic wedge]

This mf

[glass moat]

this would be pretty handy, rtings is working on router testing

[odd epoch]

There's certain things in router specs you simply can't test without an RF isolation chamber, like the one LTT spent half a million dollars on. Same goes for phones and any other radio device.

[nimble sigil]

True

Maybe they are getting one of those chambers

[glass moat]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/866714797160792105/1254504580629139526/RDT_20240623_1332386841656615022254608.jpg?ex=6679bbef&is=66786a6f&hm=306e1c7920c5457f9d4e16717da133bc4d6c4d9d97726318da34198b370dcd48& https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/866714797160792105/1254504581270868089/RDT_20240623_1332445048984882785517053.jpg?ex=6679bbef&is=66786a6f&hm=ea69d334d4c9432430e3ef776cdb67d3c953379d660c6c4d17cec4a4e9af6afb&

Need this

I finally understand why people do gacha

I'd spend so much money on rolling for these

[nimble sigil]

Lmao

That is pretty cool

[odd epoch]

A mini rack? That is an interesting idea

[molten umbra]

Anyone know what the cheapest way to get a good connection from inside of a house to an RV parked outside? Home is a large mobile home with the internet in the middle, Internet service in question is Verizon Home Internet, currently have a WiFi extender (NETGEAR EX3110) plugged into the wall closest to the RV but the connection just really sucks and drops a lot. I need to beef it up. Any one got any better ideas that doesn't involve spending a lot or drilling holes to outside of the house?

[glass moat]

Cheapest? Use a wire
If you have a door that you don't use often, you can often put a flat patch cable under it (though I wouldn't recommend this for doors that are opened frequently)
Once outside, get a rj45 to rj45 connector and put in an outdoor direct burial rated cable to run to the RV

Slightly more expensive would be to make a wireless bridge

Though there not really any ideal method that doesn't involve drilling a hole through the wall

Your walls will attenuate the signal

The easiest way for RF to pass is by feeding a wire through

Whether that's a coax or a cat5e/6 cable

[glass moat]

Also more multipath propagation

[molten umbra]

I might have a coax going through already I might be able to tap, and I do have coax going through the RV I could use possibly. Any reccomendations on how I could best set that up if I do?

there's an old dish network dish that I'm pretty sure runs into the house somewhere.

I was looking at coax to ethernet adapters but they're so expensive and I'd need 2 plus a wifi router

[nimble sigil]

yeah, the cheapest would probably be running just an ethernet cable straight into the RV and use a network switch

you could instead use a router instead of a network switch

[molten umbra]

I need a router cause a lot of the devices in the RV are wifi only lol

[nimble sigil]

oh okay

[molten umbra]

plus I definitely want to avoid drilling into the rv, I'd use the wiring that's already available

[nimble sigil]

could you just slide in an ethernet cable with the coax

coax is fine but the modems are what'll cost you a lot

[molten umbra]

Nah it's like a port that's prewired and caulked around, I couldn't take off the cover and replace it with an ethernet cover, and the wiring is hidden in the walls going throughtout the RV. It's meant to hook up cable at campsites to the 2 TV spots in the RV.

[nimble sigil]

dang

maybe if there's cable routing you could remove the caulk, thread the cable through and pull it out the other side

of course you'd have to take off the port first...

My other thought is an outdoor router but I'm not sure how those perform through the metal walls of an RV

and you'd need POE from inside the house

which tbf isn't terribly difficult, just get a switch that does POE

but you'd still need a place to attach the outdoor router (they call it an AP) to

[molten umbra]

That's what I was looking at but the cabling and materials needed would be expensive af lol. I'll look at it tomorrow and see what's possible when I get a chance. Maybe I can get some free wire from my old job cause a thing of wire and tips is so much more than I thought it was lol. Might be able to save some there

[nimble sigil]

biggest thing is just getting a cable inside the RV

[glass moat]

yeah you would need to use a MOCA adapter, but they arent exactly cheap

you could try looking for a used set

or a set with less bandwidth

[tawdry pollen]

could also just get a modem no?

[glass moat]

what do you mean by this?

[tawdry pollen]

Connect coax-modem-network switch?

[molten umbra]

Well I'd need either coax connected internet service, which doesn't exist out here, or I'd still need the moca adapters to get internet service from the router inside to the new modem/router.

[glass moat]

they're trying to get the existing internet connection from the main house to the RV

[tawdry pollen]

Ah ok

[glass moat]

also technically speaking, moca adapters are modems, except they're made specifically for point to point

[timber rover]

is the intel CNVi feature in intel motherboards useful at all

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000026155/wireless.html

[glass moat]

it's useful for the inteo cnvi wifi cards at least :p

honestly

doesnt matter too much

that being said, the intel cnvi wifi chips are cheaper than the pcie ones

[tame iris]

Any recommendations for a wireless router that is good at broadcasting signals through obstructions and at longer range.

[glass moat]

there are max transmit power limits set by law depending on the country; you want multiple APs if you want more coverage and want to go through stuff like concrete walls

technically the all in one units with high gain antenna have more wider range, but sacrificing vertical coverage

which is actually less ideal for houses with more than 1 level

[tame iris]

@glass moat @glass moat I know, the house is setup with a mesh setup. We just bought a business in a leased space, and am kinda limited in how I can set up a network.

[glass moat]

hmm

usually if you're a buisness, there's a bit more flexibility in what you can do (in a leased space i mean)

also for buisnesses, you want something a little more robust than a home router

how big is the company? if it's more than like, 20 employees lets say, you should probably hire a network engineer (for designing the network)

they will be able to determine the best network setup for your use case

[tame iris]

It has one employee and is about 2000sqft, however it is an old building. The router that was there only has 3 out of 4 lan ports that work. It also constantly drops signals with no signal at the front of the building. I swapped it out for a router I keep on hand and never had an issue with, it has signal at the front but it is weak. And the 5ghz is non-existent at 20ft from the router. Was going to set up an access point in addition then found just how bad the router is that came with.... I was looking at some of Ciscos routers just don't see a range listing on them.

[glass moat]

for 1 employee, and that size of a building, i'd probably say go for ubiquiti for ease of setup; they're pretty good for small business and dont have the price tag of cisco

alternatively, tp link omanda (their business line) isnt too bad, and is slightly cheaper than ubiquiti

ubiquiti probably has the easiest setup/management though

they're a popular choice for homelabs as well due to their price

idk if you also need security, but ubiquiti also does ip camera stuff and door access

[odd epoch]

If you have your own fuse box separate from anyone else in the building, try powerline Ethernet and another router to use as an access point at the front

[nimble sigil]

Or poe

But powerline probably better

In terms of ease of setup

[glass moat]

tbh powerline is kinda a last resort type

if you could run a patch cable, that would be more ideal

(powerline is) not guaranteed to work well, plus it creates a fair bit of EMF radiation due to the high frequency and high voltage signals being used

[nimble sigil]

PoE

Then AP

As per ubiquiti

[high nova]

Hello everyone

[karmic wedge]

Parents switch to AT&T 2 Gig fiber
We don't even have equipment that can fully utilize 2 Gbps (not even me, who primarily does most of the networking work in the house)

Bruh I just realized that the house is routed with Cat5E too. So that's not obsolete in this house 💀💀

[glass moat]

lmao

[toxic inlet]

Any recommendations for good routers?

Currently have a Netgear Nighthawk AX6 AX4300 that has some problems

Forwarding rules are screwy, trying to edit one while keeping the same port will tell you that a service on the same port already exists

Whether access control will work or not is roulette

[odd epoch]

Hear me out. Raspberry Pi.
The processor is more powerful than any consumer grade router, and you can upgrade it with whatever add in cards you like. Plus the operating system is way more customizable.

[toxic inlet]

Need good WiFi range though

[odd epoch]

So add in a wifi card with big ol antennae

[toxic inlet]

What do you even use on it to use it as a router?

What's the Internet port speed on an RPi 4 8GB?

Surely not 2.5gbps

[odd epoch]

The stock one is 1Gb but you can upgrade it or get a clone that's got a better one

[toxic inlet]

And what kind of WiFi card do you get? I would also assume you need switches for Ethernet connections?

[toxic inlet]

How do you upgrade it?

[odd epoch]

PCIe

[toxic inlet]

The RPi has PCIe?

[odd epoch]

Yes

It has M.2

So you can adapt it to whatever

[toxic inlet]

Same with the WiFi card?

M.2?

[odd epoch]

Yep

But the Pi 5 comes with wifi

[toxic inlet]

Pi 4 has WiFi, I just doubt the rage is great

4b, I guess

[nocturne basin]

Couldn't you put the Netgear into Bridge mode and make the PI the primary router so you could still use the WiFi range of the Netgear?

[odd epoch]

That is also an option

[nocturne basin]

Bascailly turn the netgear into a WAP

[odd epoch]

Put a 10Gb port into the pi and connect to the router that way, plus an antenna upgrade if needed

[toxic inlet]

And you add the 10gb port with an expansion card?

Where do you find one that's only four lanes?

[odd epoch]

2x 2.0 lanes is enough for a 10Gb port

[nocturne basin]

How small is the PI m.2, full size or mini?

[toxic inlet]

And how do you mount that lol

[nocturne basin]

https://www.tomshardware.com/networking/10-gigabit-ethernet-slots-into-your-m2-port-costs-only-dollar86

[toxic inlet]

I can look in ~10 minutes

[odd epoch]

It should be 2280

[toxic inlet]

What OS do you switch the Pi to for that?

[odd epoch]

https://www.nextpcb.com/blog/how-to-turn-a-raspberry-pi-into-a-router

Pi OS works fine

It's just Linux after all

[toxic inlet]

Yeah

Anything you can do for security or does it not really matter? I sometimes get random IPs trying to connect to my media server that Malwarebytes stops.

[odd epoch]

You can set the same kind of filters that a regular router has

More than most can at that

[toxic inlet]

Is there any reason an actual router might be better?

The WiFi range even on what we have could also be better, but it is in our basement under the stairs

Could probably be moved upstairs and reach the second floor better, not sure what kind of cable is in the wall between where we would put it and the modem, though

[odd epoch]

Only if you're afraid of working with Linux and hardware customizing

[toxic inlet]

Nah I spent hours at my school installing Arch on a VM over and over again when they added VMWare for no apparent reason, our CS classes sucked

[odd epoch]

There's no reason you can't use both the Pi and the router as wifi access points, basically using the router as a wired repeater

[glass moat]

could also use openwrt or something

[odd epoch]

If you really wanted to I guess you could https://openwrt.org/toh/raspberry_pi_foundation/raspberry_pi

[toxic inlet]

Is there something like this that provides two ports? One from our modem and one to the router that's in bridge mode?

If that's even worth doing

We do kind of need the extra ports on the router plus a switch

[nocturne basin]

So the way this would work is Modem - Pie - Router, your Router would still be able to be used for all the ports and WiFi access but the PIE would distribute IP addresses, etc. The Router would basically just be a switch at that point and a Wireless Access Point.

[toxic inlet]

But it would be plugged into the Pi in the 1Gbps port

[nocturne basin]

I thought we found a 10 Gbps port for you?

Oh, I see what you're saying

How much bandwidth do you need?

[toxic inlet]

Our Internet is 1Gbps and is pretty close to that, we have a decent amount of things connected, though

Three desktops, two for gaming, TV for 4k streaming, will be another workstation for a media server when I pull the drive out and get proxmox set up

[nocturne basin]

What version of PI do you have?

[toxic inlet]

4b iirc

[nocturne basin]

kk

[toxic inlet]

8G of memory, not the keyboard version so no boosted clock speed

Yeah, 4b

The keyboard one is Pi 400

[nocturne basin]

KK, I'm looking at dual 2.5gb port cards but they're for PI 5, still looking

What Router did you have, BTW? Might able to just install DDWRT on that to solve these issues.

[toxic inlet]

Nighthawk RAX45

Which is the Nighthawk AX5400

[nocturne basin]

Yeah, can't do DDWRT on that one, none of the RAX line are supported

Back to the PI, it looks like on PI4, we have to do a USB to ETH adapter to get more than one ETH port

[toxic inlet]

Okay

[nocturne basin]

Still checking

[toxic inlet]

So M.2 for in and USB to ETH out?

[glass moat]

Might be easier for m.2 in and then the built in to be out? I forget if it's a 1000base tx or 100base tx

[nocturne basin]

PI 4 is GbE

Here's a great article on it with 2 port boards that work with DDWRT and the PI4 https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2021/two-tiny-dual-gigabit-raspberry-pi-cm4-routers

This article has some more information with a network diagram for those who like visuals: https://dgross.ca/blog/raspberry-pi-internet-router/

[toxic inlet]

What's the Compute Module 4?

[glass moat]

Pi 4 in a board design that doesn't have any usual IO, so you can slot it into any design you make

[nocturne basin]

^^^^^^

[toxic inlet]

Oh

[nocturne basin]

Forget the CM4 part in the diagrams and just replace with your PI4

[toxic inlet]

Okay

I was going to ask if that case and heatsink would work with the Pi4's IO, but I see it's discontinued

What should I do about a case? It would be sitting on a shelf otherwise.

[nocturne basin]

I am not a PI expert by any means, More of a networking guy. Unfortunately I've never built a PI but know the nuts and bolts, so to speak.

[toxic inlet]

Okay

I was kind of thinking 3D print one that works with the whole thing

[feral eagle]

I haven’t used pis too much but iirc many of the cases block the gpio ports making it not ideal for projects using such. They seem to be more designed for computer usecases

[toxic inlet]

Yeah, the thing we have now is just a heatsink, although it might also have a riser which wouldn't work with the new part

Heatsink and fan

[feral eagle]

Heatsink with a fan might be too high for a case. But im sure you can find that info somewhere

[odd epoch]

There's a million different cases that you can download and print, or buy from etsy

[feral eagle]

Yeah

Those kinda of diy things have so many custom accessories

[glass moat]

Personally I just put my pi5 on top of an antistatic bag and call it a day lmao

That one has a Poe hat so it doesn't fit in the standard case

I also have a pi4b that sits in an aluminum case

But that can't fit any hats

[silver pewter]

does having a wifi 5 router relate to the type of ethernet speed cable you can connect

[nocturne basin]

No

Two separate things, wifi and Ethernet

[silver pewter]

how do i know which cat cable to get then?

[glass moat]

routers are really 3 things in the same unit
the router, a wifi AP, and a network switch

for new installations, personally i'd say cat6

doesnt cost much more

[silver pewter]

what do u mean by new installation

[glass moat]

as in you're running new cable

if you have existing wiring that's cat5e, then there's not much sense in changing it in a home enviroment

but since you're getting new cable, just get cat6 unless your budget doesnt allow for it

[silver pewter]

ok

now

[nocturne basin]

What router is it

Need to know speeds.

It's probably gigabit but you never know

[glass moat]

i mean, still better to get cat6 for when they or some new homeowner decides to upgrade the equipment

also im making the assumption that they're gonna run cable in the walls or something

if it's just going to be outside the walls, then it doesnt matter as much since that's easy to replace

[silver pewter]

xfinity gateway?

[silver pewter]

yeah and across the attic

[glass moat]

yeah just cat6 then

you dont really want to run cable twice if you can help it

such a pain to do lol

[silver pewter]

wym

[glass moat]

idk about you, but i dont enjoy the process of fishing cables through walls

[silver pewter]

how would i do it then

[glass moat]

buy a spool of it

hmm?

[silver pewter]

what cat 6 cable do u recommend i buy

[glass moat]

there probably is shorter options

[silver pewter]

i think 100ft is good for me lol

[glass moat]

lmao

plenum is required if you need to run the cables in air ducts

found some riser cable

legally cant be run in plenium areas, but through attics should be fine

[odd epoch]

It's easy. Hook a glow rod on the cable and drop it through the wall. Then you can find it with a strong magnet and you know where to drill.

[glass moat]

and then you can get some of these

[glass moat]

still a pain though
no convenient drop ceiling

[silver pewter]

so basically

my coax cable runs from outside through the attic and drops down to connect to the router

and the wall where my setup is already has a hole bc of a tv thats mounted there

so i was thinking of making the hole where the coax cable runs down bigger and fishing the other end of the ethernet cable through the already-put hole and connect it there to my pc

[glass moat]

i dont think you'll run into issues with running a patch cable parallel to a coax so you should be good

just dont damage the coax cable while expanding the hole

[silver pewter]

yeah my dads helping me with it we were planning to remove the coax cable from the router before we expanded the hole

[glass moat]

i would recommend you expand it so it's the same size as the typical electrical box, that way you can use standard keystone jacks with something like this,

and then get the keystones for rj45 and coax

[odd epoch]

Correct it's only when you run low voltage with high voltage you have potential for interference

[silver pewter]

Does it matter which port i plug the ethernet cable into? like are they used for different functions

[feral eagle]

most motherboards only have 1 ethernet port

[odd epoch]

What are you plugging into? Modem, router, PC, what?

[silver pewter]

sry wasnt specific

[silver pewter]

cable to router

[odd epoch]

The router does care which port you use

The WAN port is separated from the LAN ports usually

The WAN port is the one to plug into the modem

[feral eagle]

router typically have 1 WAN port and 1 or more LAN ports. you want to connect devices to LAN

[silver pewter]

wait what isnt that the opposite of what he said

the last part

[feral eagle]

by devices I mean PCs, printers, etc

[odd epoch]

Devices meaning everything except the modem

[feral eagle]

yeah exactly xD

[odd epoch]

Oh another thing to note, if you have an all in one unit from your ISP then you won't have a WAN port, in which case it doesn't matter which ports you use

[silver pewter]

so it wont matter here?

bc the numbers threw me off a bit

[feral eagle]

oh this might be a combo

looks like you'd want to use 1-4 on the bottom, top ports are rj11 which are normally used for phone lines

yup

[silver pewter]

ok appreciate it

[glass moat]

rtings has released the home router reviews

[vagrant raft]

Looks good

[tawdry pollen]

So I need a little help, for some reason my phone throttles my Internet, no matter what network I'm using, and I know it's supposed to be a higher speed since everybody else on the network gets 8x the speed (50mbps vs 400mbps). Anybody have an idea why?

Running lineage os android 14 on a OnePlus 9

Ping me if anybody has a fix, thanks

[feral eagle]

that one isn't the easiest to track down. could be a limitation after you use x amount of data, could be limited in cellular settings to conserve data. the phones antenna and case could affect the speeds, etc.

[glass moat]

how important is this issue to solve anyways
50mbps should be plenty for a phone imo

might not even be worth the effort to figure out what the issue is

[tawdry pollen]

Main problem is WiFi setup and testing, the speeds themselves is fine, but when I'm testing a router/WiFi ap it's annoying when I can't tell any speed difference

[tawdry pollen]

Fairly certain it's not any of those, possibly has to do with lineage os

[glass moat]

what did you use to test speeds?

[tawdry pollen]

Speedtest.net and their app

[glass moat]

i would use iperf2

[tawdry pollen]

It does this funny little thing where it'll briefly spike to 150mbps (still slow for my WiFi) and slows back down

[glass moat]

would be more consistent

[tawdry pollen]

Not the problem here but will keep that in mind

Still tryna figure out why it's throttling, it worked fine before I moved over to lineage os

[glass moat]

is your connection strong (above -60dbm) and on the 5ghz band?

[tawdry pollen]

Yep

[glass moat]

hmm

have you tried doing speedtests before switching to lineageos

[tawdry pollen]

I switched a few months back, but I got up to 700mbps on my network using default os

[glass moat]

hmm so yeah it's unlikely to be the phone's fault then

[tawdry pollen]

Weird, any idea why it could be singling my device out?

[glass moat]

i mean it's not the hardware that's the problem

it's probably the os with a funky wifi driver or whatever

i mean, google also had some issues with celluar and wifi connection strength with the pixel 8 on launch, they later released a patch to improve it

though in those cases, the solution is really just to wait and hope that it gets fixed

or you roll back the update

(if it was working before)

[tawdry pollen]

I'll update my os rn, and see if that helps

[tawdry pollen]

Was working before I swapped os's, after that I didn't pay too much attention but it seems that lineage os has always had this problem for me?

[whole drift]

Hmmmm

[odd epoch]

meh

All the Deco models have been just... not worth it

[glass moat]

Nah

[whole drift]

whats a good reliable gigabit switch for home use model

[nocturne basin]

Anything TP Link

[whole drift]

ty

[red girder]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PFYM5MZ

For unmanaged gigabit, I wouldn't worry about it, but I've had no issues with the 5/8 port model above

The tplink equivalent is cheaper, wouldn't surprise me if they're identical under the hood https://www.amazon.com/TL-SG108/dp/B00A121WN6?th=1

lol

[odd epoch]

I picked up a 5x 1Gb Netgear switch with no power power adapter (I have extras) for $5 on ebay

It was like new, still had the peel on and everything

[glass moat]

Damn

Also yeah those cheap 8 port unmanaged switches are great especially if all you're doing is getting more ports

[red girder]

so $5 more for all the power adapters a la aliexpress? 🤣

[odd epoch]

No I just dug one out of my box of spare cables

12v 1.5A outside positive, common enough barrel plug

[glass moat]

these switches arent the ideal solution for more ports, but i've seen some buisnesses use it so that they have like, one root switch (usually a managed one) then a bunch of single connections then splitting it with these cheap unmanaged switches

[odd epoch]

Yep that's all I need, a couple extra ports after my powerline adapter to my PCs

[red girder]

Growing up, we had a drawer of takeout plastic utensils/chopsticks/etc, grown up* I have a drawer of 12v ac adapters

[odd epoch]

Ah yes the drawer of takeout sauces and utensils

[glass moat]

lmao

[red girder]

No problems at all with 24+ ports on an unmanaged switch. But I'd only slightly more picky with the buy at that size.

[glass moat]

oh yeah i didnt clarify, they did this to save money on cables from running cables to every room for a permanant installation, so it was single patch cable into the switch, then the switch breaks out into the wall ports

tbf that probably did save like at least $100 cad

[red girder]

For top of stack I went with some sfp+/10gbaset mikrotik, then under that for servers/workstation it's an arista 7060cx-32s-r

[feral eagle]

I hate barrel connectors. I’ve spent way too much time digging through barrel jack power adapters you would think Id have at least sorted them by voltage by now

[odd epoch]

You mean you don't have them sorted by voltage, polarity, cable length, and alphabetized by brand? Do you even have a cable collection bro?

[glass moat]

Fake electronics fan

[feral eagle]

😭

I spent over 2 hour once looking for some obscure 52v barrel power adapter. In the end I was unsuccessful

[glass moat]

52v? Sheesh

[red girder]

Got 4 car batteries?

[glass moat]

real

[nimble sigil]

Lmao shoulda just gotten a 20 port one

[twilit hamlet]

Oh you like electronics? Name every electronic

[glass moat]

Electric pencil

Electric pen

Electric chair

Electric bed

Electric car

Electric house

Electric door

Electric light

Electric fan

Electric floor

Electric fence

Electric carpet

Electric couch

Electric lawn

Electric salt and pepper grinders

Electric blender

Electric closet

Electric fridge

[odd epoch]

You forgot the electric boogaloo

[karmic wedge]

Electric toothbrush

[neon island]

Electric electricity

[karmic wedge]

This one is sin

[olive mist]

does anyone know how to connect to a school wifi (WPA2-Enterprise) on linux?

it refues to authenticate

[glass moat]

you need an adapter that supports wpa2 enterprise

more specifically, the adapter needs to support port based access control

(which the proper name is 802.1X)

[olive mist]

Could it be a config thing? it works on windows

here's my config file

oh crap accidental dox

[nocturne basin]

Good catch 😉

[glass moat]

oh
in that case, maybe it's a config or some sort of software support issue
looking on some forums, it seems like you want to have wpasupplicant installed if it isnt already

[olive mist]

wpa_supplicant is installed

I've tried connecting using a wpa_supplicant config file

it connects for a second but same issue

fails to authenticate

[glass moat]

this was the solution someone had

[nocturne basin]

It's using wpa EPA instead of wpa 2. Is that in the config? Can you change it?

[olive mist]

yeah that's the config

when I use the GUI editor it shows it as WPA/WPA2 Enterprise so

so I don't think there's anything wrong there

[olive mist]

hmm do you have a link to that?

[glass moat]

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2059808 the forum they posted it in (very last post)
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=202834 the link they added

[olive mist]

thanks

[worldly acorn]

hi

[karmic wedge]

NPC ahh message ^

[silver yacht]

says you

[odd epoch]

There was a bot message that was deleted so it literally was

[olive mist]

ok hear me out

What if I connect to the school internet using a virtual machine

something like this

[glass moat]

lmfao

i mean

it could work

potentially

you could try

could probably make a windows proxy server

[olive mist]

a proxy eh?

that sounds like a good idea

[olive mist]

ok I passthroughed a usb wifi adapter

but It's showing up as an ethernet adapter

I think it's not going to work

gonna try to passthrough the adapter as a usb device

ok that worked wtf

2 hours wasted doing it the dumb way

aaand the vm crashed

AHAHAHAHAHAH IT WORKED

I passed through my main network adapter and it worked

[glass moat]

Lmao

[olive mist]

Gonna test this out on the school wifi tomorrow

[olive mist]

Downside is that I'll have to use a secondary wifi adapter whenever I launch the vm

Time to get a crappy usb wifi adapter

[noble berry]

Wait wait wait
Whats this thing you're doing 👀
Sounds quite interesting
My school only allows for network access to specific devices based on mac addresses. I once tried plugging a router in the classroom but it didn't connect.
Phones become useless since the whole school is basically a faraday cage

[glass moat]

port based access control; 802.1x

this does show that your school's network is configured properly

[noble berry]

Yep. Apparently
Except for the absolute waste of extremely expensive network switches
They use 48 port ones (over a thousand euros each) even to connect 10 if not less devices

And the fact that I was able to get access to most wlans by finding out the passwords that were so predictable

[glass moat]

💀

[glass moat]

tbf,
if you buy a gigabit switch, in 20 years, it would still be a gigabit switch

unlike a pc, networking gear technically doesnt need to be refreshed if all you need is gigabit and you bought gigabit gear

so in the future, when they need more ports, they dont need to buy a new switch

[noble berry]

Yeah. It's just that there's a lot of wasted material in buying such big switches to connect very few devices.
Like the school is basically falling apart and yet they still waste money on "useless" stuff tbh

[glass moat]

now, using default/simple passwords is a different sin that is unfortunately very common in computing because people are lazy

💀

my roommmate accidentally stumbled onto a spreadsheet where one of the professors stored their passwords for various accounts

which was saved in onedrive

???

[noble berry]

Oh I might have access to a ton of teachers accounts (as long as they haven't changed passwords recently)
Got everything from chrome saved passwords and cmd for the previously connected networks

No I won't hack anybody because there is no reason to

The pc had admin privileges and windows 11 was still new so there were some flaws

[noble berry]

That's really common

Just like saving in simple text files or word docs

[glass moat]

well

saving it in onedrive and somehow making the spreadsheet public due to shared folder perms

is a little less common

[noble berry]

A professor of mine is not capable of sharing homework folders properly so us classmates can see each others work as we write it in Google docs

[glass moat]

💀

[noble berry]

Does it really matter that i get these ethernet cable ends with the shifted holes if i want to wire 10gig?
cat 5e and below all have lined up wire holes. What's the point of the placement for those holes?

[karmic wedge]

goofy looking RJ-45

[glass moat]

Maybe some signal integrity thing? I honestly have no clue

Looking at other companies' RJ45 connectors for cat6 though, they seem to still be inline

That being said, the plugs don't actually have a category rating, you're supposed to buy them depending on the type of wire you're using

You should be buying the connector with the hole size that fits the cables best

Which is why the image shows 1.1mm diameter

[noble berry]

I also always thought the connectors and wall plugs should have no rating since most of the time the last centimeter or two of wires all end up straight

[noble berry]

They're different in each ethernet cable?

[glass moat]

Yeah, it's really just for easier connector selection since the diameter is fairly consistent

[glass moat]

Not exactly? The specifications of the cable would be accessible before you buy a spool of cable

May even be printed on the box

[noble berry]

0.95 to 1.05 so I guess it's just 1mm±0.05mm

[glass moat]

Honestly, for a home environment, it's less critical, but yeah

[noble berry]

Now I'm quite confused
I found cat5, 5e, 6, 6a rj46 connectors on aliexpress but often all option look the same but differ in price (ik they usually keep the same picture for all). One showed that cat 6 uses 1.08mm holes while 5e is 1.00mm. Will the wires not get crimped properly because of a .1mm difference?

Probably cheapest option will work. Should I get shielded if that's the same price as non shielded? Can it be crimped by basic crimpers?

[feral eagle]

Afaik the connectors for all of those are basically the same. As for crimping shielded connectors I have no idea but I think from what I’ve seen it shouldn’t be a problem?

[glass moat]

Shouldn't really be a problem

Though it may make somebody think that the cable is shielded when it's not

[molten umbra]

the difference between 5e and 6 connectors does matter. The wires are different sizes. It's entirely possible that it will work either way, but it's far more likely for the wire to get out of place if using 6 connector on 5e wire, or for the 6 wire to get stuck before the crimp point in a 5e connector, both resulting in a cable that either doesn't work or doesnt work properly. I used to install cat 5e and cat 6 in houses and have done both. Sometimes it works, but often times you will be recutting and recrimping if you don't have the correct connector on hand.

[molten umbra]

cat 6 wires are to big to fit in a straight line like that so they are offset. Some look like that, some only have 2 offset. Cat 5e wire is thinner and can fit in a straight line while still using the RJ45 jack

[molten umbra]

The wire spec is also usually printed on the cable itself, especially if you're buying a big box of unterminated ethernet cable.

[molten umbra]

If you're installing this in your walls of your home, go with unshielded, just try not ot have them butted up right against electrical. Shielded helps prevent interferance or crosstalk, but is also harder to pull and manage. If you're trying to feed it up your walls it's going to be a pain and unnecessary. Every house I've ever done has used unshielded wire.

or if you're talking about shielded connectors, use whatever goes with your cable. If you're using shielded cable, get shielded connectors. If you're not using shielded cable, get unshielded connectors.

[noble berry]

Now I just have to choose between pass through and non. First time I've struggled a bit with the wires and their order but after watching some simple tutorials I feel like pass through is unnecessary

Opinion?

@molten umbra btw thank you very much for all the info

[molten umbra]

What do you mean by pass through? Like the cable connector?

Also no problem lol

[noble berry]

This one is passthrough

[molten umbra]

Are you doing cat5e or 6?

[noble berry]

Both

But I'm getting different connectors for the two if you recommend that

• shielded ones

[glass moat]

what are you using shielded ones for anyways

[molten umbra]

Alright I personally prefer the non-passthrough but some people online say its easier as you will be able to easily see that they're in order and you know they've made it to the end of the connector. I will say, avoid the 2 piece connectors, they are a pain.

Yes use cat 5e connectors for cat 5e and cat 6 connectors for cat 6. If you're getting both, cat 6 is going to be more future proof so prioritize that for in walls or if both are in wall, prioritize that for the areas you think will need it in the future.

Make sure you're only using shielded connectors with shielded cables. It's unnecessary and more expensive to use shielded cables in a house though. It's good for big enterprise business cause you usually have a ton of wire bundled together and can be ran near power and stuff which creates crosstalk and interference

[glass moat]

you'll need a patch panel or switch that is bonded to ground for shielded cables to be properly shielding and not making the connection worse

[noble berry]

I just have some shielded cable to use, i might as well terminate it with shielded connections

[glass moat]

oh

[noble berry]

Other ones I'll get non shielded

[molten umbra]

Make sure you get/have a cable tester, test both ends, and label the wires. Numbering them is fine but it will make your life easier. You can number them as you pull or just number them as you test (I do it while testing on smaller projects where there's anywhere from say 4-20 cables)

[feral eagle]

when i test cable I just plug it into something and see if it works xD

[molten umbra]

Lol problem with that is you don't need all 8 cables to work to get Internet through it.

It can work with reduced speeds or one way communications, so it may seem like it's working but it's not working at full capacity

Or if you do one side in a and the other in b it can work just fine (with minor slowdown) but that's a cross cable and can be a security concern, although I don't think it realistically is in today's world? I'm not sure on the specifics of that. We were just told it's a no no for in-wall cabling

[feral eagle]

this can be true, luckily I have never managed to wire a connector wrong in a way that it only partially works

[molten umbra]

I have 😂

Sometimes you get cocky and don't test everything and it bites you in the butt later on lol

That's why I label at the end in the testing phase, makes you test every port

[feral eagle]

everytime I made minor mistake it just doesn't work. usually it's because i mix up the brown and orange striped cables

eye strain is something else looking at those thin color strips for hours

[molten umbra]

Oh yeah for sure

Or doing a ton of cat 6 terminations at once will destroy your fingers lol

Eyestrain gets real bad when you're doing it for a long time in a very dark closet when there's no power to the house yet lol

[feral eagle]

now that is just not fun

[molten umbra]

It's alright. Cat5e I never had a problem with. Cat6 can be tough. The wire thickness makes a huge difference. The only part that wasn't fun was the 100+ degree days

[noble berry]

Happened once when one wire didn't crimp and got only 100mbps because it got limited to just two pairs aka cat5

[noble berry]

Security concern?

[noble berry]

Ok, I'll just see if I can get some cables to work using simple non pass through connectors. If I get it working fine I'll just stick to those. Otherwise I can get a few pass through to see if it makes things easier

Then based on that I'll get unshielded cat5e and 6 as well as shielded cat5e and 6

Just not too many

[odd epoch]

There's no need for crossover cables on any port supporting gigabit or higher (except in rare cases like ethernet over fiber), they auto negotiate using auto-mdix.

[molten umbra]

Just make sure all 8 wires go to the end of the connector before crimping and you should be fine

[molten umbra]

I'm aware, they used to be used for things like connecting PC directly to another PC but there is no need for that anymore. Im not sure why I was told it was a security concern but that's what I was told, that and that it doesn't perform quite as well as a normal wire.

[noble berry]

After some consideration i think I'll go for pass through since it makes it easier to slide the wires in and pull the jacket further to secure it in place instead of having to slowly cut away millimiter by millimiter from the wires excess to get it right

And I'm getting just cat6 connectors since I've looked up some online posts saying they will work absolutely fine despite the .08mm difference in hole diameter, without the cables sliding out or not getting crimped correctly

At this point I should get some pass through and some non pass through if they are somewhat cheaper

As well as shielded connectors for proper wiring

[glass moat]

issue with passthrough is that it's actually harder to do if you're not used to it, because you gotta get all the wires in the holes properly

not hard after you're used to it, but the first few times is a huge pain

the 2 piece rj45 is imo the easiest to use

the one piece non-passthrough type is the hardest type though

if i were to rank these 3 types by difficulty, from easiest to hardest to get right on the first try, it would be

1. 2 piece non-passthrough
2. passthrough
3. 1 piece non-passthrough

in terms of speed though, if you've terminated w/ the same connector like 100 times, from fastest to slowest, it would be

1. passthrough
2. 1 piece non-passthrough
3. 2 piece non-passthrough

[noble berry]

I have crimped a few single piece non passthrough connectors yesterday and found them to be not too difficult, just takes some time to get it aligned and properly cut

Aliexpress offers the two piece pass through for quite a lot of money compared to others, so I'd already remove it from the list

[glass moat]

yeah that's the problem
trial and error

not much trial and error on passthrough and 2 piece

[tawdry pollen]

still takes me a few minutes to crimp a passthrough cable, idk if I just suck at it or what

*1 end of the cable

[glass moat]

few minutes?

damn

username checks out

[tawdry pollen]

I can do it under 5m per crimp, not sure how to make it faster 😭

[noble berry]

Based on all this info I think I'll go for simple pass through and simple non pass through. With their respective shielded variant

[noble berry]

It also took me 5 mins the first times but now I get it in about 2 min
Keep in mind I've only practiced with 6 connectors

[tawdry pollen]

I've crimped over 30 iirc

the main problem is keeping them straight when pushing them into the connector

[noble berry]

Well idk what to say... do you have the proper tools?

[noble berry]

Yep

[tawdry pollen]

I think so?

[noble berry]

After that it's easy, I can link the tutorial I used to learn how to crimp them easily

[tawdry pollen]

yeah that would be helpful, I still have 40-50 left to crimp

[noble berry]

https://youtu.be/QMpWkkqX1eM?si=Kdh_7qaz9lwO3kgK
This is for non pass through, which is what I've used

[tawdry pollen]

I have passthrough, would it still work?

[noble berry]

https://youtu.be/NWhoJp8UQpo?si=-MdYsDSrz0YkfjGo

This is basically that same, just for pass through

You'll have to cut the excess from the connector and nothing else, some crimpers already do it

[tawdry pollen]

are you using cat 6?

[noble berry]

Both 5e and 6

[tawdry pollen]

alr, I'm currently using cat 6

[noble berry]

The connectors i currently use do not specify any category

[tawdry pollen]

that video basically says what I've been doing, so still not sure how to make it faster

[glass moat]

Memorize the wire order and yeah

Pass through takes me like 2 mins since I'm not too used to getting it in all the holes perfectly the first time

2 piece takes me about 1 minute per

1 piece takes me like 10 minutes because I keep trimming and also struggling to get all the wires into the holes

10 mins because I want it to be perfect

Could probably do it in 5 if it was a good enough connection

[crisp carbon]

I'm currently thinking about getting an M4 or S4 deco for a mesh network in our home, but since any wired backhaul is a no go, and my only option for a backhaul is a wireless one, would it be necessary to get a tri band for the wireless backhaul?
there are around 11 devices(6 pcs and 5 phones) in our household, we currently have a dual band wifi 2.4ghz and 5ghz WiFi 5 and we are not currently planning on upgrading to wifi 6 anytime soon. That being said, the tri band is quite costly so I am trying to find out if is it really "necessary" for a wireless backhaul (around a 100-150$ difference), or it will simply provide an extra boost but may be negligible in the long run. Thoughts?

[glass moat]

It depends on how congested your 5ghz band is

You can use a wifi analyzer to check

[nimble sigil]

I think it also depends on the speed that you want out of your network

Is a constant maximum speed really important? Then that's more of a reason to get tri-band

[eternal fractal]

Running in a issue my ethernet stop working after booted up the pc by another windows hardrive and now it wont connect any more.
Any one got a solution?

[glass moat]

I assume you're saying that your issue that you're encountering is that your wired ethernet connection is not working after you changed to a different windows install

Try checking device management to find that network adapter and make sure it has the right driver on it, and it doesn't have an error

[eternal fractal]

The driver dosent have a error just not sure why it wont connect

[glass moat]

hmm

[glass moat]

does the menu say "network cable unplugged"

if it doesnt, then click on properties on that menu, double click this option to open the menu, and make sure that both the settings are set to be obtained automatically

after that, open your start menu and type ipconfig /release && ipconfig /renew

if your cable is connected, it would likely be a dhcp thing, or your pc isnt able to contact the router

[eternal fractal]

Where would it say that?

[eternal fractal]

OMG THANKS

that actually fixed it

we good now

[glass moat]

np

[eternal fractal]

W guy fr

been 2 hours of headache tryna fix it

what coulded cause it would you know?

[glass moat]

did you have to go select the automatic option? if so, someone or an app for whatever reason decided to set a static IP, which the router/dhcp server didnt recognize, so it didnt give you an internet connection

[eternal fractal]

I think might been a app

I installed utorrent gave me bunch of apps thought was a virus

so removed my cat 6 cable

unistalled everything

[glass moat]

ahh

[eternal fractal]

and plugged it back in

and didnt work after restart

[glass moat]

there are some settings in the app that can configure the network address of your pc, it may have set it as static so that may be why

[eternal fractal]

Well thanks alot man I was middle of my work you just saved me

[odd epoch]

Bundled programs are sometimes malicious. It wouldn't hurt to run a malwarebytes scan just to be safe.

[karmic wedge]

"computers are hard idk how to use google" my honest reaction:
http://zipline.terracasa.cc/u/Oi5WXV.png

(self hosted services for those who don't understand)

[glass moat]

i assume most people in cybersecurity would have known already, and im a bit late to the party, but yall should make sure that your ubuiquti, openwrt, netgear, xiaomi, etc. firmware are on the latest version

due to the flaw being in the media sdk

https://blog.sonicwall.com/en-us/2024/09/critical-exploit-in-mediatek-wi-fi-chipsets-zero-click-vulnerability-cve-2024-20017-threatens-routers-and-smartphones/

[karmic wedge]

xiaomi
Too late before too late

[glass moat]

💀

[odd epoch]

Good thing I have qualcomm and not mediatek

[nimble sigil]

That's what my router update was

[feral eagle]

I don’t use ubiquiti router but i use their aps

Pretty sure those auto upate by default

[nimble sigil]

Tplink for me

[glass moat]

yeah alot of stuff are affected since mediatek is used in so many devices

[nimble sigil]

I'll update it when it's later at night lol

I'm still using my internet

[odd epoch]

(Quick hack him while he's vulnerable)

[glass moat]

frfr

[nimble sigil]

No pls

[odd epoch]

Wut

I guess I might have found the problem lol

I'm supposed to get 450/15

Something is screwy on Xfinity's end

[rose elk]

Hoping someone can help me pick a new modem/router combo. I have Xfinity internet with the 1000gig + plan. I'm looking to extend my range and upgrade to the newest technology to speed up my wifi. I'm currently using a Motorola MG8702 | DOCSIS 3.1 Cable Modem + Wi-Fi Router. It's just not quite meating my needs.

[glass moat]

in terms of hardware, the docsis 3.1 cable modem should be fast enough as a modem and router for a home network; i assume your main/only issue is just the wifi connection strength. if you have a large home, even with the modem&router&ap combo unit in the center of the house, it may not be able to cover the entire property, so that is when you would want to look into getting more APs
if your router is currently in the corner of your house, and you don't live in a big house, try moving the unit to the center of the house and see if that helps at all. But in case you do live in a large house, or the unit is already around the center of the house, then here are some options depending on how much work and/or money do you want to put into it

if you want to do less work, and have the money, hire someone to wire in some APs for you in-wall (ideal situation, since there will be a professional that will survey your house and can provide you with the proper solution for your network)

if you can do more work, and have less money, you can wire the aps yourself, and you could do some research on the ideal placements of the APs depending on your house and how you want your coverage to be like (slightly less ideal situation, especially if you don't know much about wireless networking; here's an example of a setup https://youtu.be/kMgs2XFClaM)

if you want to do less work, and have slightly more money than the 2nd option, get some mesh APs (least ideal situation in terms of speed, but is the easiest and least invasive method, but there are a few things to note when using this method. When using this type of wireless network extender, you should always put the mesh routers basically right on the edge of where a good connection strength is, or else your meshed network will not have any speed improvements. I made a few graphics a while back for someone else so i'll also attach it to this message)

[rose elk]

I went with the Arris G54. Think that will do?

My router is in the middle of the house on the top floor of a 2 story home. Also a connected mother in law room connected out back about 30ft away.

[glass moat]

most modems actually have a fairly similar range due to laws and regulations on the maximum permitted transmit power, so you might not actually notice much if any difference between your old unit and this unit

(this is why many routers ask what region you are in during setup, so that it will not exceed the maximum transmit power for that country, and also disable the restricted bands)

[rose elk]

Thank you for your input. I guess I will give it a try and if there is no difference I'll return it and try another option.

[rose elk]

@glass moat so I hooked up the arris g54 and it's not quite reaching the mother in law unit out back and also the corner of my downstairs. Looks like I might have to mesh it. Any advice? Can I just use two nodes one downstairs and one in the mother in law unit as extenders while still using the router function of my modem router combo upstairs in the main house?

[glass moat]

hmm, do you care about a cable running in your house outside the walls? if you dont mind seeing a cable, you can just run a long patch cable into your in law's unit, and put an access point there

[rose elk]

That's what I'm thinking. Run a cable to the mother in law and run one downstairs. So I'd have hard wired APs

But can I still use the router function in the main house with the modem router combo? It says on the bridge option in the arris app that it shuts down the router function

[glass moat]

i would keep the router option enabled, and buy an AP or a router that can be run in AP mode

bridge mode on the arris i believe disables the routing and AP function, and the arris acts as a modem

[rose elk]

So like I could buy the Erro or TP link mesh and just wire them?

[glass moat]

lemme see if there's a good option for a low price

[rose elk]

The range on this new arris g54 sucks. It's worse than my old Motorola that I replaced. Even though arris claims it covers 5000sqft

[glass moat]

yeah the rating doesnt really mean much due to the legal limits i mentioned yesterday

[rose elk]

I almost want to return the Arris buy a modem and buy a 3 piece mesh I can hard wire. 1 for main house connected to modem then connect it to an unmanaged switch and run the mother in law and downstairs off of that

[glass moat]

they probably are claiming the 5000ft in an open room (e.g. a gym) in a region that allows for a higher transmit power

honestly you can just use the motorola

[rose elk]

They are liars

I have the xfinity 1200 gig plan. Trying to be able to maximize my speed to my plan

[glass moat]

this is kinda how the tech industry goes

specs are pretty much always in perfect conditions

which is why they use the wording of "up to"

[rose elk]

No kidding. It's more like 1000 sqft

Just looked and my wireless camera outside is disconnected now. With my other router it had full strength

[glass moat]

i could recommend you look into tp link omanda APs (their buisness line) due to their relatively low cost, and fairly simple setup
or if you want something which is even simpler to setup, and has a large community, look at ubiquiti's aps

[rose elk]

I'd hate to pay 600 bucks just to use the arris as a modem. Please any input would help me greatly if you have any ideas

[glass moat]

they're slightly more expensive, though their software is made to be very user friendly for people who are not network specialists

[rose elk]

I'm definitely not a specialist but I can get by

[glass moat]

since you've only had the arris for a day, you probably can still get a refund on it, i dont think that the motorolla would be not good

[rose elk]

Yeah I got the arris on Amazon so I'll just throw it back in the box and return it.

But if you can throw me an ideas on what I should go with if muchly appreciate it. The main box is in the middle of the upstairs then I just need an AP for mother in law and downstairs. I'm willing to wire all of them.

So 3 AP total. Upstairs downstairs and mother in law.

[glass moat]

yeah that sounds good

honestly 2 would be fine, you can still continue using the motorolla as one of the APs

[rose elk]

So the Motorola is a modem router combo also. I upgraded because it wasn't giving me full speed of my plan. Xfinity has been emailing me informing me to upgrade to take advantage of my speed. But are you saying I could still use the router function of it while just plugging in the 2 APs to a unmanaged switch off of the Motorola?

I really just want to upgrade all my stuff. The Motorola is like 6 or 7 years old with wifi 5. I'd like to upgrade to wifi 6 or 7. That's why I'm thinking new modem and then APs

[glass moat]

yeah that can work. you may want to get a PoE+ variant though, as the APs are powered on the same cable (you can use PoE injectors if you already have an unmanaged switch that doesnt have PoE, but that would be more expensive than just getting a PoE switch for multiple APs)

also yeah if you want to switch to only wifi 6 or 7, then in that case, you can use the routing capability of the motorola and disable the AP of it. though if the routing features of it is missing something that you want to use (e.g. making multiple VLANs), then you can get a dedicated router (or make one with pfsense/opnsense/etc.)

for configuring the APs, you can find the addresses by looking at the DHCP lease tables and using a web browser to access those IPs for the configuration interface, or you can use the tplink omanda software controller (free) to configure them easier (it doesnt strictly need to be on 24/7 for utilization, but for fast roaming between APs, it needs to be on constantly, but if you have a pi or similar board, it is very cheap to keep online. or you can use their official hardware solution oc200. but for 3 APs, imo it doesnt really matter too much without the fast roaming)

actually, you can test to see if your motorola is able to get the full speed of your connection; connect a pc directly to the motorola and do a speed test to see how fast it goes, and if it can do around 900-1000mbps, then you're getting the maximum speed that your pc can handle (most NICs are only gigabit, and i feel like your modem unit doesnt have higher than gigabit outputs, not that most people really would use anything higher than that anyways)

yeah i just looked up the model, and it has 4 gigabit ports

[rose elk]

So I was thinking I could get something like this and hard wire them. One to the modem and for upstairs in main house then I downstairs and one in mother in law. Wouldn't this be simple?

[glass moat]

i dont believe that the eero mesh units support directly wiring them

[rose elk]

Maybe these then?

[glass moat]

lemme see, it does have 2 ports, but that might be output?

[rose elk]

I thought I saw a video with a guy hooking up the eero wired. But he said you have to use a switch because they have to communicate with eachother

[glass moat]

seems like they can

[glass moat]

yeah you'll need to use a switch if you dont want to take up 75% of your network ports on the motorolla lol

[rose elk]

So that seems easy to me. I can buy a new modem that can handle wifi 6 or 7 and docsis 3.1 and 1200+ gigs speed and then just run wires to the rooms hook these suckers up and be good?

[glass moat]

dont need to switch the modem really, real world you're very unlikely going to be able to use 1200mbps from a single port

[rose elk]

So I would go modem to first node to switch to second node to switch to third node and be done.

Oh gotcha alrighty

[odd epoch]

I'm pretty sure the Xfinity modems are limited to 1000 on a single port anyway

Which will be shared by all devices connected through that port

[glass moat]

honestly, my recommendation probably would be for eero, you could do 2 of them wired directly to the motorola, (one for the ground floor, and one for the in-laws unit) and then use the wireless backhaul for the 2nd floor eero

[rose elk]

This arris g54 has a 10gig port

[glass moat]

most people's wired devices would be gigabit, if you know you need more than gigabit then... well, you know who you are lol

[rose elk]

So you're saying thr motorola would act as the router for the main floor?

[glass moat]

router for the whole house, but the eeros as the access points

[odd epoch]

Switches that can do 2.5Gb are expensive too

[glass moat]

routers are just for directing packets around

access points (APs) are for wireless connections

[rose elk]

Oh it was my understanding that you can't use the router portion of the modem.router combo when setting up the nodes/APs

[glass moat]

i believe (at least from what i see on the site) that the eero 6+ is just APs and not actually a router?

[rose elk]

I could just hook both the eeros directly into the router?

No switch?

[glass moat]

yeah

switches are just for giving you more physical connections

[rose elk]

Well that makes it simple. Would they all act as the same SSID?

[odd epoch]

Eero 6+ only does 1gbps too

[glass moat]

depends on how you configure it

[rose elk]

That's cool I'm fine with the 1 gig

[odd epoch]

Ok, there's no point getting a 2.5gb switch then so you can save a few bucks there

[rose elk]

Oh so I could rename each one and give each one it's own designation

[glass moat]

yeah

[rose elk]

Sweet

My brain hurts

[odd epoch]

You could, but most people would want to set them up as the same SSID/key so your devices can seamlessly choose which is the best signal at a given time

[glass moat]

for upper floor and lower floor i would probably put it on the same ssid so you dont have to manually switch (depending on how well roaming works) but for the in laws, maybe give them a seperate ssid just in case it decides to be sticky and connect to your unit's aps

[rose elk]

Yeah that's probably what I would do. So I could roam

[odd epoch]

Wifi 6 or higher devices can do that by spec, higher end wifi 5 devices can do it through software/firmware

[glass moat]

though looking at the specs, the eeros may have a bit less range? unsure since i havent ever used such units

[rose elk]

That motorola is wifi 5 so I'll probably upgrade the modem too?

[glass moat]

eero 6+ vs 6e vs 6

[rose elk]

That was my next question. Do you have any preferred brands or models you could throw my way. Ones that cut through walls

[glass moat]

wifi 5 is specific to that motorolla, doesnt matter for the eeros or other APs

[odd epoch]

No it's based on the device accessing it

Most smartphones for example can do it because it was added in android/ios

[glass moat]

not really anything in the case of "cut[ting] through walls"
walls by their very nature attenuates the RF signals

especially concrete

[rose elk]

My phone is the galaxy s24 ultra. It does all the wifis

[glass moat]

concrete buildings especially are like prisons for RF

[odd epoch]

Don't even get me started on concrete walls

Someone thought it was a good idea to make all the houses downtown out of concrete and reinforce it with rebar

[glass moat]

only way to reliably get network through concrete walls is just by running a cable through it

[odd epoch]

Makes it impossible to get a signal even 6 feet from a router

[rose elk]

Yuck concrete

[glass moat]

still better than google's newish office building lmfao

[rose elk]

😆

[glass moat]

people literally had to use cellular hotspots in order to work because of how bad the building was for wifi

[rose elk]

So the guy i saw hookup the eero via wires did hook it up to unmanaged switch. That's the part I guess I'm not understanding. I think it's so they communicate with eachother because they won't if they're all hooked into the router right?

Silly Google. Don't they know any better

[glass moat]

the modem router ap also has a switch

so technically it's a modem router ap switch unit

lol

[rose elk]

Oh alright. And you know what Motorola I'm using? Did I tell you?

[glass moat]

unmanaged switch is a dumb thing (in terms of what it does, though it's smarter than a hub)
it doesnt know really anything, it just passes data on basically

[glass moat]

yeah you said in the very first message yesterday

[glass moat]

here

[rose elk]

It was made in like 2017 or 2018 that's why I wanted to upgrade also

[glass moat]

not too old honestly

[rose elk]

The new arris is faster for sure but this motorola goes farther and through walls better. Can't believe it

[glass moat]

could be the antenna, might be a higher gain antenna with a more narrower beam

could make the horizontal range wider, but the vertical range smaller, which is fine for most people, especially in single story buildings

[odd epoch]

You're renting the modem from xfinity anyway, they'll upgrade you if you ask

[rose elk]

Must be. Tell your friends not to spend 600 on the arris because unless you're in the same room it's not great. And I tried it with every band. It has 4 bands. 2.4, 5, 5 HI, 6

No I don't rent I buy my own.

Started doing it a couple years back

[glass moat]

arris is pretty good as long as your isp supports it
specifically their dedicated cable modems, idk about their combo units

also yeah buying is definitely way cheaper

in the long run at least

no need to upgrade the motorola though imo

[rose elk]

This arris is one xfinity approves of. It's recommended

[odd epoch]

Mostly because it happens to be a model they used a long time ago

[rose elk]

So I just need to buy a mesh system that can be wired and 2 100ft cat 8 cables?

[odd epoch]

Which is why I was confused

No not cat 8

Definitely not cat 8

[glass moat]

cat5e is plenty

[odd epoch]

cat6 if you really want but 5e can do 10gb

[rose elk]

I'm always thinking BIG

[glass moat]

considering that you're not going to be running it through walls, you dont have to worry about "futureproofing" the cables either

[odd epoch]

And 7/8 is too stiff and thick to run cleanly a lot of the time

[glass moat]

if you are planning on running the cables through walls, cat6 would be a good choice though

no need for cat6a though, that would be a bit overkill

[rose elk]

One will be range outside to the mother in law and one run through the attic to downstairs

[glass moat]

oh, i assumed that the modem was downstairs

[glass moat]

in that case, wire one for the 2nd floor, and one for inlaws, and wireless mesh for downstairs to not need to run 3 cables

[rose elk]

No its on the main floor of the house in the middle west side towards the back yard. Then there's a mother in law addition connected to the garage that's 30 to 35 from where the main modem router hooks up. Then I'll have to run a cable from the main outer up through the addic down a closet to the bottom floor basement.

[odd epoch]

Another issue with cat8 cables is the amount of fake ones you find all over the place. They get away with selling cat5e with a cat8 label because most people will never tell the difference.

[glass moat]

hmm

[rose elk]

You're right ill probably go cat5

And I might be able to get away with wireless meshing with the basement one. I get better coverage downstairs then I do with the mother in law but we will see

But now which ones do i buy?

[glass moat]

if the run to your in laws unit is between the route of your upper floor ap, you can use the other port on the upper floor ap (both the tp link and eero have more ports to daisy chain) to connect to the run that connects to your inlaws ap

[rose elk]

Oh and that's the thing. The basement and the in-laws is opposite directions. So the main unit is in the middle of the in-laws and basement.

And it's actually a man cave no actual in-laws in there.

[glass moat]

lmao

schrodinger's inlaws

[odd epoch]

Yeah it's just called an in law suite

I get it

[glass moat]

premium basement air

[odd epoch]

Detached house from the main house basically

[glass moat]

wait

is it a single story and basement

[rose elk]

It dog legs off the house. It goes house to garage to man cave on other side of garage

[glass moat]

ahh i see

i think i've managed to visualize what it looks like

[rose elk]

The main house and man cave are same level. The basement is the lower floor of main house

[glass moat]

yeah in that case, basement probably doesnt need a wired backhaul just so you dont have to run the cable there

though if it's an unfinished basement, you could easily punch a hole into the wall, then drill through the subfloor

honestly my original mental image was more of like, 2 story house with no basement and an additional unit right next to that lol

[rose elk]

Kinda rough draft there but now you kinda get the idea

The router in on top of the computer desk in front of the window to the back yard

[glass moat]

ideally the aps are placed around the middle of the location you want coverage, so put the aps around these places

too close and they can interfere with each other (especially if you dont configure the bands)

[rose elk]

And that's if they are wired or wireless?

[glass moat]

since we're using wired backhaul, no need to find the sweet spot for repeating the signal

if you want better coverage in the garage, you can place it closer to the garage wall

[rose elk]

Yeah I literally am.just looking to have the fastest and strongest speeds in the areas where it's needed but not reaching with the router which is the cave and basement

Nah the garage is fine. Don't need it. Plus the garage is connected to the man cave so it will be right next to it.

How good are these nodes at going through walls? Just as good as a stand alone router or modem router combo?

[glass moat]

probably around the same, could be slightly worse

probably not significantly worse

[rose elk]

That's kinda what I'm thinking but I don't have really any experience with them.

[glass moat]

unlikely to be better

requires alot of calculations to figure out, and that also requires the knowledge of what type of antenna is used, and how many mw the transmit power is

[rose elk]

Which makes me think I need a third one in the spare bedroom where my wireless cam is hooked up

As long as the main router on the main floor works and the basement and man cave ap work we are good

Now tell me which ones to buy. 😆

Eero, TP Link what's the good brands?

[glass moat]

eero is owned by amazon, so trust them as much as you would trust amazon corporation i guess lmao

tplink is owned by.... someone else

a US company currently

i think?

founded in singapore though

[rose elk]

You haven't heard any rumblings out in the tech community about these products?

[glass moat]

i know tplink's buisness line of omanda aps are good for the price, unsure of their consumer lines like the deco you sent

4.5 stars from 12k reviews is a good sign though

[rose elk]

Decisions decisions. Well the one good thing about Amazon is when their stuff is crap you can always send it back. He'll of a return policy

[glass moat]

i know more about commercial/enterprise networking stuff than consumer stuff

[rose elk]

Which means you know more about the spendy stuff

[glass moat]

well, not really too much in specific models on that side either, but i know less about consumer products since there's just so many on the market

yeah definitely lol

[rose elk]

That's the problem. There's too many to choose from. And look i went and bought this big name brand new modem router and the thing sucks for range compared to old faithful Motorola

And for 660 bucks after tax

I could buy a new modem mesh system switch and cables for less than that

[glass moat]

Too many to choose from is absolutely one of the main reasons I don't really have much of any knowledge on the consumer market for reals lol

[rose elk]

I mean the eero 6 do have a 4.7 rating

[glass moat]

After a bit of looking, the eeros might be the better buy

Mainly because the units are small

The tp link ones are like the apple trashcan mac but instead of one of them, you get 3

Certainly not the prettiest

[rose elk]

Yeah I think you're right. I was just reading a review from a techy and he makes them sound pretty promisingm

And so I can really just plug each one into the back of the router? And let's say I wanted to plug two in but wanted to wireless mesh one in a bed room close by I can still do that?

[glass moat]

Yeah you most likely can, though it might not be necessary

[rose elk]

I guess I can try then wireless first. Since I'm going back to the old router with better range

[glass moat]

Wouldn't really actually make much sense to add one in the bedroom for wireless mesh, since if your bedroom has a bad enough signal that you want a mesh ap in it, it probably wouldn't help, you have to put the mesh AP's with wireless backhauls in a good signal location to repeat the signal basically

[rose elk]

I would put it in there to help get the signal to my camera that's just outside on the side of the house. The router struggles to reach it.

[glass moat]

Ah

I see

[rose elk]

See how the bedroom is between the router and camera outside?

I ordered those by the way. Be here tomorrow.

[glass moat]

I assume there are a few walls between that

3-4 walls including exterior wall would definitely attenuate the signal

[rose elk]

Exactly

Dang. See i don't think I can use the router in the Motorola

[glass moat]

You can use it in bridge mode if you want

https://support.eero.com/hc/en-us/articles/207621056-How-do-I-set-up-my-eero-if-I-want-to-keep-my-existing-router

[rose elk]

If I use it in bridge mode does that mean I have to designated the main router a different ssid to the mesh ones?

[glass moat]

Technically no

Fast roaming might not work quite as well, but will still work

[rose elk]

Oh sweet dude thank you

Looks like you found the instructions awesomeness

[glass moat]

Anyways, gotta sleep, good luck lol

[rose elk]

Thank you my friend. Me too 4:45am comes quick. Sleep well and thanks again

[karmic wedge]

Me: looking for a good image/video embedding service
ass: (exists)
The zip file for it: (also exists)
(Download it. File is named "master.zip")
(Unzip it)
Now I have a folder called "ass-master"
http://zipline.terracasa.cc/u/9Rrqfx.png

lovely

[hallow token]

“Uh no mom, the “ass” folder doesn’t actually contain “ass”, it’s just a goof for laughs”

[karmic wedge]

It's actually a file-sharing service called ass lol

I didn't read them until I ran a wget command but the installation instructions said to use "git clone [URL to ass]" lol (wget is basically like clicking the download link in Debian)

[karmic wedge]

When your side job is so boring that you learn YAML to pass time and now you're dispatching orders via YAML code at your dispatching job

Not even joking lol here's some example code:

Order:
    Company: "Example Company name - Job number/name"
    Load:
        - Gas: 200 gallons
    Address: 
        - example address
    Contact:
        - Phone: [phone]
        - Email: [e-mail]
    Notes:
        - |
         Some notes here

         Multi-line notes

         Jobsite contact - [phone]

[nimble sigil]

Yeah, don't let them know you automated the process

[glass moat]

let them know after you leave

[nimble sigil]

Exactly

Don't leave comments though

That's what they all do

Leave with no documentation or comments to explain what the hell is happening

And use very obscure names for the variables so no one can tell what's happening easily

[karmic wedge]

It's not even an automated process. My father started telling me to put in this order (he owns the business lol) and I just started naturally doing it lol

[odd epoch]

Maybe you should automate it then. Or at least make a simple form that fills it in.

[karmic wedge]

Yeah I want to automate it lol

But it's pretty much just copying and pasting values into textboxes and clicking "dispatch" lol

practically get paid to press some buttons to send some trucks to certain areas

[odd epoch]

If you can save 15 seconds per form 60 times a day you saved 15 minutes

15 more minutes to screw around on discord

[karmic wedge]

I wish the software we used had some sort of API

None that I know of though

Tell some LLM to put it into YAML code and then do dispatch --file <filename> or something lol

[odd epoch]

Since you said it's copy/paste fodder you could set up a simple algorithm to take screen caps and fill it for you

[nimble sigil]

Use OCR

Have it read things and parse out what you need

Start building a command line interface-

[karmic wedge]

Something I'd really like to automate is contact information. I have a database in Notion that has company names and their respective phone numbers and email addresses (per order). It would be really nice to automate that part so that I don't have to go to the database every time

Using Windows + V really helps with that though

[glass moat]

i use clipboard history for my memes lmao

or rather, my reaction images

though i dont use them often anymore since most of them are gone after i reinstalled windows

[karmic wedge]

rip reaction photos

should've put them on a NAS lol

[glass moat]

i honestly use them so little that i forgot about them until i wanted to grab one several weeks after i reinstalled lmfao

[karmic wedge]

how hungry... 🐴

[feral eagle]

Anyone know an alternative to parsec that works with ios

I really need something more reliable to connect to my pcs, every damn time I really need remote access nothing works

[glass moat]

steam link frfr

[feral eagle]

I don’t think that works remotely unless you are using vpn

[glass moat]

it does but it's not great

goes through steam servers

if not local

i think?

it works fine without vpn at least, i havent looked at how it works though

but i know it works

[feral eagle]

I can’t find a login button on ios

[glass moat]

you have to be at the pc to set it up, you click add computer on steam link, and punch in the code on the pc you want to add the phone to

[feral eagle]

Oh yeah I don’t have a pc here

[glass moat]

oh you want to remote into a phone?

[feral eagle]

What a trip this is. The one time I actually need it, both parsec and openvpn fail to connect

[glass moat]

F

[feral eagle]

I am on my phone, trying to get into contact with my pc at home which is currently on lock screen

[glass moat]

but yeah, steam link requires you to set it up first

well, actually

technically it doesnt, but only if you are able to remote into it already

to add another device remotely lmao

also i've had parsec issues often enough that i tend to have both steam link and parsec installed lmao

steam link outside of your lan tends to have fairly high latency and/or artifacting, but parsec randomly stops working

so then i use steam link to fix my parsec issues LMFAO

[feral eagle]

I used to use vnc which worked for the most part but they changed to paid tier

[nimble sigil]

I use chrome remote desktop as my alternative

But parsec is my main

Turns out if you're on a VPN the client needs to open ports to be able to connect

[karmic wedge]

I just use RDP

[nimble sigil]

RDP with a vpn?

[junior mulch]

RDP

Random Domestic Pooping

[nimble sigil]

Robert Downey Peter

[boreal sparrow]

Moonlight is great especially if you want to game

Requires a bit of set up but I've actually gamed on my laptop on it while out of the house and it's amazing, the latency was not noticeable

[junior mulch]

Moonlight is nvidia only tho

The best one to my knowledge rn for low latency is parsec

[boreal sparrow]

I don't think it actually is?

Think it's just recommended or something

[junior mulch]

Has it changed in like the last year or so?

Cos if it has then ok

If not, it's nvidia exclusive to my knowledge

[nimble sigil]

Isn't it moonlight/sunshine now

[junior mulch]

No that's outside

Like, touching grass

[nimble sigil]

True

[karmic wedge]

Yes

[nimble sigil]

Nice

[feral eagle]

I thought about moonlight

[glass moat]

Dancing in the moonlight

[junior mulch]

This one message added 5 years to my current mood

[glass moat]

☠️

[karmic wedge]

Man what’s the point in adding Ethernet ports in an apartment if they’re not going to be wired up to the complex’s patch panel?

“Just do it yourself” mf I don’t have access to it 💀

[odd epoch]

Not with that attitude. Nothing a little lockpicking can't fix.

[glass moat]

DEPLOY THE BATTERING RAMS

https://youtu.be/IhAz2VVUp2o?si=oN9ce4Ao_J66ZLef

has anybody tried hosting bluesky on raspbian, and does it work

i see it supports debian 11 and 12, though im still on 10

but im feeling too lazy to update it 💀

also i dont currently have a spare microsd card

[junior mulch]

What

Bluestacks and raspberry?

[glass moat]

bluesky

[karmic wedge]

Bluesky already died lol

[junior mulch]

What about netsky

[glass moat]

skynet

[noble berry]

wth does it mean 500mbps powerline interface and the ethernet port on the thing is rated for 100mbps only? what a scam

I know powerline is likely never getting near those speeds, but that's one good way to scam customers

[odd epoch]

Powerline can definitely exceed the 100mbps, mine gets about 150 on a good day with crappy apartment wiring and I've seen up to 500 before

[feral eagle]

is anyone here good with tailscale

[karmic wedge]

Somewhat

I mean I use it daily

Don't know if I can answer your question given the current time though lol

[karmic wedge]

@feral eagle I might be able to help

[glass moat]

tailscale? why would you need to weigh your tail ong frfr