suggestions on network setup for large house

[tlarkin]

Okay,

So, I have a client that lives in a older larger home, and I want to set up wifi through out their whole house

So, this is my proposal for set up....an electrician already came to the house and wired cat5 throughout the home

3 x routers
1 x print server

Main router will be DHCP server and set up to connect to the internet

the other two routers will be bridged over ether net with DHCP turned off, acting as extra switches and APs

Router IP config
Main - 192.168.1.1
Bridged 1 - 192.168.1.2
Bridged 2 - 192.168.1.3

Bridged routers will have 192.168.1.1 as their gateway

Set wireless security on each router....

Then hook up the print server to one of the routers down stairs and share their second pritner over the network.

Now...

There are some things i have been thinking about....

Perhaps make routers 2 and 3 (the bridged ones) use ADHOC so they just connect to the AP but the APs are bridged over ethernet to the main router...never set up ADHOC before not sure if it would work, just an idea

Another route would be to bridge them over wifi but that is not as reliable ast he wired connections.

They have an imac upstairs and a powerbook g4 that they want to be able to roam the whole house with. Some one else already came out and hooked upa digital audio receiver and speakers into their whole house. They can control their itunes library and stream it through the whole house via wireless on the power book.

I already had some problems setting this up, so I am having them buy three of the exact same routers (conflicting versions gave inconsistant wireless results) and going back out there to finish the job.

Suggestions?

[tlarkin]

Well, I did talk it over with a collegue and this seems like a good set up from other people. Seems they concur with my suggestion.

Anyone here ever set this up before on a mac network and can give me some input or maybe a warning on things to look out for?

thx

[Spongy]

The set up will work, and probably work well. I have seen offices networked this way between departments and have also networked a Uni department like this, so it will work fine. but a few things...

If its just a large house, why not just get the electrician to wire all of the cat cable to one single pint and then have the modem (or whatever) and a larger switch/router with enough ports for all the computers and a print server, or just wire the printer though the desktop machine?... this will save on money for the client and also have less devices lying around in different areas of the house, which may be annoying.

Personally, I think I would have installed a wireless router with maybe one AP to extent the range if neccessary - it would mean much less expense as there would be no electrician and would be much quicker to install with less devices. In and out quickly!

This is all pointless if the electrician has already been in... so good luck!

[theunfrailhale]

it sounds solid to me.

have you thought about using powerline ethernet adapters? they use your actual electrical lines to transfer data, and do it pretty well too. You could use this to send data to the additional access-points.

http://www.netgear.com/Products/Powe...tAdapters.aspx

check it out man, its an easy and less difficult way to wire data to another point. 85Mbps aint bad either, it would be good enough for your WAPs.

[CAlvarez]

I've done this a lot. The correct way is to use one router and as many APs as you need. Sure, some routers can act as an AP, and some pretend to and then never work right. I'd buy an AP. The Linksys A/B/G are my favorites, rock-solid, and using A band means no interference. In fact in some installs I just turn off B/G and increase security.

Use the same SSID and keys on all routers, and machines can roam among them with no problem. I use wi-fi VoIP phones in these installations and they can roam without dropping a call or any noise in the phone. Make sure the channels are not overlapping, try to stay at least three away.

[CAlvarez]

Just did one of these today in a commercial building, around 6500 square feet. Parts list:

(1) BEFCMU10 cable modem
(1) WRT55AG router with A/B/G wireless
(3) WAP55AG

Since all of the machines are modern, we turned off the 2.4 GHz radio (B/G) and ran only the 5 GHz band. SSID is the same on all devices, and a matching WPA key (63 bytes long) was set on each one. Channels used were 36, 44, 52, and 64, giving plenty of spectrum space. The closes channels were used on the farthest APs.

Total parts cost was $550 and install time was just under an hour. The building was pre-wired.

[tlarkin]

Thanks for the replies

The reason I wanted to go with the WRT54GLs is because they are around 50 dollars each on newegg.com, and fully support the DD-WRT linux based firmware, which is why they have the L in the model name. The L stands for linux support.

The wireless APs are around 75 dollars each so I am saving around $25.00 on each router over AP (total savings of $75.00). Plus with the firmware upgrade I have more options, like boosting signal, better security management, etc. I could have definitely gone for the AP

The electrician who wired their house has wired 4 or 5 drops in the whole house and they all run down into a 5 port switch in the basement. Their cable modem hook up is upstairs. I was not present when they did any of the remodeling or hardwiring the CAT5. I probably would have suggested a few changes if I was there.

I also opted to get the routers because if anything changed (like rearranged or remodeled the house again) I could move the routers around and use them in wireless bridge mode.

My total cost is going to be around $150.00 for a B/G wireless network which is secure, and with the signal boosted via firmware upgrade. I think this is a great way to go about this.

Thanks for all the replies...

[CAlvarez]

I'm very familiar with the "L" and "GS" routers. They're great if you want to screw around with inane settings, or if you want to run an Asterisk server. Neither of which is useful for a normal production network.

So did you resolve the problems?

[tlarkin]

Those inane settings are actually nice features IMHO....

Waiting on the hardware to be shipped to the client I'll finish up some time this week

When you talk about interference what all are you referring to carlos? In an unrelated event last week I set up a wireless security camera system for my parents business. The singal came in okay, but there was some definite static, after about 15 minutes of scratching my head I unplugged the cordless phone, problem solved.

I have no idea what security camera system my old man picked up or where he got it from, so it could be he just got the cheap stuff. It works for them and they are happy with it (its really more of a deterrent system, you know people get to see themselves on camera...). However that interference with the cordless phone definitely made a different.

Should I set the APs on a range of channels? l

[CAlvarez]

Many cordless phones operate on the same band as 802.11b/g and Bluetooth, and microwaves spew radiation in that band. It's a crowded band (also used by a lot of other unlicensed stuff). This is why I use 802.11a if at all possible; no interference issues. Blasting out more 2.4 GHz power isn't a very effective way to deal with it.

[tlarkin]

So, this is how the set up works, and it works pretty well.

3x WRT54GL routers

Main router:

ip - 192.168.1.1
DHCP server - enabled
WAN - DHCP
Operation mode: Gateway
Firewall - on, and configured w/ NAT
Wifi - AP mode, WPA
loopback mode - disabled

Secondary:

ip - 192.168.1.2
DCHP - Disabled
DNS, Gateway - 192.168.1.1
WAN - disabled (can atually turn wan back to switch and use the port)
Operation Mode: OSPF
Firewall - Off
Wifi - AP mode, same SSID, same security, bumped it up one channel to reduce interference with other one
Loopback mode - disabled

Tertiary

ip - 192.168.1.3
DHCP - Disabled
DNS, Gateway - 192.168.1.1
WAN - Disabled
Operation Mode: OSPF
Firewall - Off
Wifi - AP mode, mimic settings, bump up one channel
Loopback mode: Disabled

All routers are connected via CAT5 cables, and there is no need for any type of cross over cable because the WRT54GL ports auto sense the connection and there is no need for a cross over to connect multiple switches. The SSID is the same across the board with the channels bumped 1 off not to interfere with each other. I honestly do not know how well this works but after reading some info online I decided to bump each of the wireless up a channel to reduce interference from one another. I also boosted each of their signals to about 60mW each.

It works pretty well actually. I used the newest release of the DD-WRT firmware from http://www.dd-wrt.com

[CAlvarez]

You should always make the channels three away from each other (two empties in between), and only boost power if needed after walking the entire installation with a scanner (iStumbler, etc). The spectrum is designed in a way that channels overlap. So for an installation where all APs can see each other to some extent, you should use 1/4/7/10 or 11. If I'm doing more APs then I come back to 2 and go from there on the APs that are farthest from the first ones.

More power can actually be bad for coverage and for system battery life if they run notebooks.

[tlarkin]

thanks for the tip carlos, i will keep the channel scheme you mentioned in mind.

So far the set up works great though.

[CAlvarez]

Having it one or two channels away will rarely keep it from working, but you will usually see less total speed than having them farther away. You can also have random disconnects. Now, I've never actually tried it to see what happens; I learned this at Cisco school and just used what they told me without question. Cisco usually knows what they are talking about with networking.

[tlarkin]

well you might not believe this, one of the major problems I had was one of the cat5 drops was actually bad. It drove me nuts, but in the end when I just bypassed the wired drops in the house and went from router to router directly with a cat5 cable it worked.....

Man that was very frustrating to figure out, I mean honestly how many times does a cable actually go bad?

[CAlvarez]

I run into bad cable more often than you'd imagine. If they are run by non-network-aware installers like the electrician, they treat it roughly and often damage it. They'll just pull on kinks and put a crimp in the cable, or pull too hard if the cable slows down, etc. And of course then you have the people who wire it like a phone line, flat, instead of 1/2 and 3/6. Same with T1 cables, I can't believe how many phone guys think a T1 cable should be wired flat.

[tlarkin]

yeah the electrician asked me if he actually needed to wire all 4 pairs of wire.....


But, hey not everyone can know everything, so it is no big deal and the good news is i got the problem fixed.

[tlarkin]

okay wow, even more funny update. There was a rogue switch in the attic that was connecting one of the drops upstairs. The problem lied in there

Problem resolved, my inital set up works great, nice secure wireless on every floor

[CAlvarez]

Well, only two pairs are required, but I assume you know that they have to be in specific pairings, not straight across like phone cable?

[tlarkin]

Quote: Originally Posted by CAlvarez Well, only two pairs are required, but I assume you know that they have to be in specific pairings, not straight across like phone cable?

yeah one drop actually has a bad pair of wiring in it, but it still works because only two pair are required.

I know the two schemes, everything is up and running now.