Network Upgrades
Edit: Worth noting I originally posted about this on Hypnos, this post is a bit more coherent/updated but has less background info..
I've wanted to do some upgrades to my home network for quite some time, and I've finally began to do so...
Wireless
I recently purchased a new router from Newegg (Rosewill RNX-N300RT), on sale at the time, to replace to my old WRT54GS as my wireless access point. At $27.99 I thought it was a good deal, especially given it runs DD-WRT. I use a dedicated access point because my main router (Netgear WNR3500L) has terrible wireless performance; but it's a decent wired router. This helped me consolidate my hardware, which I will get to in a bit.
After using it for a couple days, I'm pretty pleased. I tried different locations and different wireless settings and finally settled on the leaving it where it is, above the panel ceiling downstairs in my room. This is the only place high enough to be above the concrete foundation but below the plaster walls upstairs.
I enabled bad-neighbor 40MHz N mode, and I was pleased with the increase in throughput; I'm able to pull a steady 40-50Mbps with the signal around -65dBm on the garage PC. The only neighboring access point with a signal significantly above the noise floor was on channel 6; I logged on and moved it to channel 1 to cut down on interference with my network. For now 6-11 now belongs to me :P .
I purchased a $10 Intel 4965AGN card for my uncle's Latitude D630, and with that I was able to get an idea of signal strength around the house. At the end of the house opposite the router I still get full signal strength and 5-7 MB/s throughput, impossible before upgrading the router and wireless card. That leaves only two devices on my network that's aren't N-capable, an old LG Optimus One and my old Acer laptop.
Wiring
Before I started the way I had things wired here was a mess. Everything ran into the kitchen where the modem was, and there were gigantic coils of wire left above the ceiling panels since I didn't have the proper plugs to cut and crimp when I originally hooked things up. I finally picked up some decent connectors, and decided to consolidate all my networking hardware to my closet, an ideal location as this is also where the breaker panel comes in should I get fiber hooked up in the hopefully near future.
I also ran a new wire to the living room so I could reclaim my powerline networking adapters which I was using for the Xbox.
This is the product of my effort:
Future Plans
While my organization has left me with a setup better than before, it's still not ideal. Eventually I would like to get a small rack, a patch panel and a switch to make things look really fancy, along with some surface mount boxes and adhesive conduit for each room to make it look finished and professional. As it is, the network and coax just come up through holes in the floor. That's a fairly involved project however.
One thing I've been considering is if it would be worthwhile to setup a dedicated box to function as a router and do away with the Netgear. Aside from the learning experience, I'm wondering if I'd see an improvement in my network's performance, especially if I end up getting a fiber connection. My LAN sees a lot of internal traffic, mostly streaming videos, along with near constant internet use. When I max out my internet connection I see the CPU usage on my router spike to around 50-60%, and that's only with HTTP downloads. LAN transfers also tend to push the CPU pretty hard.
So I'm looking for any input here...is it worthwhile to build a dedicated box and what would I need for hardware? Software wise I've been looking at using pfSense, I may throw it in a VM and play around with it a bit. I know I'd almost definitely want Intel NICs, beyond that I don't know what I really need. The only existing hardware I have is an Athlon XP system, and I don't think that it has enough oomph to get the job done, I'd like to be able to run a basic web server if necessary.
If I had the money something like this would be awesome, but alas.
I've wanted to do some upgrades to my home network for quite some time, and I've finally began to do so...
Wireless
I recently purchased a new router from Newegg (Rosewill RNX-N300RT), on sale at the time, to replace to my old WRT54GS as my wireless access point. At $27.99 I thought it was a good deal, especially given it runs DD-WRT. I use a dedicated access point because my main router (Netgear WNR3500L) has terrible wireless performance; but it's a decent wired router. This helped me consolidate my hardware, which I will get to in a bit.
After using it for a couple days, I'm pretty pleased. I tried different locations and different wireless settings and finally settled on the leaving it where it is, above the panel ceiling downstairs in my room. This is the only place high enough to be above the concrete foundation but below the plaster walls upstairs.
I enabled bad-neighbor 40MHz N mode, and I was pleased with the increase in throughput; I'm able to pull a steady 40-50Mbps with the signal around -65dBm on the garage PC. The only neighboring access point with a signal significantly above the noise floor was on channel 6; I logged on and moved it to channel 1 to cut down on interference with my network. For now 6-11 now belongs to me :P .
I purchased a $10 Intel 4965AGN card for my uncle's Latitude D630, and with that I was able to get an idea of signal strength around the house. At the end of the house opposite the router I still get full signal strength and 5-7 MB/s throughput, impossible before upgrading the router and wireless card. That leaves only two devices on my network that's aren't N-capable, an old LG Optimus One and my old Acer laptop.
Wiring
Before I started the way I had things wired here was a mess. Everything ran into the kitchen where the modem was, and there were gigantic coils of wire left above the ceiling panels since I didn't have the proper plugs to cut and crimp when I originally hooked things up. I finally picked up some decent connectors, and decided to consolidate all my networking hardware to my closet, an ideal location as this is also where the breaker panel comes in should I get fiber hooked up in the hopefully near future.
I also ran a new wire to the living room so I could reclaim my powerline networking adapters which I was using for the Xbox.
This is the product of my effort:
Future Plans
While my organization has left me with a setup better than before, it's still not ideal. Eventually I would like to get a small rack, a patch panel and a switch to make things look really fancy, along with some surface mount boxes and adhesive conduit for each room to make it look finished and professional. As it is, the network and coax just come up through holes in the floor. That's a fairly involved project however.
One thing I've been considering is if it would be worthwhile to setup a dedicated box to function as a router and do away with the Netgear. Aside from the learning experience, I'm wondering if I'd see an improvement in my network's performance, especially if I end up getting a fiber connection. My LAN sees a lot of internal traffic, mostly streaming videos, along with near constant internet use. When I max out my internet connection I see the CPU usage on my router spike to around 50-60%, and that's only with HTTP downloads. LAN transfers also tend to push the CPU pretty hard.
So I'm looking for any input here...is it worthwhile to build a dedicated box and what would I need for hardware? Software wise I've been looking at using pfSense, I may throw it in a VM and play around with it a bit. I know I'd almost definitely want Intel NICs, beyond that I don't know what I really need. The only existing hardware I have is an Athlon XP system, and I don't think that it has enough oomph to get the job done, I'd like to be able to run a basic web server if necessary.
If I had the money something like this would be awesome, but alas.
Comments
Firewall distros like pfSense are nice to get you started, but honestly, pfSense has more features and functionality than you'll ever use. Good for a learning experience though. Personally, I'd probably go with m0n0wall instead. Simpler interface but still has enough features to get the job done. pfSense is a fork of m0n0wall, so if you get used to m0n0wall and want to try out pfSense, it should be an easy transition.
For your set up, the first thing I'd recommend is to stop using that router as a switch. Replace that Asus with a nice gigabit switch and run everything through that. LAN traffic shouldn't have to touch your firewall until it needs to go outside to the WAN. Obviously, broadcast traffic would still technically touch it, but you know what I mean.
As for my switch setup...the problem with that is gigabit switches, especially anything above a 5-port, start getting pricy fast. The cheapest 8-port I found was $40-ish, a 16-port closer to $90. An 8-port would get the job done, but would only leave me with a single free port for future use. So I dunno.
If my Athlon XP system would be enough to function as a firewall/router (2.2 GHz/1GB RAM/160GB HDD) then I'll consider picking up two of these to use. Then I'll either 'make' a small case to replace the Silverstone monstrosity it's in, or find a smaller ATX case.
It used to have 1 GB but one of the modules died and I haven't bothered replacing it because that system probably uses only around 100 MB or so.