Everyone was kind enough to ram my brain chock full of knowledge about switches and I came away feeling like I can explain it to other people. (please don't test me on this, I'll fail)

But now I'm trying to figure out how I want my network to look and so it's best I ask the people smarter than me that actually understand what I'm trying to do.

My house is an average sized, end of terrace in a big city and so while I can get decent Internet speeds, I get lots of WiFi signal congestion with neighbours, buildings, etc.

In my present router, which I really need to replace, I have my NAS and cable box plugged in via Ethernet, everything else is connected via WiFi. That's a bunch of phones, a couple laptops, and a couple Raspberry Pi's (including my one with all my home services, like Home Assistant and my Pi-Hole).

The design I'm cooking up, is that my NAS would be on a virtual LAN with no direct access to the Internet, my Raspberry Pis would have Internet access. I don't need to worry about my smart home devices having Internet access since they're all Zigbee devices. But I plan to switch my cable box to an IPTV box and I'm also wanting to get a video doorbell and security camera for the garden, so that's at least three virtual local area networks. Four if I add a guest network.

My questions are really simple ones and you're probably gonna laugh at how stupid they are… can I do this all with a single switch? Do I need a separate access points for each VLAN or can I have multiple vLANs on a single AP? How many ports should I be looking at on my switch? Would four be enough for my set-up? Also managed is best right?

Okay, I've been watching lots of YouTube videos about switches and I've just made myself more confused. Managed versus unmanaged seems to be having a GUI versus not having a GUI, but why would anyone want a GUI on a switch? Shouldn't your router do that? Also, a switch is like a tube station for local traffic, essentially an extension lead, so why do some have fans?

There are apparently only two documented ways to reverse tether an Android via USB to a linux host:

• openVPN method
• Gnirehtet

OpenVPN dead
I really wanted the #openVPN method to work because I’m a fan of reducing special-purpose installations and using Swiss army knives of sorts. In principle we might expect openVPN to be well maintained well into the future. But openVPN turns out to be a shit show in this niche context. Features have been dropped from the Android version.

Gnirehtet dying
Gnirehtet works but it’s falling out of maintenance. ~~It’s also unclear if~~ #Gnirehtet really works without root. There is mixed info:

• Ade Malsasa Akbar from Ubuntubuzz claims root is not needed (and devs agree).
• OSradar claims root is needed. (edit: they are mistaken)

If anyone has managed to reverse tether an unrooted Android over USB to a linux host using free software, please chime in. Thanks!

update on Gnirehtet

Gnirehtet indeed works without root. But some apps (like VOIP apps) fail to detect an internet connection and refuse to communicate.

#askFedi

Let me explain my current setup so that I can explain the problem...

For redundancy, I have two internet providers at home. One of them is DSL and the router is located at the entrance hall. The other one is cable and the connection point (and therefore the modem/router) is at the living room. My workstation is in another room on the opposite end of the apartment.

To connect all that, I bought a set of powerline adapters from TP-Link, one with 3 ports and WI-FI extender and two with 3-ports alongside with a load balancer multi-wan router, with 5 ports also from TP-Link.

Right now, I have one the multi-wan router connected to one powerline adapter (one port for each wan), another adapter at the entrance hall connected to the LAN of the DSL router, and the adapter with Wi-FI extender connected to the Cable router.

The wired part works. My workstation connects to the router and I get an IP from it. The router can connect with both WANs and my connection seems stable. My problem is in the wireless part. From my phone, it says it is connected but it can not resolve any external connection.

At first I thought the wi-fi was getting confused with the different DHCP servers, but even after disabling DHCP on DSL/Cable routers (not using it anyway because I am connecting through the "multi-wan" router, right?) the connection is still not going through. I can access the management part of the Wi-FI extender and it seems to be on the same subnet as the multi-wan router, so I guess it can connect to it, but the actual connection outside simply doesn't happen.

Is this setup so out of ordinary? Should I just forget about the wi-fi extender and add a "real" access point in the living room? I guess I could accept that the mobile devices need to be aware of the separate WAN routers, but it would be a lot nicer if they could all connect transparently...

I’m having to use a 4g router (from Three in the UK), as the wired internet is rubbish. I’d like suggestions for a 3rd party router 4&5G compatible for future proofing.

It needs to support bridge mode (to avoid having to double NAT) and ideally support IPv6 as three support that as well. I don’t need WiFi.

Any suggestions welcome & thanks.

After years with Powerline and Wifi, i'm slowly swapping things to MOCA as i have a fairly new house that has good coax to every room.

At the moment i have a simple setup with point to point, but run a diplexer because I have a HDHomerun right next to where the master GoCoax Box is - so filter off the TV Signals.

I want to add a third Moca (GoCoax) box

I have attached an image of my current setup

What is the easiest way to add in another moca box? Is there a Splitter that is easily avalible in the uk that i can put in the loft that does the splitting as well as the frequency seperation and leaves free ports for future additions??

Or do i just need to stack a splitter with a diplexers?

Cheers Guys

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Diplexers

GoCoax Boxes

You create a new user to repost that users content from reddit? This is absolutely ridiculous. You make it so we can't block your spam by blocking the bot user if you create a new user for every post.

My friends live on a small farm. Their water supply is from an artesian well. When the temperature drops below freezing, they have to turn on a heat lamp to keep the pump and pipes from freezing. This is set up in an open front shed about 75 feet from the house. I looked at setting up a wifi plug on the heat lamp, controlled via Alexa. (They've built a box to enclose the pump) However, their Wifi does not extend that far. They are using these AT&T branded Netgear pucks, Model MR6500, that barely reach halfway across the house. They are switching to Starlink in a week or so. (I know nothing of Starlink beyond it's using satellites) How can I get this to work for them? Cheaply, if possible.

I am trying to connect my PS4 with a lan cable wired through the wall to a network switch. The connection test on the PS4 fails to recognize an IP, yet the network switch gives me the flickering green light, and the cable tester from the two ends says the cable is fine. Internet on the other devices connected to the switch is fine, yet this cable, with other devices too, has issues.

Hey everyone,

I'm looking at getting a new (to us) home cabled up, and in the past I've always designed with the following principles (ignoring WiFi APs within this scope):
- Single patch panel near comms cabinet
- Wall port per device + additional ports for future proofing

Essential, a star topology - the patch panel connects to a single switch with no other switching. However, I'm wondering if that's maybe overdoing it a tad, given that I'm in Australia where 100Mbps internet is considered top of the line*, and the vast majority of traffic is device->internet, with very little intranet traffic beyond occasional file/print transfers or streaming from a media server.

So to that end, I'm considering a revised tree style topology with the following design principles:

- Single patch panel near comms cabinet
- Wall port per room, with 4 and 8 port unmanaged switches branching to devices

In real life, that's going to mean the following clusters each hanging off an unmanaged switch:
- Home office with 3-4 computers and a MFD
- TV/Media devices (gaming consoles, Android TV box, AV receiver)
- 2-3 gaming PCs

So obviously each unmanaged switch becomes an additional point-of-failure, but a tolerable one. In terms of throughput, I'm unlikely to touch the sides (as they say), and the 100Mbps WAN connection is a far narrower bottleneck than theoretical limit of 4-5 devices sharing a single 1Gb cable back to the "root" switch - but is there any gotchas that I'm not considering, like latency, additional overhead per switch, or future proofing for PoE+ (currently I have WiFI APs and LED Panels that will all be ceiling mounted and cabled per device)?

Any advice/suggestions would be appreciated!

Hi all,

I’m looking to upgrade my home router that is beginning to struggle with the amount of network devices on the network. Namely with network dropouts and slowdowns.

Current config:

ISP: cable modem with 350mbps download and 10mbps upload. (Hoping to have 1.5gbps fibre as an option in the near future)

Current router: first generation Netgear Orbi gen 1 with 1 satellite running upstairs. Also has two small 5 port unmanaged switches (100/1000) for wired connections.

There is also another two small 5 port and 8 port unmanaged switches running to my main router (100/1000) running a smart tv, several computers, a server, Phillips hue hub, etc.

Wireless I have dozens of devices between iDevices, game consoles, tv, laptops, etc. in total I have around 55 devices connected at any given time.

There is also an access point (old Asus router working in AP mode) used for all my smart bulbs/switches that is connected to one of my unmanaged switches connected to the main router.

What should I be running on my network? I figure I’ll need something for around 80 devices give or take and am looking for something a bit future proof. I’ll be upgrading to fibre someday; and internally I’ll want at least 2.5gb. Is there a router that can handle this config or should I be looking at something a bit more commercial/industrial? And if so, what?

Thanks,

I have 2 new GoCoax MA2500D MOCA adapters with 2.5GBE switches, cat 6 cable and 2 machines running RTL8125b 2.5GBE network cards.

The problem I'm having is that transfers to the file server write at close to 210MB/s (not great, but good enough) but the read speed is terrible at only 50MB/s.

I have turned off EEE on both machines, MA2500D updated to latest firmware. The MOCA splitters in use are wideband and explicitly MOCA compatible. One holland 3-way moca splitter with a POE filter outside the house, one "sunburst" moca 2.0 compatible indoors.

I don't expect mega speeds when reading and writing are occurring at the same time, but what could the issue be?

Here's what I tried so far.

• LOOOONG ethernet cable wiring both machines together = full 2.5gbps speed in both directions.

• LOOOONG ethernet switch cable both 2.5GB switches together = full 2.5gbps speed in both direcitons

• Both MOCA adapters plugged directly into each machine, same problem.

• I powered off my cable modem, same problem.

First, my apologies if this has been answered before, I couldn't find an answer. This is my first time dealing with a smart plug, and I looked online how to set up my access point router years ago (set it and forget it kind of thing.) But I'm not entirely incompetent if someone could simply point me in the right direction.

I recently purchased a smart plug (Kasa EP10) that I want to hook up to an outlet in my basement. The smart plug is closer to my main Verizon router than the access point router (Linksys N600) in my office. Both the Verizon router and access point are on the main floor above the basement.

I currently have my access point router setup with a different SSID (name) and password. It's connected with an ethernet cable (technically with a unmanaged switch in between) to the main Verizon router. Not a large house, but there are enough structural barriers where I need an access point on the other end of the house to get any Wi-Fi.

Is there a way to still command the smart plug while my phone/app is connected to the access point, without having to change the SSID/etc on the access point router to match the main router? Or should I just bite the bullet and change my access point to have the same log in?

Most Wi-Fi devices connected to both the main router and the access point are 5Ghz, rather than the 2.4Ghz that the smart plug needs, if that makes any difference. I have a month before I need to set everything up, I'm just trying to preplan (overthinking everything.) Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

Hello,

I recently got the Wavlink AX3000 mesh router to replace my service provided router so that I can set my own preferred DNS server (running Pihole on my Rasberry Pi). Since hooking up this router I've been seeing anywhere from 6-12 DNS queries per minute to bing.com of A and AAAA type. I dont use bing and the IP indicates that the requests are coming from the router itself. I even setup the Pi as my DHCP server to be sure, and all the bing requests still come from the router's IP. I have no IoT devices.

Has anyone else ever seen this? Could this be a result of using a mesh router as a normal router? I also blacklisted any request with bing in the domain and have seen no drop in performance. Its only been 24 hrs and there's been over 7000 bing queries blocked.

Looking for a reliable router and modem that will take full advantage of a 500 Mbps plan.

Need to support up to 2 people who work from home, streaming, and online gaming (PS5) within 700 sq ft. If a 500 Mbps plan is overkill for this, let me know.

Current setup is a DOCSIS 3.1 modem and the TP-Link Archer A20 router. Over the past month and a half ive been experiencing a lot of packet loss and latency issues while playing online (connected via ethernet) and working from home (Wireless). While there are currently 3 people in the same place for now, I haven't had any problems for over a year until recently. I've also had technicians come out twice and they said everything was fine. Does this set up already take full advantage of a 500 mbps plan or do I need to upgrade equipment? Should I wait to see how things go minus one user?

Side question - does every router only have LAN ports that output only up to 1 Gigabit or am I reading these descriptions wrong?

Thanks for any advice.

Edit: I'd like to keep my budget at around $300 for both modem and router if possible.

I am attempting to replace a broken router for my home network, and in doing so I am likely going to try and build my own router (but not necessarily). I am looking to future proof the new router for multi gigabit fiber optic ISP speeds while I am at it, and generally future proof the router for any other purposes. The problem there is that there aren't any really up to date guides I've found taking that specific goal into account when building a router and while I have built my own desktops before, I certainly don't want to spend thousands of dollars on a desktop build just to turn it into a much lower intensity-usage device like a router and I am not exactly sure what the floor or ceiling targets for specs here are to future proof it to the specifications I am wanting.

So, a couple of specifications here:

1: Does a router even use a GPU for any reason, even if you do absolutely unrealistic stuff on it like run a Minecraft server on it? I have scoured the internet for any reason at all no matter how farfetched and there just doesn't seem to be a need to even use a GPU for a router.

2: I am not planning to have an integrated WAP in the router like most store bought routers. I want this to purely be a wired router (the only wirelessly connected devices in the entire house are our smartphones and sometimes the Nintendo Switch (it is wired when docked), absolutely everything else is hardwired down to even the printer), the plan is to use the old router as a standalone WAP (I know that part of the router works) and just wait until we can get a dedicated WAP from somewhere like Best Buy.

3: Showing my ignorance here, is having a wired router and giving it wireless capability with a standalone WAP even a good idea? There is some intensive, latency sensitive gaming done every so often wirelessly, and I don't want to cause any additional latency if having the WAN connected separately from the router causes that. If it's not a good idea, I want to be able to upgrade our router to Wi-Fi 7 when it becomes available, having a discrete WAP that can be upgraded as new Wi-Fi standards emerge was one reasoning for doing it that way (For reference, our end goal when fiber becomes available for installation is to have less than 5 ms of ping, ideally 3 ms or less, or to have absolute possible minimization of ping across the network, so the build of our household network being ping-minimal is important)

4: Based on research, I would like to figure out how to build a device that has at least 8gb of RAM, potentially more. The snag is I have no idea what to look for in a CPU with a router (this is always my weakness when building new tech), what's overkill and what's underkill, what do I even want to look for?

5: Back a little bit to point 3, should I simply have 2 ethernet ports and connect the WAP via an external ethernet switch and be fine, or should I have more than 2 ethernet ports on the router to wire the WAP directly to the router's ports for minimal ping?

6: How much SSD space would be prime to have in a router?

7: I am planning on running a local DNS server in the home in order to eliminate DNS lag. Is it possible to run a DNS server directly in the router, or do I need a separate built device for a DNS? On a similar note, would running something like a Minecraft Java server be feasible on a router or should I build a separate device to act as a server down the road? If possible, I'd like to be able to run this sort of thing on the router. If not, I'd still like to maximize control over the network as we had a very cheap router that did not allow any advanced control options.

8: Down the road I am wanting to segregate all game consoles into a DMZ, would I need an entirely separate router to do that or does custom router software allow a DMZ zone to put things like multiple game consoles outside of your firewall? Currently we have our primary Nintendo Switch in the DMZ, but down the road we would like to put the other game consoles in the DMZ as well, without having to switch between which one is in the DMZ at a time.

8.5: If anyone asks, we do a lot of 4K streaming and a lot of super latency sensitive gaming, sometimes multiple devices at once running things like Street Fighter online where every millisecond of lag counts, if you want to know what our load looks like for most of the day when we aren't doing something super intensive like a massive file download.

9: Finally, would it even be worth building one or should I just get a prebuilt but slightly custom router somewhere like Seeed Studio or get a Raspberry Pi that meets these specifications?

Thanks in advance to everyone here, this is new territory for me so sorry if I forgot to ask or specify anything important.

Hi I’m sort of tech savvy but I would still label myself a beginner.

I was annoyed at my internet speeds being low so I upgraded my speeds to gigabit then I realized that I needed to upgrade my router/ modem combo I have a Netgear AC1900.

My question is I know I need to upgrade my hardware to get the best speeds I can but should I get a combo modem/router or separate router & modem.

What would you suggest for a budget of about $250-$300. I’m in a 1bed apartment that’s about 900sqft. I do gaming and streaming & it’s about 12 devices connected. Also I have xfinity gigabit internet.

Thanks for your help.

I have a LAN port upstairs in the kitchen. I have scoured the house for a second port. No luck. I cannot find an external LAN box outside anywhere. I live downstairs and have very poor wifi. Is there an easy way to determine if there is in fact a second port downstairs? I would like to have the router downstairs, as my father doesn't use the internet for much and is uninterested in the fact that the connection is weak everywhere else in the house.

How do I determine if there is a second port? I would like to avoid drilling holes in walls to run cable.

My roomate doesn’t pay his share of wifi bill so we decided to pause all his devices yet he still gets wifi, I checked and his devices are connected to something called tp link fcc8, is this some vpn kinda thing to get around the wifi block or a solo network he is paying for? Thanks all

I watched this short video about the netstat command and found the topic very interesting. Where can I find more noob-friendly information about the theory of IP tables? Right now I'm interested to learn more within the context of Windows instead of Linux (so that I can follow along).

I'm very interested to learn how programs/services listen/operate in relation to firewalls and also antivirus software like malwarebytes and windows defender. (For example I thought that I had to specifically open a port in my router for a program to use, but when I use netstat I see that there are tons of programs/services running that are using all kinds of ports.)

The reason that I am asking here is because I would rather someone point me in the right direction than try to over-Google it and find too much irrelevant information. As a cytologist I could Google various cancer cells and be able to sort through everything that I see to prioritize relevant information, but that's because I'm a professional in the field. I have no such experience with networking.

I'm running Cat6 and would like to use wall plates rather than just pulling the cables out of the walls and sticking a Cat6 plug on the end. I'm in the UK and all the walls are brick. Would I need to somehow carve out the bricks or is there some easier way to do it?

I just bought a WiFi Pci-e card for my PC (Ziyituod Intel WiFi 6E AX210 160MHz). Internet is unusable when connected on my router (still on 5Ghz). Here's comparaison to my laptop, also connected on 5Ghz, (Intel Wifi 6 AX201 160MHz) at the same place... How is it possible ? Any ideas ?

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Since we're now soon to be three WiFi generations ahead of my current system when they ratify WiFi 7, I've been trying to sort out if I should even be looking at an upgrade.

Background details: I've got gigabit internet, I game (although not much anymore), but we're completely cordless and streaming 4K content is mostly good, but occasionally it seems like our network struggles to keep up. We also have a wide variety of IoT devices (smart plugs, speakers, even our fridge is WiFi-connected (I didn't ask for that feature), etc.).

Theoretically, our WiFi 5 system should be fine, but there's been a number of deals on 6E systems that have piqued my curiosity.

Update!. I just checked my Internet bill and somewhere along the line they update the 100mgbps and the 200mgbps plans to having 20mgbps of upload instead of 10 if that helps at all

I am currently at 100mgbps download and 10 upload. I ran a speed test on my PC which is hardwired and I am getting an average of 99mgbps I have no problem with online gaming. No lag or anything. My bf just got a gaming PC as an early Christmas present. I have. 2 smart TVs. 4 alexas. A couple of security cameras that run off of WiFi as well as some smart plugs. They are all running on WiFi. I recently started doing online streams and now that my bf has a gaming PC he will also be gaming with me. Is there a need to upgrade my Internet? The next tier up would be 200mgbps download and 20 upload. They do have up to 1gig but it gets really pricey at that point. I don't want to have any issues with slow speeds. But just not sure what is enough and what would be overkill. I haven't had any issues with lag yet. But he just got the PC yesterday and hasn't been on it yet. I did notice previously that when he would be installing games or updates on his Xbox. If I was streaming or just playing online my connection would slow slightly

Hi, I have a domain that I have purchased from GoDaddy and have followed the following guide https://www.programonaut.com/how-to-host-a-mail-server-with-docker-for-free-step-by-step/ to setup a SMTP server in a docker container running in my laptop (which has been assigned a static IP on the Local Network). I have added my Global Public Static IP to the DNS records, but how do I configure so that the request is received at the Laptop after reaching the router?