Home Network - Help Needed

[JohnnyJazz]

I am currently installing a home network with the ultimate goal of building a "smart house". Unfortunately, the more I progress the more I realize that I have probably bitten off more than I can chew.

Therefore my idea to ask someone to help me build this network, and teach me the bases that I'm currently lacking, with the goal of being able to do it again all by myself. Then I was thinking other people may have similar problem and would be interested to join ...

I'm living near Chaeng Wattana, I've a big independent room that can be used as "laboratory" and I've a lot of free time until July. If you are interested, either to "teach" or to join the club, or have any other suggestion, do not hesitate to post here or send me a PM.

[Chicog]

I've you are serious about it, the first thing I would do is wire the whole house with Ethernet cable and points.

Then you're never going to get pestered with things like interference, dead spots, etc.

And pick a place where you are going to put everything that needs to be connected so you have enough power sockets and ports.

[JohnnyJazz]

You're right the cabling of the house is important when designing a home network. But today my concern is more about the set up of the routers (I have two routers, one behind the other), how to configure a file server so I can watch a movie from my desk as well as from the smart TV in the living room. I want also be able to check from my TV the camera on the front door when I hear the dog barking. I want also to be able to do it from my mobile phone. And last but not least I want to install one (or two) firewalls to protect my home and my bank and business files from hackers.

That would be the objects of some of the workshops I would like to organize if enough people are willing to join me.

Edited May 6, 2014 by JohnnyJazz

[Chicog]

You don't need a File Server for movies, an external disk plugged into the Router will make allfiles available to connected devices.

IP Cameras are two a penny and easy to install. Most have a mobile client these days.

And you don't need two firewalls, just one that's configured properly, especially if your Router has firewall capabilities as well.

Just don't make your bank and business files available outside the house.

[JohnnyJazz]

^ You're right again, I don't need anybody to set up my network, just to spend hours, more hours and even more hours with google every time I get stuck with a device that doesn't behave the way it should ...

So just lets say I'd like to start the Chaeng Wattana Computer Network Social Club with like minded people who would like to meet from time to time in front of a keyboard and a cold beer.

[Chicog]

Ah now you're talking. Beer! Sadly living in the sandpit as I do makes the commute a bit difficult.

[innerspace]

As said cabling is the first step or you will struggle doing it later. Get cat6 cable, wall boxes everywhere imaginable and all converging to a patch panel in a small rack in a central place with your routers and internet. Protect the cables with trunking but if you are going to paint or plaster over leave some slack for recrimping ends and use the best possible cable.

Avoid 2 routers if possible, it complicates things especially port forwarding and stops most upnp (plug and play) from working.

If you have a good router and an isp router switch the isp one to bridge mode and use as a modem.

If you have 2 internet lines get a decent (pricey) load balancer or run them on the same subnet with different ips and split gateways for load balancing and switch gateways for redundancy.

Someone said you dont need a file server just a disk plugged into a router...that is a file server, just a simple one. Dedicated ones provide faster throughput for multiple simultaneous hd streams and raid for redundancy.

2 firewalls is not necessary.... a decent router (cisco or the like) would be a better bet though and have firewall built in. Even cheap routers have good firewall quite often.

Plan gigabit and avoid and 100M devices. 10Gb is getting cheaper but crazy on big port routers still and not even possible for many devices...so consider a few high speed uplinks for key devices but dont worry about everything.

Buy a crimping tool and practice lots.... but use only molded cables for regularly used and moved patch cables, handmade are never as strong although proper boxes are stronger.

Find and choose the most reliable dns provider for your use. Google is good, opendns I dislike since they hijack failed results. Run your own if you reckon you can maintain perfect uptime.

Invest in ups boxes for critical devices such as routers and switches

Run your network on 10.x.x.x. not 192. Its cleaner, shorter and easier to remember. Also less likely to get an ip conflict on x.x.x.1 after plugging in a router. It wont work but wont break everything.

Plan your max devices and set subnets accordingly...dont want to have to update 254 settings after buying your most recent automated drink pourer in a massively connected house. 255.255.0.0 should be plenty.

Learn to truly understand every part of what I have said and in doing so you will have picked up enough a long the way to fill in the gaps.

But if you start this project before fully understanding (as many would) you will get to a stage of wanting to throw half your devices away, rip it all out and do it again better. Dont ignore my cable suggestion or you may have some expensive rewallpapering.

Or get an expert in but thats no fun! Im not in bkk so this thread is the limit of my workshop im afraid.

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[Cloggie]

Install a NAS from Synology; backup files, stream movies, store photo's, attach ip-camera etc. - configure it correctly and you have access to all your data over internet from anywhere in the world.

[KittenKong]

.... I have two routers, one behind the other...

Why?

In my experience most people who do this dont actually need to do it at all.

[JohnnyJazz]

.... I have two routers, one behind the other...

Why?

In my experience most people who do this dont actually need to do it at all.

Because the wifi signal was not strong enough in some part of the house and I needed more LAN ports for this specific area.

I could have just installed a switch and an access point but a wireless router with an additional two USB ports for a printer and a mass storage was making more sense at the time.

What would have been your choice ?

[Chicog]

.... I have two routers, one behind the other...

Why?

In my experience most people who do this dont actually need to do it at all.

Because the wifi signal was not strong enough in some part of the house and I needed more LAN ports for this specific area.

I could have just installed a switch and an access point but a wireless router with an additional two USB ports for a printer and a mass storage was making more sense at the time.

What would have been your choice ?

So you mean a router and a range extender?

[NeverSure]

.... I have two routers, one behind the other...

Why?

In my experience most people who do this dont actually need to do it at all.

Because the wifi signal was not strong enough in some part of the house and I needed more LAN ports for this specific area.

I could have just installed a switch and an access point but a wireless router with an additional two USB ports for a printer and a mass storage was making more sense at the time.

What would have been your choice ?

You absolutely can't use two routers. That is your first problem and nothing will work until you change one of them to bridge/repeater mode or get rid of it. Look in your manual for how to do that. Routers assign IP addresses to all of the devices on your network, and send information to the device that requested it from the internet. Two routers equals mass confusion and breakdown.

A router is a firewall by nature, and you don't need anything else. Nothing can get into your network through the router unless you request it. By that I mean if you click on a link on a web page, you are requesting something. The router will remember that and let it in and send it to the computer or other node that requested it.

A router is a computer. It stands between your network and the internet. It has its own IP address internally, and also the IP assigned by the ISP externally. It is your gateway to the internet for all of your devices. If a hacker makes an attempt on your network, all he sees is your router and it appears to be the computer it is. All of the other computers and other nodes behind it have IP addresses that are assigned by the router and they are not internet routable.

I do not know why people are recommending ethernet cabling. When I built my house about 8 years ago I diligently wired it and attached the wires to a 16 port switch. Then I wired the switch to the router and the router to the modem and it all worked well. But since then there has been so much wireless equipment available cheap that I don't use a single one of those wires. My last hurrah on that was to put a PCI wireless card in my desktop.

Even wireless N is much faster than the internet connection you have so wireless is not a bottleneck in the system.

Maybe someone will correct me and tell me what wired is good for if you're setting up a new system. Even your file server and storage can be wireless.

You probably do need some help, but until you remove the second router there is no chance of anything working.

edit PS if you need more wired ports you don't use a second router, you use a switch.

Edited May 7, 2014 by NeverSure

[Tywais]

Cabling isn't an absolute necessity. Powerline networking will use the house existing wiring to distribute the network though it may be a cost factor and of course availability in Thailand. This can be used to fill the gaps the WiFi can't reach.

Techradar

D-Link

Cnet

[NeverSure]

.... I have two routers, one behind the other...

Why?

In my experience most people who do this dont actually need to do it at all.

Because the wifi signal was not strong enough in some part of the house and I needed more LAN ports for this specific area.

I could have just installed a switch and an access point but a wireless router with an additional two USB ports for a printer and a mass storage was making more sense at the time.

What would have been your choice ?

You needed a bridge/repeater to carry wireless farther.

Most newer printers will go wireless and I love them because you can put them anywhere. If nothing else plug the storage USB into a computer. Just remember that USB is slow.

If you need more ethernet ports you need a switch connected to the router. Most newer switches are duplex which is what you want.

[JohnnyJazz]

Cabling isn't an absolute necessity. Powerline networking will use the house existing wiring to distribute the network though it may be a cost factor and of course availability in Thailand. This can be used to fill the gaps the WiFi can't reach.

Techradar

D-Link

Cnet

You're right in theory but as I understand it (I'm not an electrician), there are two independent (??) electric network in my house, each with its own set of circuit breakers, one for the basement and first floor and an other one for the second and third floor. Which basically means internet over power lines won't work, or so I've been told.

[JohnnyJazz]

You absolutely can't use two routers. That is your first problem and nothing will work until you change one of them to bridge/repeater mode or get rid of it.

You seem to be well informed regarding computer networks but there is just one problem with your theory, I have four computers and one printer attached to the second router and ... it works !

[Tywais]

Cabling isn't an absolute necessity. Powerline networking will use the house existing wiring to distribute the network though it may be a cost factor and of course availability in Thailand. This can be used to fill the gaps the WiFi can't reach.

Techradar

D-Link

Cnet

You're right in theory but as I understand it (I'm not an electrician), there are two independent (??) electric network in my house, each with its own set of circuit breakers, one for the basement and first floor and an other one for the second and third floor. Which basically means internet over power lines won't work, or so I've been told.

That is true, didn't know you had such a big house. A two story, single distribution box like my house it would be fine.

[Chicog]

Just remember that USB is slow.

Newer Routers have USB 3.0 ports now, so that isn't so much of an issue.

[JohnnyJazz]

First, thanks innerspace for having taken time to write such a long and detailed answer to my op. I have to say honestly that I understand around 80% of your post and I fully agree with what you said. Unfortunately that's the remaing 20% that are not so clear to me that are the source of my current headaches.

As said cabling is the first step or you will struggle doing it later. Get cat6 cable, wall boxes everywhere imaginable and all converging to a patch panel in a small rack in a central place with your routers and internet. Protect the cables with trunking but if you are going to paint or plaster over leave some slack for recrimping ends and use the best possible cable.

For me cabling will be the last step. I explain. A major renovation of the house is planned for the end of the year. By then I need to figure out what kind of network I want/need, where are going to be the router(s), the patch panel and all the peripherals that are going to be attached to the network, either by cable or wireless. Just one example, the router provided by True is currently in the study room in the second floor, it will probably need to be moved to a "technical room" in the basement, keeping in mind that no wifi signal can travel from the basement to the upper floors ...

Avoid 2 routers if possible, it complicates things especially port forwarding and stops most upnp (plug and play) from working.

If you have a good router and an isp router switch the isp one to bridge mode and use as a modem.

Agree with the two routers, that's one of my current headache . Your solution makes sense but then I need to rethink the current network design.

If you have 2 internet lines get a decent (pricey) load balancer or run them on the same subnet with different ips and split gateways for load balancing and switch gateways for redundancy.

That's something for the future. For the time being I just try to keep things as simple as possible

To be continued ....

Edited May 7, 2014 by JohnnyJazz

[JohnnyJazz]

Someone said you dont need a file server just a disk plugged into a router...that is a file server, just a simple one. Dedicated ones provide faster throughput for multiple simultaneous hd streams and raid for redundancy.

2 firewalls is not necessary.... a decent router (cisco or the like) would be a better bet though and have firewall built in. Even cheap routers have good firewall quite often.

Plan gigabit and avoid and 100M devices. 10Gb is getting cheaper but crazy on big port routers still and not even possible for many devices...so consider a few high speed uplinks for key devices but dont worry about everything.

Invest in ups boxes for critical devices such as routers and switches

Completely agree here.

Buy a crimping tool and practice lots.... but use only molded cables for regularly used and moved patch cables, handmade are never as strong although proper boxes are stronger.

I already have the tools. I was a bit nervous the first time I made my own cable, so many cables in such a small connector, but it was ok, the most important part being not to read the drawing upside down ;-)

Find and choose the most reliable dns provider for your use. Google is good, opendns I dislike since they hijack failed results. Run your own if you reckon you can maintain perfect uptime.

Run your network on 10.x.x.x. not 192. Its cleaner, shorter and easier to remember. Also less likely to get an ip conflict on x.x.x.1 after plugging in a router. It wont work but wont break everything.
Plan your max devices and set subnets accordingly...dont want to have to update 254 settings after buying your most recent automated drink pourer in a massively connected house. 255.255.0.0 should be plenty.

Here I'm getting a bit out of my comfort zone. That's the current object of my studies and the reason of long hours spent googling every single word of my routers instruction manual.

Learn to truly understand every part of what I have said and in doing so you will have picked up enough a long the way to fill in the gaps.
But if you start this project before fully understanding (as many would) you will get to a stage of wanting to throw half your devices away, rip it all out and do it again better.

As said previously, that's what I'm doing now, learning to truly understand every single part of your post and my various instruction manual ... But I believe I'm not the only one working on this kind of project. Reading from other threads, I believe we could help and learn from each other, that's where my idea of the Chaeng Wattana Computer Network Social Club came from. It's our bad luck you are not in Bangkok, your presence would have been very much appreciated.

[JohnnyJazz]

Cabling isn't an absolute necessity. Powerline networking will use the house existing wiring to distribute the network though it may be a cost factor and of course availability in Thailand. This can be used to fill the gaps the WiFi can't reach.

Techradar

D-Link

Cnet

You're right in theory but as I understand it (I'm not an electrician), there are two independent (??) electric network in my house, each with its own set of circuit breakers, one for the basement and first floor and an other one for the second and third floor. Which basically means internet over power lines won't work, or so I've been told.

That is true, didn't know you had such a big house. A two story, single distribution box like my house it would be fine.

The house is not that big. Land is expensive so the house is tall but narrow. I would have preferred something more flat, too many stairs to walk up and down when going from one room to an other ;-)

Edited May 7, 2014 by JohnnyJazz

[KittenKong]

Because the wifi signal was not strong enough in some part of the house and I needed more LAN ports for this specific area.

I could have just installed a switch and an access point but a wireless router with an additional two USB ports for a printer and a mass storage was making more sense at the time.

What would have been your choice ?

That situation is indeed one that would warrant having two routers and I would probably have done it same way.

It will work fine if correctly configured.

[KittenKong]

You absolutely can't use two routers. That is your first problem and nothing will work until you change one of them to bridge/repeater mode or get rid of it.

You seem to be well informed regarding computer networks but there is just one problem with your theory, I have four computers and one printer attached to the second router and ... it works !

Of course it does. There is no problem at all with chaining routers as long as it is set up correctly.

[KittenKong]

As said cabling is the first step or you will struggle doing it later. Get cat6 cable, wall boxes everywhere imaginable and all converging to a patch panel in a small rack in a central place with your routers and internet. Protect the cables with trunking but if you are going to paint or plaster over leave some slack for recrimping ends and use the best possible cable.

.........

Buy a crimping tool and practice lots.... but use only molded cables for regularly used and moved patch cables, handmade are never as strong although proper boxes are stronger.

Yes to the Cat6 cable. I would use shielded FTP.

Though depending on the building layout it may be unnecessary to run it everywhere in a spoke design, and a patch board is probably also an unnecessary expense.

I would investigate having a limited number of cables going from the router to each main area elsewhere (say one per floor), and then use a cheap gigabit switch to serve other cables in each area as needed.

Of course if it is easy to run cables everywhere, and easy to install the wall sockets, and you can source a 1000ft roll of cable at a reasonable price then why not use it?

Crimping tools? Not bleedin' likely. They are a stone-age menace that should be banned.

I would use tool-less sockets like this (many designs are available):

and then use factory-moulded Cat6 cables for connecting from the wall socket to the devices.

All that said, it does very much depend on the building layout and design.

[innerspace]

The key part to the "understand this post" comment is so you can make informed decisions on whats right for you, sounds like you are on track already.

While all I said has valid merit I will happily admit it doesnt suit all scenarios, nothing does.

If refurbing later then cabling at that stage is right choice for your needs. But plan a central location as the hub for your key out of sight devices (modems, router, switches, storage).

Having things positioned right from the start saves later headaches.

Wifi can eliminate the need for cables but it is not as fast, not as stable and needs more config rather than just plug in. Interferance can cause random dropouts.

Multiple routers can work together if setup right but more prone to issues when done wrong.

Wifi extension best suited for an extender or access point in client mode. Should make the lan ports work as a switch and just extend access to the main routers.

Sounds like reading up on subnets and ip addresses is worthwhile if that reply was from the op. Changing later will require logging into all connected devises...big pain.

Put simply 192.168.1.x is typical local network but 10.x.x.x is also reserved for local network use (10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255). Some others too.

A subnet of 255.255.255.0 means only the last digit changes but 255.255.0.0 means the last 2 change. Difference of 255 devices to 255x255.

So 10.10.0.0 with subnet of 255.255.0.0 has a range from 10.10.0.0 to 10.10.255.255

I prefer using 10.10.10.1 for a router, clean and easy to remember and gives a large ramge to play with. Make 10.10.11.x your tvs, 10.10.12.x your cctv and 10.10.15.x your wifi devices (or make up your own). Then you see an ip address and instantly know what it is.

Whatever you do remember to set a unique ip and matching gateway and subnet on each device.

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[NeverSure]

There are some comments on here about using two routers. NOT on the same subnet. And there is no reason to get all complicated and create different subnets in the house when the goal is to extend coverage. You can use a router as a bridge/repeater.

If you have just one subnet, you can have just one DHCP server operating so you either create another subnet with something like a switch and disable DHCP on the new one behind the switch, and then you effectively have a repeater.

There is no way you can simply plug two fully operating routers into your home network without disabling function in one and have it work. You have one modem. The router talks to the modem. The router is your default gateway. The router assigns IP addresses to all of your hardware.

One router per subnet and another with certain functions disabled to extend range. Your ISP assigns the router it's external IP address to access the internet and it won't assign two.

[JohnnyJazz]

Of course if it is easy to run cables everywhere, and easy to install the wall sockets, and you can source a 1000ft roll of cable at a reasonable price then why not use it?

Reasonable price ... You have a point here, cat 6 cable is so damned expensive.

[JohnnyJazz]

The key part to the "understand this post" comment is so you can make informed decisions on whats right for you, sounds like you are on track already.

While all I said has valid merit I will happily admit it doesnt suit all scenarios, nothing does.

If refurbing later then cabling at that stage is right choice for your needs. But plan a central location as the hub for your key out of sight devices (modems, router, switches, storage).

Having things positioned right from the start saves later headaches.

Wifi can eliminate the need for cables but it is not as fast, not as stable and needs more config rather than just plug in. Interferance can cause random dropouts.

Multiple routers can work together if setup right but more prone to issues when done wrong.

Wifi extension best suited for an extender or access point in client mode. Should make the lan ports work as a switch and just extend access to the main routers.

Sounds like reading up on subnets and ip addresses is worthwhile if that reply was from the op. Changing later will require logging into all connected devises...big pain.

Put simply 192.168.1.x is typical local network but 10.x.x.x is also reserved for local network use (10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255). Some others too.

A subnet of 255.255.255.0 means only the last digit changes but 255.255.0.0 means the last 2 change. Difference of 255 devices to 255x255.

So 10.10.0.0 with subnet of 255.255.0.0 has a range from 10.10.0.0 to 10.10.255.255

I prefer using 10.10.10.1 for a router, clean and easy to remember and gives a large ramge to play with. Make 10.10.11.x your tvs, 10.10.12.x your cctv and 10.10.15.x your wifi devices (or make up your own). Then you see an ip address and instantly know what it is.

Whatever you do remember to set a unique ip and matching gateway and subnet on each device.

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Good advises. Your recommendation for the addresses is quite smart, thank you

[Tywais]

A subnet of 255.255.255.0 means only the last digit changes but 255.255.0.0 means the last 2 change. Difference of 255 devices to 255x255.

So 10.10.0.0 with subnet of 255.255.0.0 has a range from 10.10.0.0 to 10.10.255.255

I realize I'm being pedantic but there are only 254 usable device IPs per subnet. 0 and 255 can not be used for a device. 0 is the network address and 255 the broadcast address.

Setting up multiple subnets is just looking for problems as you have to remember which subnet each device belongs to and will have to be manual as a DHCP server generally deals with only one subnet. It can be done with a DHCP using user class but requires each device to be set to a group or DHCP relay. But one is adding a layer of complexity that is not needed except in Enterprises. More than one router with two DHCP servers enabled is a conflict as the broadcast address request will be seen by both of them and both will respond. 254 addresses is plenty for home use.

I have setup multi subnet systems when I needed to isolate departments but I built up a Linux server with muli-port router capability. That is, I had a separate lan card for each group and each lan card with it's own domain. Then a single point DHCP server will work fine to handle the multiple subnets/domains due to the physical layer isolation between groups.

[JohnnyJazz]

A subnet of 255.255.255.0 means only the last digit changes but 255.255.0.0 means the last 2 change. Difference of 255 devices to 255x255.

So 10.10.0.0 with subnet of 255.255.0.0 has a range from 10.10.0.0 to 10.10.255.255

I realize I'm being pedantic but there are only 254 usable device IPs per subnet. 0 and 255 can not be used for a device. 0 is the network address and 255 the broadcast address.

Setting up multiple subnets is just looking for problems as you have to remember which subnet each device belongs to and will have to be manual as a DHCP server generally deals with only one subnet. It can be done with a DHCP using user class but requires each device to be set to a group or DHCP relay. But one is adding a layer of complexity that is not needed except in Enterprises. More than one router with two DHCP servers enabled is a conflict as the broadcast address request will be seen by both of them and both will respond. 254 addresses is plenty for home use.

I have setup multi subnet systems when I needed to isolate departments but I built up a Linux server with muli-port router capability. That is, I had a separate lan card for each group and each lan card with it's own domain. Then a single point DHCP server will work fine to handle the multiple subnets/domains due to the physical layer isolation between groups.

Not pedantic at all. The experience and advise of both of you are very valuable for people like me who are beginner in this field. Please do not stop.