Here’s Rack Sparrow (sorry for the dad joke):
PDU
Ubiquiti UDM Se
Ubiquiti 24-port patch panel
Raspberry Pi running HA, Lutron and IKEA Bridges
U7 Pro, G4 Pro and Chime as well

I started planning a couple weeks ago and asked if I should get a switch (most of you guys said no)

What do you all think? What should I build out next?

I have an iPhone 15 Pro Max, and whenever I put it on my Anker 3-in-1 wireless charger, the ping goes crazy for everyone on the network.
If I take it off the charger or turn off Wi-Fi on the phone, everything goes back to normal. Charging with a regular cable doesn’t cause any issues.
Has anyone had this problem before?

Hi all!

I'm trying to run a fiber cable from one house to another so I have internet here. Ideally buried to protect it from the elements. (200 meters give or take)

Which cable would you all recommend for this?

As well as, what sort of protective conduit should it be placed inside to protect the cable?

RJ45 is out of the question due to the distance.

I've been out of the computer world for years now, and fiber optics is just not something I'm familiar with. Would also not want to blatantly trust AI info for this.

TIA

Based in the UK; I'm on Hyperoptic 1Gb symmetrical with the Nokia Hyperhub (HA-140W-B). I upload large video files for work (about 3-6 GB final exports) and they keep crawling at around 5 Mbps. Speed tests look completely normal.

So far, I've tested:
- Multi-connection speed tests (Ookla, Waveform) are fine: around 500 down / 550 up, bufferbloat grade B.

- Single-connection uploads (curl uploading a 25 MB file to speed.cloudflare.com) are either fast or stuck, with nothing in between:
Over Wi-Fi: 10, 465, 9, 10, 346, 9 Mbps
Wired directly to the Hyperhub, Wi-Fi off: 4, 3, 3, 3 Mbps

- It's the same on IPv4 and IPv6, so I don't believe it's an IPv6 routing issue.

I also tried fixing my 5 GHz channel to a less congested one and it was the same. I still get around 7 Mbps through the Cloudflare WARP too.

So any single connection seems to have a chance of being capped at a max of 10 Mbps, but tests that open lots of connections seem to hide it? Does that make sense?

My Hyperhub's WAN port doesn't connect to a normal wall socket, but rather into a Ruckus wall unit of some kind. I've tried using the spare ports on the unit too and I can't get a connection.

I've raised it with Hyperoptic support and I'm waiting to hear back. Has anyone else seen this? What did it turn out to be and any ideas on how long it took to fix?

I've just never really seen situations where single speed connection would be 100x slower than the multi connection one.

title says it all. Need to cut and reroute 5 cables. Which would cause less issues with 2.5gb running through entire house?

Hey y’all! I’ve been on workers’ comp for a couple of weeks, and I’m not sure if this is boredom, me contemplating a career change, or a little bit of both 😂. Since I’m not very mobile right now, I decided to dive into the homelab hobby.
Current setup:
2× Lenovo ThinkCentre M920q i5 8th Gen
● 40GB RAM

● 512GB NVMe + 512GB SSD

● 2.5GbE NIC

● One has an HBA card

1× Lenovo ThinkCentre M920q i7 8th Gen

● 40GB RAM

● 1TB NVMe

● 2.5GbE NIC

What I originally planned:

● i7: Main Proxmox server running Jellyfin, Home Assistant, Immich, Nextcloud, Technitium, NetBird, OPNsense, and other open-source services.

● i5 #1: Proxmox for SOC, IAM, cybersecurity, and other lab environments.

● i5 #2 + HBA: TrueNAS SCALE bare metal with my two 8TB HDDs.

Now I’m realizing TrueNAS can run VMs and containers, so I’m reconsidering the whole layout.
What would y’all do?

● Move the HBA into the i7 and make it the main TrueNAS/virtualization server?

● Run one dedicated TrueNAS machine and one dedicated Proxmox cybersecurity lab machine?

● Or keep the original three-node setup?
Also, what open-source programs/services are y’all running in your homelabs that you’d recommend?

Hi, I have been using a Linksys 4850, with solid performance since buying/installing ~6 years ago, never needed to change any configurations since install. Now, I find myself having to change the password for the network. Only issue is none of the normal ways you’re supposed to access the admin areas, work for me now. For context, I had a different computer than I do now, so I’m told the router may not recognize my IP address. I have a 2021 MacBook Pro. I had a 2008 MacBook Pro. I used to use Safari or Mozilla. Now I use Brave, but for this exercise, I begrudgingly returned to Safari (Brave apparently is not supported). I tried the 168.1.1 and my local.router as the instructions all say. Does anyone have a work around for this?

I should add that Cisco is telling me they had ended support for this model.

New apartment has this network enclosure. My modem & router are on the opposite side of the apartment. I was hoping to be able to plug a cable from my router into the wall jack in that room and have this thing distribute to the other rooms but that doesn’t seem to be working.

I'm not a network guy but feels like the other half the strands on these should be connected too? Each white cable is labeled with room names, so I assume this was at least *run* to each.

I am running 2x MT-6000 with openWRT installed + RE315 repeater that is mounted in the attic to connect to my devices in the attic. I am in Texas and it gets hot.
No problem with the summer heat and my RE315 or the wireless plugs I have installed in the attic and it has been several years with the most recent summer being the hottest. I needed a way to turn this plug on/off without having to go up in the attic and manually do it.

[pfSense] ---> [MT-6000] ---> [RE315] ---> wireless plugs

Onto the problem.
I recently observed on the pfSense ARP table, the RE315 forwarding its MAC and hiding all the MAC addresses of the devices behind it. This is creating a problem with MAC based firewall rules so I need to replace the RE315 and possible the MT-6000s.

I was thinking about buying a couple of Ubiquiti U7 Pro XGS to mount on the ceiling to replace the MT-6000s and RE315 but it doesn't solve the issue of needing coverage of the devices in the attic.

How would you guys solve this problem?

My mobile plan in Turkey has unlimited on-device data but a separate 30 GB hotspot allowance. I connect my MacBook to my iPhone’s Personal Hotspot.
I set up Tailscale with the iPhone acting as the exit node for the Mac. Since then, my remaining hotspot allowance has stayed at exactly 22.35 GB for two days despite downloads on the Mac. Overall mobile data usage continues to increase. The carrier’s counters normally update within 2–3 hours.
However, I once noticed that Tailscale was off on the iPhone, and the hotspot allowance still seemed unchanged. I’m not certain how much traffic I used during that period, so I may have misinterpreted it.
I also previously experimented with setting the Mac’s outgoing IPv4 TTL to 65, which could be another variable. It didn’t work back then though, without tailscale installed.

I’m trying to understand the mechanism rather than assume Tailscale caused it. How would you distinguish between a routing-related effect, TTL-based classification, and a carrier accounting issue? What measurements would help establish what’s actually happening?

I have the Sky SR203 with the landline running from it. I want to get a second router and use this is my wireless hub for better range and multiple networks.

I will disable the WiFi on the sky hub connect the two via Ethernet.

What is the best router for my needs?

Hello All,

I have a problem with my home network and can’t seem to solve it. I upgraded my Xfinity Home service to a 2gbs plan and got a new router. This also enabled me to run an ethernet cable from both my desktop and my Unraid NAS to the new gateway.
But now my desktop can see the NAS in the file explorer but whenever I click it I get “Windows can’t access //Photos” error code 0x80070035 network path not found.

I have no issue accessing it with my laptop over the WiFi however, I just had to use my username and password the first time to access it. I’ve tried a bunch of trouble shooting steps found online through some googling but nothing has worked. I feel like I just need to reset something but I’m not sure what.

Before the new gateway, my set up was a bit more complicated. Both the desktop and the NAS have 10gbs network cards in them, and I was using a crossover/patch cable to connect the two directly to achieve max speeds. I had to use manually set up IP addresses and Powershell to force windows to set the network to private for it to work but it was great. So that was an independent network from the rest of home network, the NAS was on the home network via ethernet but the desktop was on via WiFi.

Now both the Desktop and NAS are running cat8 Ethernet to the 10gbs ports on the new Xfinity gateway which is an XB10 model. I can access the ui for the NAS just fine, and ping it over the network, but I can’t open the file directory with the desktop on Ethernet or WiFi.

I’ve set both IPs to Automatic which solved the problem of being unable to access the internet which was inconsistent before I did that. The NAS wouldn’t connect at all and the desktop could only connect to a few websites. I’ve also tried to clear and reset the credentials in Windows, along with all the steps I found on a YouTube Video that I had linked but that didn’t help either. I included a link to the video but that got my post removed. It was the first one that showed up googling the error code.

It seems like a lot of these steps shouldn’t be necessary since the other computers on the network can access it just fine. Ultimately my goal is to have the best read/write speeds to the NAS that I can since I want to be able to edit photo and video directly from the NAS. All the infrastructure should be there but something is preventing my access.

I’d really appreciate any suggestions anyone might have since all my photo archives are on the NAS and I kind of need them for work.

Hey everyone, I’m in Italy and looking at a 10G FTTH plan on the FiberCop network (XGS-PON, through a reseller). The estimated speed at my address is 8.8 Gbps, and I’m going for it because it costs almost the same as the 2.5G plan, so I might as well take the headroom. I want to use my own router instead of the ISP’s, and they said they’d give me the PPPoE login and the VLAN tag. I haven’t ordered anything yet, so I’m trying to pick the router first.

Right now I’m torn between two. The first is the GL.iNet Flint 4: it has a 10G RJ45, a 10G SFP+ and 2.5G ports, with Wi-Fi 7 built in, and it goes on sale now and then for around €325. The second is the Banana Pi BPI-R4 bundle, with 2 x 10G SFP+ and 4 x 1G RJ45, which costs €389 right now. The listing says “dual-band” but also mentions a Wi-Fi 7 module.

What I’m after is two 10G ports, one for WAN and one straight to my PC (I have a free PCIe x4 slot for a 10G card), decent Wi-Fi 7 for a two floor house, and something stable enough that my family doesn’t complain when it acts up.

A few things I can’t figure out:

• Can the Flint 4 do PPPoE + VLAN close to full 10G with acceleration on? And how much does SQM hurt it?
• If my ONT ends up with a 10G RJ45 port, can the BPI-R4 handle it with SFP+ copper modules? Do they overheat, and which ones actually work?
• Does the BPI-R4 bundle really come with the BE14 Wi-Fi module and the antennas? And how’s OpenWrt on that board right now?
• Is there something better with two native 10G RJ45 ports (Xiaomi BE19000 Pro, TP-Link Archer BE800)?

Any firmware problems I should know about before buying either one? Thanks.

with something like the Mikrotik SXTsq 5 ax at each end? https://mikrotik.com/product/sxtsq_5ax

trenching fiber up there is quite a bit more expensive than I want to pay

Hi all! I'm moving from FTTC to FTTH (Italy, ONT with a 2.5 Gbps LAN port) and redesigning my home network. I'm not a network expert, so my priority is a simple, low-maintenance setup that is still secure. I'd really appreciate a sanity check before buying everything. Floor plan attached.

Context

• ~100 m² apartment, brick walls. ONT and router location (S0, living room) is fixed.
• All wall jacks are Cat6 UTP: each jack (S1–S5) runs back to the wall plate at S0.
• Heavy smart working (Teams, SharePoint, cloud Office): stable upload is the top priority, with TV streaming at the same time. No online gaming, no landline.
• ISP not chosen yet; I'll ask for a separate ONT and a public IPv4.

1. Connected devices

2. Final wiring

ONT (2.5G) ── UniFi Dream Router 7 (WAN 2.5G RJ45, at S0)
               ├─ SFP+ as WAN2: optional 4G/5G failover router
               └─ LAN 2.5G ── UniFi Flex 2.5G PoE (S0)
                    ├─ p1 PoE → S3 → U7 Lite AP (main bedroom)
                    ├─ p2 PoE → S5 → Flex Mini 2.5G (study, PoE-powered)
                    │              ├─ p1 Home mini PC        [Home]
                    │              ├─ p2 Monitor RJ45 → work laptop via TB4  [Work]
                    │              └─ p3 Printer             [Home]
                    ├─ p3 PoE → S2 → Reolink camera          [IoT]
                    ├─ p4 → S1 → Smart TV                    [IoT]
                    ├─ p5 → S4 → Kids' PC                    [Home]
                    └─ p6 → NAS (future)                     [Home]

UPS (APC BX950MI-GR) powers only ONT + UDR7 + PoE switch
(~50 W total, goal: ≥1 h of internet for work during outages)

The UDR7 covers the living room, kitchen and study; the U7 Lite covers the bedrooms. There is no AP in the kids' room on purpose.

3. Hardware

• Router: UniFi Dream Router 7 (UDR7)
• Main switch: UniFi Flex 2.5G PoE (USW-Flex-2.5G-8-PoE) with its AC adapter
• Study switch: UniFi Flex Mini 2.5G, powered via PoE
• AP: UniFi U7 Lite, PoE from the Flex 2.5G PoE (the UDR7's PoE port is 802.3af only)
• UPS: APC Back-UPS BX950MI-GR
• Study desk: Dell U3225QE monitor with built-in KVM, shared between the work laptop (single TB4 cable) and an ASUS NUC 15 Pro+ (Core Ultra 7 255H, 2x16 GB, 1 TB). Keyboard, mouse and webcam sit on the monitor's USB hub.

4. VLANs

• Firewall (zone-based): IoT gets its own zone. Home → IoT is allowed (with return traffic), IoT → Internal is blocked, IoT → Internet is allowed. Work, Guest and Kids use "Isolate network".
• SSIDs: Home on 2.4/5/6 GHz. Work on 2.4/5 GHz. IoT on 2.4 GHz only, WPA2, with Enhanced IoT Connectivity on and the old SSID and password reused so devices reconnect without re-pairing. Kids on 2.4/5 GHz with an on/off toggle and a schedule. Guest on 5 GHz only. That keeps it to 4 SSIDs per band.
• Other: mDNS on Home + IoT (for casting to the TV), IPS on, UPnP off, fixed IPs for the printer and NAS, remote access only via the built-in WireGuard VPN, automatic updates at night.

Questions

1. Is this too complex for a beginner? Anything you would simplify?
2. Will UDR7 at S0 + U7 Lite at S3 cover this layout through brick walls, including the balcony where the Blink camera sits?
3. Any known issues running Mitsubishi (MELCloud), Netatmo/Legrand, Alexa, Blink or Reolink on an isolated IoT VLAN behind the zone-based firewall?
4. Dell U3225QE KVM: does the monitor's built-in NIC follow the KVM switch? My plan is to disable that USB NIC on the home PC so it never lands on the Work VLAN. Is that enough?
5. Is the UPS sizing reasonable for ~50 W and 1 hour of runtime?
6. Anything important I've missed?
7. Feel free toi suggest different manufactureres or models for network components.

Even if the post seems very detailed, I confirm I am not an expert as this will be my very first network with such detailed features, I just used Claude to help me in defining a good configuration and selection of components. But I prefer to have some "human opinion" and suggestions.

Thanks a lot!

Ive been watching videos and reading on Reddit about UniFi vs TP link and what not but it’s been a month of going back and forth in my head so I figured I’d just post something. Main questions at the bottom

I work in IT and have a desire to learn more about networking topics because I don’t do it myself at work but but deal with networking all the time. So I would like to understand things more. Like setting up different VLANs, firewall rules, looking at traffic, inbound/outbound internet rules, etc.

Based on things I have been reading it seems like go with UniFi if you want to have something stable (which is important to me I don’t want to troubleshoot things at work all day just to come home and figure out why my WiFi isn’t working on any random day) and go with opnsense/own hardware if you want to learn networking.

Questions:
- Is UniFi too simple to make you understand networking topics?
- If my desire to learn networking is higher than the hopefully my desire to not deal with things breaking at home should I go with my own hardware? I would think the amount of times something breaks would be infrequent but it’s still a thought I have
- Is being vendor locked as “suffocating” as it sounds or is it not that big of a deal?

I have spectrum fiber and using the spectrum equipment. Recently finished a shed conversion for an office 200' away, used a cat6 Ethernet run directly into the spectrum router and speeds are limited to 100. Any ideas on why the speeds are limited. Tried a different cable with no change.