Nobody wants my info dump. I know way too much about networking and computers. The topics are massively deep, like iceberg levels of deep. One for each topic.
I could lecture for an entire day on the nuance and considerations of picking a Wi-Fi channel, or you can ignore me and just hit “auto” which may or may not take some, or all, of my considerations into account when selecting a channel.
If anyone is keen to hear some generally good advice about home networking, here’s my elevator speech:
Wire when you can, wireless when you have to. Wi-Fi is shared and half duplex, every wired connection is exclusive to the device and full duplex.
If you can’t Ethernet, use MoCA, or powerline (depending on what internal power structures you have, this can be excellent or unusable, keep your receipts). Mesh is best with a dedicated backhaul, better with a wired backhaul. Demand it from any system you consider.
The latest and greatest Wi-Fi technology probably won’t fix whatever problem you’re having, it will only temporarily reduce the symptoms and you won’t notice it for a while. Be weary about upgrading and ask yourself why you require the upgrade. Newer wireless won’t fix bad signal, or dropouts.
For everything else, Google. That’s how I find most of the information I know.
Good luck.
I’ll be around in case anyone has questions. No promises on when I’ll be able to reply tho.
What are the nuances between APs and how they handle choosing a channel? Also, I was told at one point it’s better to “stack” on top of other SSIDs using the same channel than to go one channel higher (assuming there isn’t room higher up in the spectrum).
Also, don’t use the wifi routers provided by Cocmast. Cocmast uses them to provide their xfinity-branded wifi, so as their customer you are literally sacrificing bandwidth and paying their electric bill. I assume all cable companies do this but Cocmast is the only one I know about for sure.
Dude these type of replies are what had made reddit such a great time sink, even random browsing you may find something incredible in the comments. Thank you
I’ve been switching a lot of my devices to ESP-NOW instead of WiFi so that they can just fart out their data to anyone who can hear it and then go back to sleep, no connecting or handshaking or authenticating or overhead. Should clear up my wifi network I think.
If I’m not mistaken, they still use 2.4 GHz, which is also used by wifi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, a bunch of other stuff… Microwave ovens…
And anything operating on a frequency, regardless of protocol, will interfere with eachother. I think the main benefit for you would be the brief amount of active time, could reduce the airtime being used by the devices.
I hope it works out for you and your wifi works excellently. Just be aware that it could still interfere.
Use 5ghz when possible.
Should I learn iptables or is it more sane to use a front end like ufw?
I have an RPI with dual Ethernet between my modem and consumer router so I don’t have to depend on the obsolete and limited consumer router software. I’m using OpenWRT at the moment but curious if you have other recommendations. I like the Luci gui so if I switched to headless Debian or something then I’d still want a luci equivalent.
I’m self hosting with docker and I want to set up a wireguard vpn container that joins a network with a select set of containers. So I’d have containers that are accessible only by actual LAN users and then others that are in this isolated group that only the VPN (i.e. WAN people) can access. I thought that’s what docker was all about! But by default it seems all authenticated VPN peers just get to be on the LAN. Sure, they can’t get at containers on a different docker bridge network, but they get to access the host itself! This is why I asked about iptables above, but it’s daunting. Any ideas on how to achieve “two levels of trust” for self hosted services?
Nobody wants my info dump. I know way too much about networking and computers. The topics are massively deep, like iceberg levels of deep. One for each topic.
I could lecture for an entire day on the nuance and considerations of picking a Wi-Fi channel, or you can ignore me and just hit “auto” which may or may not take some, or all, of my considerations into account when selecting a channel.
If anyone is keen to hear some generally good advice about home networking, here’s my elevator speech:
Wire when you can, wireless when you have to. Wi-Fi is shared and half duplex, every wired connection is exclusive to the device and full duplex. If you can’t Ethernet, use MoCA, or powerline (depending on what internal power structures you have, this can be excellent or unusable, keep your receipts). Mesh is best with a dedicated backhaul, better with a wired backhaul. Demand it from any system you consider. The latest and greatest Wi-Fi technology probably won’t fix whatever problem you’re having, it will only temporarily reduce the symptoms and you won’t notice it for a while. Be weary about upgrading and ask yourself why you require the upgrade. Newer wireless won’t fix bad signal, or dropouts.
For everything else, Google. That’s how I find most of the information I know.
Good luck.
I’ll be around in case anyone has questions. No promises on when I’ll be able to reply tho.
What are the nuances between APs and how they handle choosing a channel? Also, I was told at one point it’s better to “stack” on top of other SSIDs using the same channel than to go one channel higher (assuming there isn’t room higher up in the spectrum).
Thank you for your time and expertise!
Also, don’t use the wifi routers provided by Cocmast. Cocmast uses them to provide their xfinity-branded wifi, so as their customer you are literally sacrificing bandwidth and paying their electric bill. I assume all cable companies do this but Cocmast is the only one I know about for sure.
Dude these type of replies are what had made reddit such a great time sink, even random browsing you may find something incredible in the comments. Thank you
Thanks. I’ve been on hiatus for a bit. I’m around.
I still won’t go back to that place either way
It’s okay to message you?
I’ve been switching a lot of my devices to ESP-NOW instead of WiFi so that they can just fart out their data to anyone who can hear it and then go back to sleep, no connecting or handshaking or authenticating or overhead. Should clear up my wifi network I think.
If I’m not mistaken, they still use 2.4 GHz, which is also used by wifi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, a bunch of other stuff… Microwave ovens…
And anything operating on a frequency, regardless of protocol, will interfere with eachother. I think the main benefit for you would be the brief amount of active time, could reduce the airtime being used by the devices.
I hope it works out for you and your wifi works excellently. Just be aware that it could still interfere. Use 5ghz when possible.
Yay!
Should I learn iptables or is it more sane to use a front end like ufw?
I have an RPI with dual Ethernet between my modem and consumer router so I don’t have to depend on the obsolete and limited consumer router software. I’m using OpenWRT at the moment but curious if you have other recommendations. I like the Luci gui so if I switched to headless Debian or something then I’d still want a luci equivalent.
I’m self hosting with docker and I want to set up a wireguard vpn container that joins a network with a select set of containers. So I’d have containers that are accessible only by actual LAN users and then others that are in this isolated group that only the VPN (i.e. WAN people) can access. I thought that’s what docker was all about! But by default it seems all authenticated VPN peers just get to be on the LAN. Sure, they can’t get at containers on a different docker bridge network, but they get to access the host itself! This is why I asked about iptables above, but it’s daunting. Any ideas on how to achieve “two levels of trust” for self hosted services?