Thoughts on Network Setup

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

After finally buying a house last year. I wanted to complete a mini project and get a small network running at home. I just wanted your opinions on what would work and what wouldn't. I'm pretty new to this, so am learning as I research so excuse anything that's incorrect. What I'm thinking is attached below.

 

 

TP Link Switch is TL-SG108E and I'm undecided about the 5 port in the living room, but will probably be an unmanaged TP Link one too. 

 

All cabling will be Cat 6, but from what I understand the connection between the two routers needs to be a cross over, as opposed to a patch.

 

Any thoughts, criticisms etc welcome!

[Tomo]

Routers are intelligent to know what the type of cable plugged into it and adjust accordingly, just use normal patch cables and you'll be fine. Also there's not much point using CAT6, CAT5e is capable of gigabit speeds. Apart from that looks ok to me.

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

Thanks

 

[+Fahim S. MVC]

Set up makes sense (logically) but it makes it difficult to tell how far things are apart which might result in it making less sense...

[+BudMan MVC]

what 2 routers I don't see 2 routers in that picture?

 

As to crossover cables.. Router to router normally crossover yes, switch to switch yes.  But keep in mind these days pretty much all interfaces are auto cross over.  So when you connect 2 switches, that connection will auto cross, when you connect from your router to a switch it will normally autocross, same for soho router devices if your using one as downstream or even double natting.

 

Only real time you would use crossover these days is in enterprise equipment, even then when you uplink switches they autocross.  Even in enterprise equipment from nic to nic, if one of the nics are gig it by the 1000base-t standard have to support auto crossover.

 

So its really rare these days to find actual crossover cable in use.  Other than when say different equipment doesn't like to play nice together, its only 10/100 nics in a router say.

 

I personally if going to buy new switches, get atleast smart switch that have some basic feature set like vlans, they are pennies more than your dumb switches to be honest.  Just not really worth it to buy true dumb switch these days.  TP-link say 5 port gig currently on amazon TL-SG105E is 25$ smart has basic features with vlan support.  The TL-SG105 DUMB is 19$  your talking a cup of coffee difference in cost for gosh sake

 

Out of the box they can be used as just plain dumb if that is what you want.  So its not like you have to configure anything for them to work.  But when it comes to say you need a feature like set specific port speed, or igmp snooping, or a vlan now you don't need a new switch.

 

Just being able to see what mac is connected to what port can be very helpful in finding a piece of gear.  Or the stats on specific switch port how much traffic is flowing over it, any errors on the port, etc.  Well worth the cost of a coffee difference in cost.

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

  On 31/05/2016 at 14:52, Fahim S. said:

Set up makes sense (logically) but it makes it difficult to tell how far things are apart which might result in it making less sense...

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Hmm, not sure about actual distances, but it's a 2 floor house. Main switch will be in the loft, PCs/server in office, router/TV/consoles etc are in the living room 

 

  On 31/05/2016 at 15:04, BudMan said:

snip

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Woops I meant two switches. 

 

So stick with with Cat 5e, patch cables. The 8 port switch I got from another thread which you recommended but didn't think to look at a 5 port equivalent. It's one I haven't ordered yet so will take a look. 

 

Initially they'll just be used as dumb switches and once I do some more reading up on it all, I'll play around with the config and screw things up.

 

Thanks for taking a look

[+BudMan MVC]

Any modern day switch, gig switch for sure is going to support auto cross over.  So no need for any crossover.. Sure Cat 5e is fine, just need to pick up a patch that is long enough to connect them.  Or you could get fancy and put in boxes in your wall to term the connections.

 

You buy standard patch in 100 foot real easy.  Should be more than long enough.  And you can get them up to limit if need be, or you buy bulk and term the ends yourself, etc.

[BinaryData]

  On 31/05/2016 at 13:43, Tomo said:

Routers are intelligent to know what the type of cable plugged into it and adjust accordingly, just use normal patch cables and you'll be fine. Also there's not much point using CAT6, CAT5e is capable of gigabit speeds. Apart from that looks ok to me.

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Cat5e is easier to terminate as well. You don't have to deal with that damn plastic divider in the cat6. Always hated dealing with that piece.

 

I don't own my house, but I've been looking into running cables in the wall, just so I don't have cables every where. Hell, even out to my garage I have a 3" PVC Pipe running with a single cat6 in it. My entire property will have WiFi by the end of the summer.

 

Looks like a pretty decent setup. If you have WiFi rolling, which I'll assume you do, grab a WiFi scanner app on your smart phone. Check out what your neighbors are using so you can pick a channel outside of their band. Not sure how cluttered your neighborhood is, but every house on my block has 2 WiFi signals, including the retirement home, which runs 56k I swear.

[DevTech]

Don't know what router you have. If your internet connection is greater than 100mbs, you would want to check for a gigabit port and cable from router to switch.

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

  On 01/06/2016 at 05:22, BinaryData said:

Cat5e is easier to terminate as well. You don't have to deal with that damn plastic divider in the cat6. Always hated dealing with that piece.

 

I don't own my house, but I've been looking into running cables in the wall, just so I don't have cables every where. Hell, even out to my garage I have a 3" PVC Pipe running with a single cat6 in it. My entire property will have WiFi by the end of the summer.

 

Looks like a pretty decent setup. If you have WiFi rolling, which I'll assume you do, grab a WiFi scanner app on your smart phone. Check out what your neighbors are using so you can pick a channel outside of their band. Not sure how cluttered your neighborhood is, but every house on my block has 2 WiFi signals, including the retirement home, which runs 56k I swear.

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Yeah, ideally I did want to run it all through the walls but it's going to be difficult with out a lot of (costly) work. At least in this property the setup is fine for now. 

 

A friend mentioned the WiFi scanner so my 2.5 and 5 Ghz networks have already been changed to the best channel. 

 

  On 01/06/2016 at 05:54, DevTech said:

Don't know what router you have. If your internet connection is greater than 100mbs, you would want to check for a gigabit port and cable from router to switch.

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I'm not sure of the actual model but I'm pretty sure it's ready for Gigabit. 8 port switch and cables should be delivered today or tomorrow so will have fun playing around with that stuff over the next few days.