60 lines
2.8 KiB
Markdown
60 lines
2.8 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Ubiquiti Unifi at home
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date: 2017-08-20 18:00:00
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---
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I have been using the same router with OpenWRT installed for now 8 years
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and recently my network was beginning to become somewhat insufficient. I
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have a number of servers in my home, a number of mobile devices connected
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by Wifi and the router is in the living room whereas we both have a desktop
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computer on an another floor, without cabled network in the home.
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Until now, the network was using a single router in the living room, a
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Devolo dLAN650+ to distribute the network both to the servers in an another
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room and to the office. It worked well in our small appartement but now
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that we are living in a house and the office is upstairs, the power network
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in the house is split and the connectivity between the living room and
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the office is insufficient and connecting every device using the Wifi grinds
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the network to a halt for some reason.
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After seeing a lot of people on the internet happy with their Unifi network,
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I decided to look into it and despite the cost, I decided to jump into it
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and install everything.
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The hardware used is the following:
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* UniFi Security Gateway 3P
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* UniFi Switch 8 POE-60W
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* UniFi AP-AC-Lite
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* UniFi AP-AC-Pro
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* UniFi CloudKey
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Since the office is not connected by cable to the living room, I had to
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plan for a somewhat non-conventional network using the AP-AC-Lite in
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bridge mode to forward the WiFi traffic back into a cabled network. I
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know this is not kosher, but I didn't want to buy devices that won't be
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used the day we move to a new house.
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The setup was really easy: Plug the Security Gateway into the ISP modem,
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plug the POE Switch to everything. Wait some minutes that everything boots
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up during which you can download the Chrome App that helps detect and
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setup the new devices.
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Once every device is light-up blue, connect to the [unifi](http://unifi.ubnt.com/)
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cloud interface, create an account, adopt every device, upgrade them and
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configure the network as needed. I have to say, it has been a long time
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since I played that much with a network device and it has been fun.
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The configuration of the bridge, the dreaded part as every hint on the
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Internet has been *don't do that*, was also really easy: disconnect the
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AC-Lite, connect it to the POE injector without a cable back to the main
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network. After a minute or so, it is marked as isolated, as which point
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it is possible to configure a *Wireless uplink* to the main AP-AC. Easy,
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quick and from what I can tell, the speed and ping from the office computers
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is now largely improved over the previous dLAN connection.
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Everything has been installed and configured in one evening and as I
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configured the Wifi the same as before, no device had to be reconfigured.
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It's really crazy to see the speed improvement on WiFi over the last
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router that was already a good router by (consumer) comparison.
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