Network setup help

Hey folks, I have a couple things I would like some advice on. Currently for my home network setup I have my ISP’s modem/router combo set to bridge port 1, and then some google wifi and points connected to that.

My goal is to get rid of the google home wifi and if possible my ISP’s modem/router combo (I don’t really need to replace my ISP if it makes it way more complicated) with something more open and flexible.

I have a couple dell optiplex micros I can use as a pihole/dns/whatever is needed, and I was thinking of picking up a couple of these for my WAP’s and then running the omada docker container to control them.

Would this be enough or would I also need something like openwrt running on another machine as well? If that’s the case I could also pick up this and install it into one of my dell machines so I can run some kind of router software.

TLDR- what would you buy in my situation given you only want to spend about $500 cad max on all the hardware to setup a network in your home lab?

xyguy , (edited )

I don't have a ton of faith in tplink to continue to support omada over the long term. They've also been somewhat slow to fix security problems in the past. For the same price as the omada ap you can get unifi u6 lites.

You can still run your own controller and i can vouch thaf a couple of them can cover an entire moderately sized house. I run 2 at home with pfsense on an ewaste tier dell optiplex and have for years without trouble.

I've never messed with opnsense but I assume it works just as well.

Also what type of connection are you getting from your ISP? If its a fiber connection you may be able to buy an SFP network card and replace the modem altogether.

mrtoast72 OP ,
@mrtoast72@lemmy.world avatar

Ah I was hoping to stay away from ubiquiti but it seems more and more that I should go with them for long term support. I’m hoping to purchase things that will be decent for the next 5-10 years, so things like wifi 6e and 4x4 mu-memo is what steered me away from them in the first place because the cost of entry is really high.

My ISP provides gigabit fiber, so I’ll look into maybe getting an SFP network card.

I googled open source router, and open sense was the first thing that came up, but I probably be going with pfsense anyways.

Thanks for all the info!

JustEnoughDucks ,
@JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl avatar

But to be fair, even 2 ASUS WiFi 6E on their zenwifi like for example are like >300€. A Cloud gateway ultra + U7 pro + PoE injector is around that too. For me the router/AP entrance is in a place that barely gives a signal so it makes so sense to have an access point there.

So I would get more or less the same signal with 1 access point + a wired router than 2 access points.

Depends on your situation of course.

jet ,

Do one thing at a time, don't buy equipment unless you have a actionable use case for it.

Isp cpe in bridge mode

One of the boxes can be your gateway

You can keep using the Google Wi-Fi.

You can play around with proxmox, xen, etc, to run a bunch of containers, or virtual machines, to do different things on your network. I think you can do it all with your current hardware

fuzzy_feeling ,

their goal was to get rid of the google wifi.
so i'd get an openwrt box, hook that to the isp modem and call it a day.

jet ,

True, but you can use your gateway to cut off google wifi from google, and still use the radios. No need to buy new hardware.

Heck, you can put openwrt on some google wifi models https://openwrt.org/toh/google/wifi

My advice stays the same, work with what you have first, save your budget, then SLOWLY, after doing research, buy one thing, and fit it in.

Your advice is good if you just want the fastest way to de-google yourself, but i think the OP wants to run a homelab, and learn, and understand.

mrtoast72 OP ,
@mrtoast72@lemmy.world avatar

So to start off, I have an active home lab already going with a bunch of services running. I’m looking to strictly de-google my network. Their WAP’s have issues with connectivity and reliability and they are a pain to try and configure, google really locks down what you can do on them.

Unfortunately that software won’t work on my version of google wifi, it’s just a little to new for that.

I am actively looking to replace things and not just make what I have work anymore, wether that’s one peace at a time (just the Google stuff) or the whole networking setup.

jet ,

Fair enough, can't go wrong with Ubiquiti, Mikrotik, Grandstream for radios.

mrtoast72 OP ,
@mrtoast72@lemmy.world avatar

Good to know! I’m trying to stay away from Ubiquiti only because of their entry cost would set me back a little over $1000, but I’ll look into Mikrotik and Grandstream as well! Thank you

jet ,

Depending on your requirements, you can pick up used gear for quite cheap, set alerts on craigslist/marketplace/kijiji. i.e. one access point for like $30 used, and host your own network controller container to configure it.

If you want a single pane of glass whole network management, its going to be spendy no matter which ecosystem you go with.

mrtoast72 OP ,
@mrtoast72@lemmy.world avatar

Would turning one of my optiplexs into a openwrt box and buying some WAP’s be the way to go then? I will need a couple of access points to reach all devices

poVoq ,
@poVoq@slrpnk.net avatar

If you can install a second gigabit NIC into the optiplex it can work very nicely with OPNSense as the main gateway. Then you can connect the LAN side to a simple un-managed switch and branch out to anything further from there.

Edit: OpenWRT is a bit of a pain to manage on x86, so I would try to avoid it for that.

mrtoast72 OP ,
@mrtoast72@lemmy.world avatar

Perfect! Thankfully for $40 I can add a second gigabit connection to one of those dells, so I shall give that a go as well.
Thank you!

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