Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ubiquiti all the things: How I fixed my dodgy Wi-Fi

troyhunt.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 277 posts

Re: Ubiquiti all the things: How I fixed my dodgy Wi-Fi

#121

Post by kutkloon7 »

shmerl wrote: post #35

> I got a variety of responses including that I should install the open source dd-wrt firmware... No, no, a hundred times no... Silly. If the author doesn't want to follow good advice, too bad for him. I'm using WRT1900ACS with DD-WRT. It works like a charm. > if I buy a product then I expect it to work as advertised and not need to implement hacks to keep it alive. It's not a "hack". It's installing a better quality…

I know that most people who've had their fair share of problems with technology understand the author and identify with him immediately when he says: "No, no, a hundred times no to both - if I buy a product then I expect it to work as advertised and not need to implement hacks to keep it alive.".

The thing with technology, and especially smartphones and computers, is that there seems to be a trend going that devices dictate your behaviour, and not the other way around. For example, windows 10 makes it extremely hard to change files in some locations, won't let the user decide when to reboot and install updates, and regularly bothers the user with useless messages: 'a virus scan (hm, I don't remember starting one?) has completed without detecting any threats.'.

A lot of people have better things to do with their time. Likewise, when want to program stuff it happens that I spent more time on my tools than on coding (visual studio crashes, or won't let me start my program because there is a zombie process, or I messed up my github repository somehow).

People want to manage their own time and are willing to pay for that (especially wealthy peoplee). This is why people buy overpriced stuff (like Apple!). It is true for most hobbies that you can do them cheaply and with a lot of effort, but everyone who is involved in a more serious way usually says: 'spend some more and you'll have a much better time'.

Re: Ubiquiti all the things: How I fixed my dodgy Wi-Fi

#122

Post by pilsetnieks »

lobster_johnson wrote: post #99
colanderman wrote: post #54

For the rest of us with budgets of less than a month's rent, I'd recommend Mikrotik. Just as reliable as an Ubiquiti (as in, never needs a reboot), yet is still a single box you can set in the corner and forget about if you wish. Or set up a mesh of their $20 units to blanket your three-story house if you're so lucky. (Nothing against Ubiquiti which I'm sure is great, but I've been a very happy Mikrotik user for year…

I have a Mikrotik HAP AClite. It's a great OS, I love the techy admin and shell access; it's great as a router, and rock solid (haven't needed to reboot it since I bought it last year). But as much as I admire it, I can't recommend it as a wifi access point. It doesn't have an external antenna, and its performance compared to consumer routers is pretty mediocre. I have it running in my office, and in my living room (…

If you haven't even tried different wifi channels, it's not a valid critique, is it? Especially for such a complicated device that doesn't do any handholding for you.

You wouldn't expect to buy a Cisco box, for example, plop it down and automagically do everything without serious time invested in configuring it.

Re: Ubiquiti all the things: How I fixed my dodgy Wi-Fi

#123

Post by ianal_uanal »

trymas wrote: post #120
finnn wrote: post #7

Since we're all saying nice things about Ubiquiti, I feel obliged to point out that they are actively violating the GPL: http://libertybsd.net/ubiquiti/

> And ultimately, the relevant team never responded, hoping that I would simply forget about it or give up. > However, if we want the GPL to retain its power, this is precisely what we cannot do. One of the most important things. IANAL and not an expert on licenses, but what's the point of GPL if it does not protect itself and the code it's applied to?

s/GPL/copyright/g and you get your answer.

Re: Ubiquiti all the things: How I fixed my dodgy Wi-Fi

#124

Post by ianal_uanal »

PietdeVries wrote: post #91
OriginalPenguin wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. And here I was just thinking with this week's Netgear security vulnerability, maybe it was time to switch to Ubiquiti. Guess I'll just wait for the Netgear patch and save my money.

I have two of their products, and must say: when they work, they work awesome! Range is great, monitoring is great - just compliments. But a firmware upgrade on their access point caused quite a lot of trouble. And with only one access point I seemed to be the lucky one, others had more work fixing it. Some got bricked when trying to revert to the old firmware. Support forum should provide background information if r…

Countless UBNT deployments. Not a single problem ever. Only wish was they didn't restart after config change.

Re: Ubiquiti all the things: How I fixed my dodgy Wi-Fi

#125

Post by smhg »

shmerl wrote: post #35

> I got a variety of responses including that I should install the open source dd-wrt firmware... No, no, a hundred times no... Silly. If the author doesn't want to follow good advice, too bad for him. I'm using WRT1900ACS with DD-WRT. It works like a charm. > if I buy a product then I expect it to work as advertised and not need to implement hacks to keep it alive. It's not a "hack". It's installing a better quality…

Some help for anyone looking into DD-WRT. I use it on 2 routers (a dirt cheap TP-link and a higher end Netgear) for >3 years. Both have been stable and performant. No known issues. Things are definitely better than stock firmware.

The approach I took:

- When you're new to DD-WRT, look up your router in the database on their website. Take some time to read about installation (and maybe configuration) on their wiki. I never bricked any routers, but I can imagine taking it one step at a time prevents some headaches. Using their website search will lead you to builds which are a few years old (might differ for newer routers). I installed those initially. It might not be a bad idea to start with those as they probably match the documentation.

- But, you can also update with newer beta versions. They gave me the same stability and performance. You'll get more options and a nicer interface, but presumably also security fixes. Find those through their FTP [0]. Be sure to read which exact build you need in the wiki.

So all in all a bit rough, but worth the effort. You'll get basically the same options as the OP.

[0] http://download1.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/downloads/betas/

Re: Ubiquiti all the things: How I fixed my dodgy Wi-Fi

#126

Post by jon-wood »

nikcub wrote: post #5

The best side effect of buying proper WiFi gear is breaking up what is for most people usually an all-in-one device into devices - modem, router, access point - that are dedicated to each distinct task. The high-end gear many get for running open firmware can get expensive. It isn't hard to spend less money on dedicated devices and get better performance. What I spent on an EdgeRouter, AP AC Pro and a good managed sw…

Which Edgerouter did you get, because at the firmware level its quite capable of WAN failover and routing over VPNs if you've got enough ethernet ports on it.

Re: Ubiquiti all the things: How I fixed my dodgy Wi-Fi

#127

Post by ianal_uanal »

b3lvedere wrote: post #119

Great story. Unfortunately i do not have the luxury to spend $2200 on the network infrastructure in my humble home. I do however have a lot of 2nd hand hardware and am able to invest some time into optimizing them for my family's internet needs. It may not be perfect, but it works 90% of the time and i learn a lot about connecting lots of different devices and (virtual) machines.

You don't have to. You can do it much cheaper with Ubiquiti's products. EdgeRouter X + AP AC (Pro)

Re: Ubiquiti all the things: How I fixed my dodgy Wi-Fi

#128

Post by jon-wood »

b3lvedere wrote: post #119

Great story. Unfortunately i do not have the luxury to spend $2200 on the network infrastructure in my humble home. I do however have a lot of 2nd hand hardware and am able to invest some time into optimizing them for my family's internet needs. It may not be perfect, but it works 90% of the time and i learn a lot about connecting lots of different devices and (virtual) machines.

Unless you've got a huge house you don't actually need to drop two thousand dollars on networking gear. I'm covering a three bedroom house using one of Ubiquiti's cheapest AC capable access points and the EdgeRouter-X, the whole lot cost me about £120 which is in the ballpark of a consumer router with wireless, yet massively more capable and reliable. Since installing it I've been able to just stop thinking about my home network. It just takes whatever we throw at it, and the wifi is plenty fast enough to stream HD video to the TV.

Re: Ubiquiti all the things: How I fixed my dodgy Wi-Fi

#129

Post by jon-wood »

rblatz wrote: post #70
freen wrote: post #24

I'll repeat what I have said on previous threads: if you have a low RF noise environment, ubiquiti is ideal. Anything else, you need to buy a real system with three radios per node and a smart controller that adjusts channel/power on the fly.

I live in an apartment with probably 15 wifi networks visible at any time. Plus my xm radio has recently started cutting out in the parking lot of my apartment, it's either the microwave radio tower or noise coming from the high voltage lines/electrical substation behind my complex. I "upgraded" last Christmas to a Linksys AC router, it was awful had to reboot it daily to get wifi to work, got annoyed and picked up a…

You could probably be a good neighbour and turn down the transmit power on your router, your current setup is equivalent to dealing with not being able to hear a conversation in a crowded room by shouting at the top of your voice and forcing everyone else to get louder as well.

Re: Ubiquiti all the things: How I fixed my dodgy Wi-Fi

#130

Post by jon-wood »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #11

I was in a similar conversation with another friend about networking gear. We both have similar philosophies which are split networks, one guest and one private. The guest network gets things that want to phone home, the private network gets things which are supposed to be on the network, both networks have their outbound accesses logged. Firewall in the router, deep packet inspection with source/destination IPs to i…

I keep meaning to set something like that up but get stuck on the problem of giving devices on the private network the ability to interact with the guest network, for example I make pretty heavy use of Spotify Connect for streaming music to speakers, and have Philips Hue lights, both of which need some way of communicating with them from my phone.
Post reply on HN