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How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

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Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#151

Post by microcolonel »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #119
walterbell wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which network vendor has better security updates? Can you point to a specific example of them not fixing a security issue that was addresssd by others? How would you compare Microtik to Ubiquiti?

> Which network vendor has better security updates? I'd imagine pretty much any network vendor doing business in the enterprise sector (e.g. HP, Cisco, Juniper, Dell, etc, etc) > Can you point to a specific example of them not fixing a security issue that was addresssd by others? I haven't looked recently, but when I last updated my ER-X I noticed that the latest available packages included a large number that were n…

> I'd imagine pretty much any network vendor doing business in the enterprise sector (e.g. HP, Cisco, Juniper, Dell, etc, etc)

Whatever you do, don't use Cisco Meraki. Their edge equipment didn't correctly implement STP until like... a couple years ago; and it is known to stall inbound TCP, while leaving those same sockets open for outbound traffic, randomly and frequently.

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#152

Post by lmz »

ISO-morphism wrote: post #110
aequitas wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm currently using Mikrotik happily for AP and router needs, but considering switching to a Ubnt setup for ease of management that does not depend on Windows/Wine and without having to write my own configuration management tooling. As central management is somewhat lacking. What are your considerations for not choosing Ubnt for routing?

I'm not GP, but what drove me towards MT and away from Ubnt was Ubiquiti's history of violating the GPL [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9331512

Is the Mikrotik any better in this regard? Has anyone taken them up on the offer of a GPL source code CD?

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#153

Post by Serow225 »

dogecoinbase wrote: post #124
inferiorhuman wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fine, I'll say it: Ubiquiti is not suitable for a business environment. They don't have a good track record of pushing out security fixes. They've blatantly violated the GPL (and introduced security vulns in the process). Their "enterprise" features don't work well (e.g. hardware acceleration, WPA+Radius). Depending on what you buy the PoE may be non-standard passive or it may not. Unfortunately because they're prima…

_Thank you_. I'm constantly astonished to see folks extolling UBNT gear for anything other than WISP purposes (where it admittedly fits a price profile that's unmatchable). Read about the first ~10 months of the ES16-XG DAC support issues. Read about how EdgeRouters could never approach even 40% of line rate with fq_codel running. Read about how they lied about the future of the mFi line for 8+ months before abandoni…

Whats the better alternative to fit the needs of a shoestring startup (say 5-10devs)?

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#154

Post by ufo »

> Multiple access points should share the same SSID. [...]. If you use separate SSIDs [...] it will often lead to laptop users remaining marginally connected to an AP they’re barely within range of.

I constantly run into this issue in my home network. Is solving it really just a matter of reconfiguring the routers to share she same SSID or is there more to it?

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#155

Post by Serow225 »

akurilin wrote: post #25

If you're based in SF and want to have a high quality boutique IT shop work with you, without hiring IT staff yourself, then I can't recommend https://www.boxit.net/ enough. I was managing consumer grade routers for the company since its inception until we switched to Aruba APs (which are awesome The one thing to watch out for is VoIP in SF office buildings. Our APs conflict with about 300 other APs in the area, so g…

Thank you!!

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#156

Post by eli »

ufo wrote: post #154

> Multiple access points should share the same SSID. [...]. If you use separate SSIDs [...] it will often lead to laptop users remaining marginally connected to an AP they’re barely within range of. I constantly run into this issue in my home network. Is solving it really just a matter of reconfiguring the routers to share she same SSID or is there more to it?

It’ll probably help. In practice it’s always still a little wonky. I think it’s on the OS to determine if to when there’s a closer AP to switch to

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#157

Post by twunde »

walterbell wrote: post #131
inferiorhuman wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which network vendor has better security updates? I'd imagine pretty much any network vendor doing business in the enterprise sector (e.g. HP, Cisco, Juniper, Dell, etc, etc) > Can you point to a specific example of them not fixing a security issue that was addresssd by others? I haven't looked recently, but when I last updated my ER-X I noticed that the latest available packages included a large number that were n…

Cisco has not been having a good year, https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hardcoded-pas... Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite (not ER-X) is apparently supported by vanilla OpenBSD.

This is actually good news. Cisco has been doing real security audits, where they go through the source code with a fine tooth comb and look for hidden backdoors. And even better they're actually telling us about them instead of turning them off silently. You can bet that a significant number of competitors have similar issues with backdoors. This is a case where a vendor is actively looking for security problems and putting in place processes to prevent them vs the normal vendors who just respond to security reports.

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#158

Post by leesalminen »

tbyehl wrote: post #139
TomVDB wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I installed Ubiquiti at home and it was a terrible experience. I really wanted it to work, but my wife teased me long enough about my "professional grade" installation that I gave up. She was right. The biggest issue was range, which was much worse than what I got with I had with a traditional consumer access point (I had a TP-Link Archer C7.) It was not even close. The handover didn't work very well either. Much old…

The problem with UniFi is people read about how great it was for someone who somewhat haphazardly flung a few APs around their house and lived happily ever after... and for many it's just not going to work out that way. A lot of work can go into making WiFi work well. With multiple APs you've got to adjust the Transmit power (defaults to Auto, which means High, which is generally bad). For good roaming, increasing th…

> For good roaming, increasing the minRSSI is critical.

This! I thought the UAPs sucked until I played with transmit power and especially min RSSI.

I’ve been using the UniFi line for about a year now, covering the whole property and house in rock-solid WiFi. It took a few hours of walking around with a laptop and tinkering with settings/placement but I couldn’t be happier now.

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#159

Post by inferiorhuman »

walterbell wrote: post #131
inferiorhuman wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which network vendor has better security updates? I'd imagine pretty much any network vendor doing business in the enterprise sector (e.g. HP, Cisco, Juniper, Dell, etc, etc) > Can you point to a specific example of them not fixing a security issue that was addresssd by others? I haven't looked recently, but when I last updated my ER-X I noticed that the latest available packages included a large number that were n…

Cisco has not been having a good year, https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hardcoded-pas... Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite (not ER-X) is apparently supported by vanilla OpenBSD.

> Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite (not ER-X) is apparently supported by vanilla OpenBSD.

The ER-L is what I spoke of when I referred to the chronic overheating problems. From a different reply to my comment it sounds like there may be other Ubnt devices that suffer the same fate. The ER-L also has issues with reordering UDP packets.

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#160

Post by sulam »

ufo wrote: post #154

> Multiple access points should share the same SSID. [...]. If you use separate SSIDs [...] it will often lead to laptop users remaining marginally connected to an AP they’re barely within range of. I constantly run into this issue in my home network. Is solving it really just a matter of reconfiguring the routers to share she same SSID or is there more to it?

It really is that easy in my experience. I had five APs at the last house and Android, iOS, MacOS and Windows all were able to hunt automatically as long as I had the same SSID. When I tried to get cute stuff got a lot less usable.
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