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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

#191

Post by spiralganglion »

fifnir wrote: post #188
petecooper wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And let's not speak of the chronically overheating stuff. Some-time wireless installer here, I bring a snippet of anecdata. A recent client had the full Unifi experience for an outdoor network, including 3x EdgeSwitch XP (formerly known as ToughSwitch) in a single IP65-rated, largely airtight enclosure. The network would go offline on summer afternoons. It was overheating, those models run hot and are not recommende…

Hey, just a little ysk: it's anecdote / anecdota from the greek word meaning "unpublished", nothing to do with data! :)

It’s a joke, derived from the saying “the plural of anecdote is not data.”

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#192

Post by [deleted] »

fifnir wrote: post #188
petecooper wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And let's not speak of the chronically overheating stuff. Some-time wireless installer here, I bring a snippet of anecdata. A recent client had the full Unifi experience for an outdoor network, including 3x EdgeSwitch XP (formerly known as ToughSwitch) in a single IP65-rated, largely airtight enclosure. The network would go offline on summer afternoons. It was overheating, those models run hot and are not recommende…

Hey, just a little ysk: it's anecdote / anecdota from the greek word meaning "unpublished", nothing to do with data! :)

[deleted]

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#193

Post by IcePic »

twunde wrote: post #157
walterbell wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Oh please.

The issue has more than one dimension. Apart from them being nice and auditing now, there is still the fact that their internal processes have allowed (and probably encouraged) stashed passwords in such a manner that 6 of them has been found in a really short time. Unless your process is total garbage you don't end up with 6 backdoor passwords like that without knowing it.

So for any company that prides themselves with having a device in the middle of LOTS of networks, its a very poor track record to figure out security and backdoors don't really mix in 2018.

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#194

Post by mmt »

Aloha wrote: post #185
mmt wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found that the threshold depends not so much on number of APs but on number of simultaneously active users/devices (arguably the ratio of those per AP, rather than total). An office of 30 people sharing 3 APs will encounter problems even if those same APs would have worked just fine for a family of 4 living in the same space. I've even found this to be true in a residential setting with consumer APs, where reduc…

I sincerely question the value of a managed wifi system for less than 5 hotspots, I also am even more dubious of the need for a cloud service. wifi should function without the need to phone home.

> I sincerely question the value of a managed wifi system

I'm not suggesting that there's necessarily value in "managed", but your parent comment was about the Ubiquiti product being overkill, which is a much broader statement.

The GP certainly advocates for management, but that's neither the primary value delivered by the overall product, nor the majority cost (even with a single AP). IIRC, this may not hold for competitors, such as Ruckus, where even the lowest-end "controller" is quite pricey.

> wifi should function without the need to phone home.

AFAIK, Ubiquiti's products can be run standalone, only requiring management software for initial configuration.

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#196

Post by isatty »

basch wrote: post #13
comboy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The above may sound like an Ubiquiti ad, but I've tested a few top specs routers about 2 years ago and settled with unifi for my home installation. I needed a good coverage and reliability for my home automation, e.g. when I switch lights on/off I want a consistent few milliseconds latency.

One of the FEW downsides for smaller installations, is them not selling a Cloud Key, Gateway, and Switch in a single box.

I just ran both UNMS and the UniFi controller on a gcp instance (free credits). Their software is unconsistent though (the fact that there’s separate UNMS for the edgerouter and UniFi for the aps should already tell you that) but for example: the UNMS container sets up letsencyrpt etc but unifi does not.

Had to modify it to mount bind a shared cert location.

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#197

Post by petecooper »

tnorthcutt wrote: post #163
petecooper wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And let's not speak of the chronically overheating stuff. Some-time wireless installer here, I bring a snippet of anecdata. A recent client had the full Unifi experience for an outdoor network, including 3x EdgeSwitch XP (formerly known as ToughSwitch) in a single IP65-rated, largely airtight enclosure. The network would go offline on summer afternoons. It was overheating, those models run hot and are not recommende…

143 Celsius ??? That's 289.4 Fahrenheit, which I find difficult to believe. Not impossible... just difficult. That's quite impressive.

For completeness, that was when the summer sun was shining directly on the enclosure in the hottest part of the day, during a country-wide hot spell. Still, no airflow, heat generation, etc.

Every day, cut out. When it cooled down, it worked again. This continued for about two months, then they failed.

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#198

Post by petecooper »

shrikant wrote: post #190
fifnir wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, just a little ysk: it's anecdote / anecdota from the greek word meaning "unpublished", nothing to do with data! :)

"Anecdata" is usually online shorthand these days for saying, "I know the plural of anecdote is not data, but fwiw here's my experience."

^ This is what I meant by it. Not corroborated by any scientific study, just a field report.

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#199

Post by inferiorhuman »

tmottabr wrote: post #167
inferiorhuman wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Note that nearly all of Ubiquiti's offerings are running modified OpenWRT, with a handful running a fork of VyOS which happens to be Debian plus some packages. EdgeOS is a Vyatta fork. Has Ubnt abandoned EdgeOS? It's been a few months since I've looked, but the version of Debian that's being used was end-of-lifed on MIPSLE hardware a while back so security updates are entirely incumbent upon Ubnt. There is no upstr…

The next version of EdgeOS , 2.0 that is currently in alpha, was rebased to Strech so this should be fixed soon enough. Their Unifi APs have option of a LEDE based firmware option, but think it is just beta at the moment. You can choose between the LEDE version and the regular version.

On the one hand it's good they're updating to a supported version of Debian. On the other, how is it still in alpha? Wheezy was EOL'd on all architectures in May.

Re: How we solved our office Wi-Fi problems

#200

Post by stef25 »

petecooper wrote: post #130
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…

>And let's not speak of the chronically overheating stuff. Some-time wireless installer here, I bring a snippet of anecdata. A recent client had the full Unifi experience for an outdoor network, including 3x EdgeSwitch XP (formerly known as ToughSwitch) in a single IP65-rated, largely airtight enclosure. The network would go offline on summer afternoons. It was overheating, those models run hot and are not recommende…

> The temperature peaked at 143 Celsius

Most electronic devices say operate between x and y degrees and if in full sunlight the temp may have exceeded y, which in a device that generates heat itself led to runaway overheating?

Either way plastic could melt at that temp and you'd definitely burn your hands touching it. Pretty crazy.

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