this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
10 points (85.7% liked)

Selfhosted

39997 readers
882 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
ruud
Loki
CannaVet
devve
HybridSarcasm
[email protected]
10
Sustainable network upgrade (feddit.de)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/selfhosted
18 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Hello dear selfhosters,

I'm planning to step up my WiFi game and after some research I feel a little lost. do have questions.

At the moment with an all in one router (a fritzbox ) and a WiFi range extender the coverage is not sufficient and the extended connection not reliable enough. So I plan to get two wireless access points. That would be all for now, in the future I am thinking about switching to opensense to get vlan support - I'd like to have one for iot devices, one for kids, one for guests.

The questions for now: If using access points with a software controler (I.e. T-Link EAP653 or UbiquitI U6+) can I just plug these into the router, turn WiFi in the router off and have the access points handle the WiFi? But IP addresses will still be assigned by the router, right? I don't want to leave the router WiFi running with the same ssid because this will affect the smoth transition between access points managed by the software controler? If the software controller is down for whatever reason, will the WiFi still work?

Questions for later: Will opensense be able to handle vlans for WiFi connected decices or do they need to be configured in the controler software? Are the access points I mentioned suitable? I want WiFi6, not willing to spend more then double for WiFi6e, max 15-20 devices in the network, no cloud controller, generally I prefer open systems. Any better suggestions for devices?

Answers also to a single question are very much appreciated!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] TechAdmin 2 points 1 year ago

Most standalone APs can be plugged into the router and immediately start working, they'll forward along DHCP requests. You can turn off your router's wifi after they have been configured. For Unifi APs you only need the controller running when you want to manage/update the APs and for stats collection, I only power mine up to check for new firmware updates once a month. Can disable Unifi analytics/telemetry with a config file option too but no way to do it via web UI.

For VLANs you will need to configure the VLANs on Opnsense and the APs. Unifi lets you specify the mgmt VLAN and VLAN per SSID. For my setup I have vlan 5 for work ssid, 10 for mobile devices, 15 for IoT and other things that don't need internet, and 20 for a couple temporary & guest SSIDs.

The Unifi APs are alright but the controller software itself is fairly limited for stats/data, still better than other standard consumer APs I've used though. I've been wanting to try out Grandstream Wifi APs for replacement as most models include a built-in controller capable of managing more than enough APs for my home uses and still have option of standalone controller or cloud managed but it's not priority as my current APs still receive firmware updates,