My new home is about to be finished and I’ve got a few questions related to setting up my new network. I guess to start I’ll list what I already have or know I will have.
Cat6 drops in every room with runs coming to my home office where I’ll terminate to a patch panel
3 ap’s - 1 main house first floor, 1 in-law suite, 1 on 2nd floor
4u server I built several years ago that hosts multiple vm’s for Plex, game servers, linux playgrounds, etc.
possibly 3-4 security cameras
single 24 port poe switch will be enough to connect all drops with a couple left over
an outbuilding ~300ft from main house that needs to have internet
I used to use pfSense on one of those little Protectli 4 port boxes, but with what I have planned for the new house I’m kind of leaning towards a full Ubiquiti set-up. UDM Pro, Switch Pro 24, and their AP’s. I installed their AP’s in my last house so I’m familiar and was satisfied with them.
The UDM Pro sounds perfect as it will cover everything I want to do, I’m just not sure if I’ll be happy with the limited options after having used pfSense. Maybe stick with pfSense for routing/firewall and go Ubiquiti for everything else?
I also have a question on getting internet to that outbuilding that is 300ft away. Any recommendations on a beam antenna for getting wifi out there? I think I’ll need a set of two receiver/transmitter’s as there’s a barn inbetween the two ends so it’s not straight line of site.
Any tips are appreciated!
Edit: I should add some more info about my use. ISP sevice will be 1gb down 100mb up. House is where most of the use will be. I work from home and have 4 kids with their own pc’s and they all like to stream movies while playing online games. Internet in the outbuilding will be fine with only 100mb. No big streaming going on out there, just a single pc doing basic web stuff.
Thanks Tom! I’ll stick with pfsense and just grab the uni nvr if i do the cameras. I just watched your review of that unit a couple days ago and seems pretty good for small scale stuff I need. Planning 3-4 cameras, but like you said in the video, ill probably end up with more once finished.
If possible, use direct burial cable to get to the out building, then add another switch for any devices that need to be connected. Or use a wireless bridge if burying cable is not possible.
Greg, buried cable isn’t an option here, not an easy option at least, because there is an old field stone rock wall between the two buildings and also part of the driveway. After going to the new house today and taking another look I’ve found that I do have straight los between the two buildings as long as I mount the transmitter on the front corner post for the porch so I’ve been looking at the Gigabeam or Nanobeam. I’m just not sure yet if I want a big white circle mounted on the front corner of my porch instead of going with a slower non los option that can be mounted somewhere less conspicuously.
300 feet should be an easy run for a directed beam, I’d look around and see what the smallest antenna size might be, I’m guessing smaller than a decent camera at this point.
I haven’t used these, but might be worth a look. Note that they are mounted on 1.5-2 inch pipe so you can gauge the size. MikroTik Routers and Wireless - Products
There is another company that “specializes” in wireless point to point, but I can’t remember the name, mostly they had long distance stuff which is bigger and more expensive.