I'm doing a bunch of remodeling of our house and I am running cat5e and coax to nearly every room. I just want a second opinion to see if I am overlooking something. All of the cat5e leads are going to go to a closet in the basement where I am also going to install a coax line to bring roadrunner service to the closet as well. In the closet I will have the modem for rr, a wireless router, and I am guessing a large enough switch to accomedate the 7 cat5e leads and plug it into the router. I think I will still have good wireless signal through out the house but if not, I may have to add a wireless access point later on.

It sounds simple enough. Is there anything I am missing?

5/31/2008 3:39:38 PM

nah, that's pretty much it. get a wireless router with 8 ports so you don't have to buy another device for that and you'll have one extra port too...

sounds good though.

5/31/2008 4:13:37 PM

I just counted 2 more leads that I forgot about. That puts me up to 9 so far.

5/31/2008 4:37:21 PM

i've got a 24-port switch if you're interested

5/31/2008 4:38:51 PM

go ahead and put a rack in there for shits and giggles

also, you may want to reconsider getting a different antenna than the stock one - since it's in the basement, get the one with the highest gain that you can afford - it sure won't look pretty but it will help out a lot. those stock rubber duckies won't do much.

5/31/2008 5:11:05 PM

If you're doing a lot of general re-wiring in your home anyway, it might be worth it to install a telephone line in to that closet as well, if you or someone else ever decides to use DSL.

5/31/2008 5:47:30 PM

haha, i just did this last weekend, except i ran cat6 & coax to every room

another thing is maybe look into a patch panel, but not necessary

^^i also have a 10db omni-directional antenna for my wireless router... and my closet is on the same level, i ran wires through the basement crawl space and up through the baseboards.

also make sure you have power in your closet

i have this for a router, it has (4 Gigabit ports + 1 WAN)
D-Link DGL-4300 Wireless 108G Gaming Router
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=370

and this for a switch, it has (8 Gigabit ports)
D-Link DGS-2208 8-Port 10/100/1000 Desktop Switch
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=495

so essentially I have 10 ports left after using 2 for uplink







[Edited on May 31, 2008 at 7:07 PM. Reason : ,]

5/31/2008 6:55:54 PM

I hadn't thought of running phone line, but I might as well just incase. We don't even have a home phone now, but you never know.

I'm adding a power outlet to the closet as well.

I think I will hold off on the high gain antenna until I see how bad the signal strength is.

I went with Cat5e instead of cat 5 since I was able to get it at cost. I was also able to get modular face plates shown above too. I have a Linksys WRT54G right now that I will stick with until I have a reason to upgrade. With an 8-port switch that would give me 12 total ports, which would be enough. That looks like a good price for the D-Link DGS-2208 ($50 AR) What are uplinks for?

5/31/2008 8:37:15 PM

They have the Tx and Rx swapped internally, so you wouldn't need a crossover cable (which swaps them internally).

I guess you could use a crossover cable in an uplink port, and have it function as an ordinary port... but probably shouldn't, unless you want to confuse someone in the future, because they might assume think it's an ordinary port and try and plug in a straight through into it and fail.

5/31/2008 8:48:36 PM

Quote :

"another thing is maybe look into a patch panel, but not necessary"

you will thank yourself later for this

Quote :

"They have the Tx and Rx swapped internally, so you wouldn't need a crossover cable (which swaps them internally). I guess you could use a crossover cable in an uplink port, and have it function as an ordinary port... but probably shouldn't, unless you want to confuse someone in the future, because they might assume think it's an ordinary port and try and plug in a straight through into it and fail."

if you're using a consumer-grade switch, there are no uplink ports. just connect shit together, you don't need a crossover cable. uplink ports are either a) on hubs which do in fact require them to connect two hubs without a crossover cable or b) on commercial grade switches to uplink to 10g fiber or something.

5/31/2008 8:53:44 PM

The switch is $43 AR at Newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127082

5/31/2008 8:54:29 PM

also, maybe it's just me, but just about every d-link product i've owned has failed miserably

the two different routers i had slowed to a crawl without being rebooted every day
the switch didn't clear the mac table... ever... so once something was plugged in to a port, it and it alone could use that port... forever and ever shall be.
there's more

5/31/2008 8:56:28 PM

color code or LABEL your cables. I would run a 2nd set of cat5 to each jack for a segregated voip network later since cable is cheap and you're already taking the dive on the hard part. you could use it for a guest network as well if you really wanted to keep your traffic separated. I know you may not need these, but assume you won't be in your home forever

5/31/2008 9:26:15 PM

^yup that's what i do

except the guest network is wifi-only

5/31/2008 9:31:44 PM

Good stuff, keep it coming and we'll see how big this project gets.
So for a VIOP network, what will I need? The '2nd' ethernet jack could be used to plug in a VIOP phone directly? I'm just wondering with the cost of cell phones getting more affordable, would I have a need to wire VIOP phone service to every room, but a the same time, I have the sheetrock off the wall right now, so it really is not much trouble to do it anyway. What would be a good reason to have a guest network?

Also, I was looking at patch panels, and if I go to 18 cables, it may be a good idea. Do I need a special tool to hook up the cables to these panels? On of the reviews suggested the tool was the same price as the panel ~$25.

[Edited on May 31, 2008 at 9:52 PM. Reason : panel]

5/31/2008 9:48:46 PM

I did this 2 years ago when my house was being built. I ran Cat6 cable (almost 1000 ft. total) and put two ports in each of the three bedrooms, 2 in the living room, and two in the kitchen. I ran them up the walls into the attic and they all meet in our finished room over the garage. I have a 6-port wall plate and a 4-port wall plate (couldn't find a 10 at the time) in the bonus room which is where I have the modem, wireless router and gigabit switch.

I have all 10 ports wired but only 5 of them have keystone jacks installed currently. We really only use 3 of the ports right now (2 in the bedroom we use as an office and 1 in the living room - media center) but like someone mentioned I wanted to be able to accommodate VoIP later down the road.

It took my wife and I about 8 hours total to run all the cable and for me to connect each end to keystone jacks...a lot longer than I thought but well worth it!

I haven't really thought about the guest network...not necessary for now.

5/31/2008 9:59:17 PM

What's the purpose of a guest network?

5/31/2008 10:11:42 PM

^so guests can't access machines, files, and resources on your network. they are completely isolated.

i also keep my guest network open to the world.

5/31/2008 10:18:36 PM

Quote :

"Good stuff, keep it coming and we'll see how big this project gets. So for a VIOP network, what will I need? The '2nd' ethernet jack could be used to plug in a VIOP phone directly? I'm just wondering with the cost of cell phones getting more affordable, would I have a need to wire VIOP phone service to every room, but a the same time, I have the sheetrock off the wall right now, so it really is not much trouble to do it anyway. What would be a good reason to have a guest network? Also, I was looking at patch panels, and if I go to 18 cables, it may be a good idea. Do I need a special tool to hook up the cables to these panels? On of the reviews suggested the tool was the same price as the panel ~$25."

for voip, you can keep them on the same network if you'd like and just do qos. it just makes sense to run two lines instead of one if you're running lines anyway. if you're going to go for voip, you'll most likely get a service like vonage or lingo - in this case, you would disconnect your phone lines from the CO and connect your vonage adapter's fxs port to your phone lines. you'd keep your existing phones and they would still be wired using the existing phone wiring. in my house, however, i have a pbx set up (asterisk) that routes phone traffic, and these phones all around the house:



they connect to my wired network to communicate with the asterisk server via IP. you probably won't do this.

if you have a guest nework that's properly segmented, people visiting your house and wardrivers won't be able to access resources (shared files, printers, etc.) on your home network. it's mainly for security.

yes, you need a punchdown tool to wire the patch panel. you can pick up a cheap 110 blade tool from lowes for $10 or so. the $25 one is spring-loaded/impact & is worth it if you do a lot of infrastructure work

5/31/2008 10:24:06 PM

ventillation, if you're gonna have pc's in there

5/31/2008 10:33:22 PM

well i said uplink, i just meant you'll lose 2 ports due to connecting the switch to the router

Quote :

"also, maybe it's just me, but just about every d-link product i've owned has failed miserably"

the dgl-4300 router is not your typical d-link router... i feel the same way about the rest of the d-link line, but not the 4300, it's by far got the best throughput and stability of any 802.11g router based on manf. firmware and has gigabit ports.... not to get off topic too much, but this is from anandtech forums

Quote :

"The DD-RT software is crazy good, but the hardware in most compatible routers can't compare to what you get in the D-Link DGL-4300 and D-Link DIR-655. The DGL-4300 uses Ubicom IP3023 processor @ 250MHz with 16Mb memory. The DIR-655 uses the newer IP5160 processor @ 275MHz with 16Mb memory. The wire routing speed of those multi-threaded chips is 5x to 6x that of the Broadcom 5352 used in the popular Buffalo G54 routers. You probably won't notice a difference with a 5Mbps network connection, but you probably don't want most of the DD-RT compatible routers if you've got a 50Mbps network connection."

i color coded my cables too, different color cables for different rooms

[Edited on June 1, 2008 at 2:20 AM. Reason : .]

6/1/2008 2:12:35 AM

Quote :

" uplink ports are either a) on hubs"

uplink ports are on hubs?

what the hell kind of jibberish are you spouting?

6/1/2008 9:00:43 AM

i seem to remember that every hub i bought back before consumer-grade switches became popular had an uplink port

6/1/2008 10:13:05 AM

I've got an old hub with an uplink port

6/1/2008 10:20:44 AM

mmhmm

and the only uplink ports i see nowadays are the 10g/1g fiber uplinks on my catalyst switches at work

6/1/2008 10:40:46 AM

hub uplink ports are usually just the neighboring port with the tx/rx pairs crossed so you can use a straight-through cable

6/1/2008 11:07:24 AM

^isn't that what we've been saying?

and the majority of them just have a button next to the port to switch the pairs

6/1/2008 9:38:31 PM

Quote :

"so guests can't access machines, files, and resources on your network. they are completely isolated."

is this to keep people from printing stuff on your printer, etc? do you not trust your friends?

6/1/2008 9:51:03 PM

haha, nah, i trust my friends

it's just that it's a hassle to give them my wpa password and everything since it's so long and arbitrary

i'd rather just have an open network that can access nothing but the internet and let people use that

6/1/2008 10:27:07 PM

well that's cool

i just keep my code printed out so whenever someone comes over they can get on it.

6/1/2008 10:35:04 PM

well that's a good idea

i never thought of that

haha

6/1/2008 10:58:29 PM

^5 I don't see anything at all about the typical implementation of uplink ports in consumer grade hardware from you, or anyone else for that matter

you also implied that switches don't commonly have uplink ports while I've owned several 4-5 port switches with an uplink port that was similar to what I've mentioned, and at least one 10baseT hub with uplink, BNC, and some number of standard ports

I've also never seen one with a button

6/1/2008 11:31:48 PM

evan why the fuck do you have an asterix pbx in your HOUSE


you are the biggest bloody nerdboat on the PLANET

6/1/2008 11:49:35 PM

^why not? i have a consulting business on the side, shit's all about appearances, man.

6/1/2008 11:50:10 PM

every single consumer switch in my house has no uplink port.

i just dug up an old netgear hub which had a bnc uplink as well as a button near the last port that switched it between uplink and normal.

6/1/2008 11:51:53 PM

I think I have 1 consumer switch in my house, the 5 port by my xbox. It doesn't have uplink. The only thing with uplink is my 24 port + bnc 10base100 hub that's only useful for sniffing wire traffic

6/2/2008 12:49:56 AM

yup

i think the miscommunication here is between the two meanings of "uplink"

the "uplink" port on traditional consumer-grade equipment was just an internally switched port that allowed two hubs to use a link that didn't have an internally switched cable. without switching the pairs, you couldn't do that. if a consumer grade piece of equipment has an "uplink" port, it is a hub, and not a true switch.

uplink, in the more traditional sense of the word, refers to trunking all the ports on a switch over one (usually an order of magnitute large) pipe.

ok?

6/2/2008 1:26:28 AM

^meant "larger" not "large"

6/2/2008 2:11:47 AM

Quote :

"if a consumer grade piece of equipment has an "uplink" port, it is a hub, and not a true switch."

As bobbydigital said you are just sprouting jibberish. An "uplink" port has nothing to do with the device being a hub or a switch.

Most consumer low-end switches have a feature called Auto MDI-X which automatically converts a port into a crossover/uplink port if it detects that it needs to.

Standard Cisco switches that I've worked with, such as 3500 series, 3550, 3560 etc do not have auto MDI-X even on 10/100M ports. You need to use a crossover cable to connect them together.

The 10G/1G uplink ports you are talking about on switches has nothing to do with auto MDI-X (auto crossover)

This is really irrelevant to the original thread topic but I wanted to stop the sprouting of jibberish.

6/2/2008 12:29:01 PM

^ is correct.

I forgot all about this thread

Quote :

"uplink, in the more traditional sense of the word, refers to trunking all the ports on a switch over one (usually an order of magnitute large) pipe."

again, you don't understand what you're talking about. The concept of an "uplink" has little technical meaning, and is really just a frame of reference. It has different meanings in different situations.

Also, you don't really understand trunking either. In switching, trunking has nothing to do with ports, but refers to muxing traffic from multiple VLANs onto a single physical or logical port while still keeping traffic from different VLANs separate. you don't "trunk ports," you "trunk VLANs."

6/2/2008 12:55:46 PM

Ahahah owned.

Damn I got my CCNA in 2003 (I think? Either way it's expired now...) and I still halfway remember this.

6/2/2008 1:31:00 PM

okay, sorry. confused.

the only time we've ever used "uplinks" is to trunk vlans (i just said ports since we assign vlans by port)

on all our switches the supervisor module has 2 10g fiber uplinks and 2 1g fiber uplinks, and then all the various switch cards. the only catalyst switches i've ever dealt with all had bigger pipes as uplinks - granted the vast majority of the switches we have are 5000 series catalysts... when going switch-to-switch, we almost never use copper, we just trunk everything over fiber.

i know that having an uplink port isn't necessarily a qualifier between hub and switch - it's just a good indication on consumer level equipment. i've never seen a consumer grade switch that didn't have auto mdi-x. conversely, every consumer hub i've seen has an uplink port.

i do know what i'm talking about, was just a little confused - granted i haven't done any sort of serious networking for a while now... i'm more of a unix/win sysadmin.

[Edited on June 2, 2008 at 1:50 PM. Reason : you people really are bitter...]

[Edited on June 2, 2008 at 1:59 PM. Reason : i may not know the proper terminology but i do know how itall works, otherwise i wouldn't have a job]

6/2/2008 1:47:33 PM

Quote :

"i know that having an uplink port isn't necessarily a qualifier between hub and switch - it's just a good indication on consumer level equipment."

An uplink port has no relevance whatsoever to distinguishing between a hub and a switch. Not even a little bit.

There is only one technical qualifier that distinguishes a hub from a switch. Each port on a hub is part of the same collision domain. Each port on a switch is a unique collision domain. And that is true whether you're talking about consumer or enterprise level equipment.

This is not confusion, it's just simple ignorance.

6/2/2008 2:08:56 PM

it has no technical relevance, yes, i know this

i was just pointing out that it's an easy way to tell the difference, based on the fact i've never seen a consumer switch that didn't do auto mdi-x.



i'll just stop posting in tech talk since i assume this means i lose all credibility whatsoever.

6/2/2008 2:11:47 PM

What does that have to do with distinguishing between a hub and switch?

Are you just typing random acronyms?

6/2/2008 2:15:21 PM

i've never seen a consumer hub that did auto mdi-x.

i've never seen a consumer switch that DIDN'T do it.



therefore, all consumer hubs i've seen have a crossover port of some sort

all consumer switches i've seen do not


i know it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the technical difference between a hub and a switch

6/2/2008 2:17:24 PM

if there is one good thing that has come out of this thread

it has inspired me to go dig up my ccnp switching book and read it again

so i don't look like a jackass again.

6/2/2008 2:19:36 PM

so as i was saying... just to be sure to subtract 2 ports overall for connecting the router to the switch.

6/2/2008 3:26:55 PM

Quote :

"i do know what i'm talking about, was just a little confused"

6/2/2008 5:29:15 PM

Quote :

"so i don't look like a jackass again."

The details of VLAN Trunking, the term "uplink", etc aren't relevant to this thread. I think the point is you shouldn't be making up broad-sweeping rules about networking and throwing around terms just based on a few things you have seen or done.

6/2/2008 6:18:37 PM