Yeah, well, I went and did it…
I pulled the Ubiquiti trigger.
That’s right, I finally talked myself into acquiring a UDM-Pro router/controller, a Pro Max 16 PoE switch, and a U6 Pro wireless access point. I spent a Sunday afternoon ripping my old network out and replacing it with the new hotness.
Nice rack! (v2)
Of course it wasn’t as simple as it should have been. No, it never is. In addition to the physical swapping of the hardware, I found that I had a need to create multiple network cables of varying lengths for varying purposes, and that took some time. I am glad I can create my own cables so they can be customized to length, etc., but it is still – and always will be – a complete pain in the ass. But, I got it done and, for the most part, everything went swimmingly.
Once it came time to power everything on, everything just fired up with no issues and, once I configured my wireless SSID with the same creds it had on the old gear, everything around the house that relies on wireless automatically latched on like nothing had happened. It was truly a sight to behold.
Now, instead of a flat network, I have multiple vLANs which, admittedly, I’m still in the process of moving everything around to but I have been testing as I go and so far, so good.
Wireless (with a wire, yeah I know)!
Now the thing already wants me to apply an update, but I’ve been holding off. Maybe that will happen this weekend. We shall see. I’m firmly in the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” camp but, at the same time, the unrelenting “Network Update Available” popup is probably going to push me over the edge at some point. [Update: I hit the update button this morning (March 8th); it took less than 5 minutes and there wasn’t even a blip. I have no idea what this update does or if I am even any better off for applying it, but at least I don’t have to see that notification anymore!]
I also took the time to install a power distribution unit (which I’m still working to get everything attached to) as well as a fancy rack mount for my 3 mini-computers. The latter still needs some work as I’d like to physically attach the computers to the rack mount so they don’t go flying into the rack when I try to press the power button, but that’s a story for another day.
Anyway, that’s it for now. Have a great weekend!
OK that network rack is insane. All my gear sits piled on top of each other behind the couch. Very nice!
I know that feeling. Prior to the move to the rack last fall, all my stuff was on the top of a rather sketchy plastic set of drawer, and I could hardly reach it because it was stuffed into the corner I couldn’t easily get at. So I got the rack and the cabinet on which it sits and moved everything to it. I love how it turned out; if I had known then how it was going to evolve, I may have gone for a larger rack but I think I will be okay. I don’t have much more that would need to go into it, at least not yet.