[Bloat] Advice for dual wifi home network

[Bloat] Advice for dual wifi home network

[Sandy McArthur]

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I'm looking to setup a home network with two APs connected by ethernet.  I
think I understand the default network settings for use as a single cerowrt
network but I'm struggling how to wrap my brain around how a second router
should be configured so that the second access point isn't just another
level of NAT deeper inside the first router.

Internet ---- cerowrt A ---- cerowrt B

Configuring the B router is what is confusing me.
-- 
Sandy McArthur

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Re: [Bloat] Advice for dual wifi home network

[Jonathan Morton]

On 8 Mar, 2013, at 1:22 am, Sandy McArthur wrote:

> I'm looking to setup a home network with two APs connected by ethernet.  I think I understand the default network settings for use as a single cerowrt network but I'm struggling how to wrap my brain around how a second router should be configured so that the second access point isn't just another level of NAT deeper inside the first router.
> 
> Internet ---- cerowrt A ---- cerowrt B
> 
> Configuring the B router is what is confusing me.

You will need four devices, if your modem is not itself a router:

Modem  -----  Router (does NAT)
              |    |  
             AP    AP   (both in bridge mode)

 - Jonathan Morton

Re: [Bloat] Advice for dual wifi home network

[Dave Taht]

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On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 6:36 PM, Jonathan Morton <chromatix99@gmail.com>wrote:

>
> On 8 Mar, 2013, at 1:22 am, Sandy McArthur wrote:
>
> > I'm looking to setup a home network with two APs connected by ethernet.
>  I think I understand the default network settings for use as a single
> cerowrt network but I'm struggling how to wrap my brain around how a second
> router should be configured so that the second access point isn't just
> another level of NAT deeper inside the first router.
> >
> > Internet ---- cerowrt A ---- cerowrt B
> >
> > Configuring the B router is what is confusing me.
>
> You will need four devices, if your modem is not itself a router:
>
> Modem  -----  Router (does NAT)
>               |    |
>              AP    AP   (both in bridge mode)
>
>  - Jonathan Morton
>

Bridging bad idea in modern age. Routing good. Just the two cero devices he
has is fine.,

Described in previous mail.

>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Bloat mailing list
> Bloat@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/bloat
>



-- 
Dave Täht

Fixing bufferbloat with cerowrt:
http://www.teklibre.com/cerowrt/subscribe.html

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Re: [Bloat] Advice for dual wifi home network

[David Lang]

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On Thu, 7 Mar 2013, Dave Taht wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 6:36 PM, Jonathan Morton <chromatix99@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>
>> On 8 Mar, 2013, at 1:22 am, Sandy McArthur wrote:
>>
>>> I'm looking to setup a home network with two APs connected by ethernet.
>>  I think I understand the default network settings for use as a single
>> cerowrt network but I'm struggling how to wrap my brain around how a second
>> router should be configured so that the second access point isn't just
>> another level of NAT deeper inside the first router.
>>>
>>> Internet ---- cerowrt A ---- cerowrt B
>>>
>>> Configuring the B router is what is confusing me.
>>
>> You will need four devices, if your modem is not itself a router:
>>
>> Modem  -----  Router (does NAT)
>>               |    |
>>              AP    AP   (both in bridge mode)
>>
>>  - Jonathan Morton
>>
>
> Bridging bad idea in modern age. Routing good. Just the two cero devices he
> has is fine.,

Bridging is bad, but bridging with the ability to move from AP to AP can be far 
better than two routers and the user has to manually disconnect from one 
(breaking all existing connections) and attach to the other.

David Lang

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_______________________________________________
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Re: [Bloat] Advice for dual wifi home network

[Dave Taht]

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On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 7:09 PM, David Lang <david@lang.hm> wrote:

> On Thu, 7 Mar 2013, Dave Taht wrote:
>
>  On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 6:36 PM, Jonathan Morton <chromatix99@gmail.com
>> >wrote:
>>
>>
>>> On 8 Mar, 2013, at 1:22 am, Sandy McArthur wrote:
>>>
>>>  I'm looking to setup a home network with two APs connected by ethernet.
>>>>
>>>  I think I understand the default network settings for use as a single
>>> cerowrt network but I'm struggling how to wrap my brain around how a
>>> second
>>> router should be configured so that the second access point isn't just
>>> another level of NAT deeper inside the first router.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Internet ---- cerowrt A ---- cerowrt B
>>>>
>>>> Configuring the B router is what is confusing me.
>>>>
>>>
>>> You will need four devices, if your modem is not itself a router:
>>>
>>> Modem  -----  Router (does NAT)
>>>               |    |
>>>              AP    AP   (both in bridge mode)
>>>
>>>  - Jonathan Morton
>>>
>>>
>> Bridging bad idea in modern age. Routing good. Just the two cero devices
>> he
>> has is fine.,
>>
>
> Bridging is bad, but bridging with the ability to move from AP to AP can
> be far better than two routers and the user has to manually disconnect from
> one (breaking all existing connections) and attach to the other.
>

Depends on signal strength. I'd rather reconnect to wifi box "upstairs",
clearly marked as such, when upstairs. I'd rather my wifi boxes live on
different channels, so devices in each part of the house get more
bandwidth, less errors/retries and lower latency.

In the case of persistent connections these days I mostly use
mosh.mit.eduinstead of ssh, and mosh survives moving from any network
to any network
and even suspend/resume. That was my main use of persistent connections,
admittedly.

That's me.

Now, cero's preference for routing over bridging comes from the science
part, in that it was impossible to analyze the behavior of bridged
wifi/wired networks when we started, so we broke apart the 2.4 ghz, 5.xghz
and ethernet networks started exploring what it would take to make routing
easier and better.

Along the way, for example, babel gained authentication.

It certainly is possible to bridge or only partially bridge cero, it's just
more complex than routing it, presently.

Secondly, and I know I'm weird, I still generally use ahcp and babel on my
laptops and thus regain the ability to move from AP to AP, as well as act
as a mesh node for such, as well as move from ethernet to wireless and
back, transparently, without dropping connections.

That's a bit of bleeding edge technology that few have tried... and has
become harder and harder to use on unhackable android devices, in
particular.


> David Lang
> _______________________________________________
> Bloat mailing list
> Bloat@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/bloat
>
>


-- 
Dave Täht

Fixing bufferbloat with cerowrt:
http://www.teklibre.com/cerowrt/subscribe.html

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Re: [Bloat] Advice for dual wifi home network

[David Lang]

On Thu, 7 Mar 2013, Dave Taht wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 7:09 PM, David Lang <david@lang.hm> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 7 Mar 2013, Dave Taht wrote:
>>
>>  On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 6:36 PM, Jonathan Morton <chromatix99@gmail.com
>>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> On 8 Mar, 2013, at 1:22 am, Sandy McArthur wrote:
>>>>
>>>>  I'm looking to setup a home network with two APs connected by ethernet.
>>>>>
>>>>  I think I understand the default network settings for use as a single
>>>> cerowrt network but I'm struggling how to wrap my brain around how a
>>>> second
>>>> router should be configured so that the second access point isn't just
>>>> another level of NAT deeper inside the first router.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Internet ---- cerowrt A ---- cerowrt B
>>>>>
>>>>> Configuring the B router is what is confusing me.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> You will need four devices, if your modem is not itself a router:
>>>>
>>>> Modem  -----  Router (does NAT)
>>>>               |    |
>>>>              AP    AP   (both in bridge mode)
>>>>
>>>>  - Jonathan Morton
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Bridging bad idea in modern age. Routing good. Just the two cero devices
>>> he
>>> has is fine.,
>>>
>>
>> Bridging is bad, but bridging with the ability to move from AP to AP can
>> be far better than two routers and the user has to manually disconnect from
>> one (breaking all existing connections) and attach to the other.
>>
>
> Depends on signal strength. I'd rather reconnect to wifi box "upstairs",
> clearly marked as such, when upstairs. I'd rather my wifi boxes live on
> different channels, so devices in each part of the house get more
> bandwidth, less errors/retries and lower latency.

the two routers should absolutly be on different channels.

As for manually connecting to a particular AP vs just 'any AP on this band' 
(because it is _very_ useful to seperate the 2.4G and 5G bands), an expert 
paying attention can get a slight advantage from manually connecting to the 
right one, but in practice, people are not going to bother to switch until the 
connection becomes unusable (and some may not even do so then). This causes many 
retranmissions, and higher power levels which interfere with other users.

> In the case of persistent connections these days I mostly use
> mosh.mit.eduinstead of ssh, and mosh survives moving from any network
> to any network
> and even suspend/resume. That was my main use of persistent connections,
> admittedly.

having to abort and restart a video stream because you moved out of range of one 
router and so you now will have a different IP address is a bad thing for 
example.

> That's me.
>
> Now, cero's preference for routing over bridging comes from the science
> part, in that it was impossible to analyze the behavior of bridged
> wifi/wired networks when we started, so we broke apart the 2.4 ghz, 5.xghz
> and ethernet networks started exploring what it would take to make routing
> easier and better.
>
> Along the way, for example, babel gained authentication.
>
> It certainly is possible to bridge or only partially bridge cero, it's just
> more complex than routing it, presently.
>
> Secondly, and I know I'm weird, I still generally use ahcp and babel on my
> laptops and thus regain the ability to move from AP to AP, as well as act
> as a mesh node for such, as well as move from ethernet to wireless and
> back, transparently, without dropping connections.
>
> That's a bit of bleeding edge technology that few have tried... and has
> become harder and harder to use on unhackable android devices, in
> particular.

The question is "is this network only supposed to be able to support people 
running these bleeding edge technologies, or is it supposed to support all 
applications?"

for most people, they need to support existing applications and do not have the 
option of changing the protocols in use, so for many people, bridging works best 
when you have multiple APs.

Now, one thing I did not get into earlier, when you have multiple APs and bridge 
them, they should be getting bridged onto a dedicated 'wifi' wired network that 
is then routed to your wired device. You do not want to have your wired 
chit-chat and broadcast traffic bleeding over to your wifi network.

David Lang

Re: [Bloat] Advice for dual wifi home network

[Sandy McArthur]

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Thank you for your replies. They have helped me untwist my thoughts a lot.

After reading/thinking I believe I will drop the cero subnet optimizations
and go with a more typical bridged network setup. This install will be at
my parents large one story house and their desire is for their devices to
just work as they roam the house.

A primary use case that prompted me to revisit their network setup is
improving the performance of their AT&T MicroCell when the SlingBox is in
use. Also my understanding of SlingBox is if the SlingBox and sling client
(eg: a tablet) aren't in the same subnet then the client will connect to
the public internet IP address instead of the internal lan address
putting unnecessary load on their internet connection. I'm hoping codel
does a good job keeping the microcell working nicely in call while an user
is accessing the slingbox from the internet.

Thanks again.

On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 7:51 PM, David Lang <david@lang.hm> wrote:

> On Thu, 7 Mar 2013, Dave Taht wrote:
>
>  On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 7:09 PM, David Lang <david@lang.hm> wrote:
>>
>>  On Thu, 7 Mar 2013, Dave Taht wrote:
>>>
>>>  On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 6:36 PM, Jonathan Morton <chromatix99@gmail.com
>>>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  On 8 Mar, 2013, at 1:22 am, Sandy McArthur wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>  I'm looking to setup a home network with two APs connected by
>>>>> ethernet.
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>   I think I understand the default network settings for use as a
>>>>> single
>>>>> cerowrt network but I'm struggling how to wrap my brain around how a
>>>>> second
>>>>> router should be configured so that the second access point isn't just
>>>>> another level of NAT deeper inside the first router.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> Internet ---- cerowrt A ---- cerowrt B
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Configuring the B router is what is confusing me.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> You will need four devices, if your modem is not itself a router:
>>>>>
>>>>> Modem  -----  Router (does NAT)
>>>>>               |    |
>>>>>              AP    AP   (both in bridge mode)
>>>>>
>>>>>  - Jonathan Morton
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>  Bridging bad idea in modern age. Routing good. Just the two cero
>>>> devices
>>>> he
>>>> has is fine.,
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Bridging is bad, but bridging with the ability to move from AP to AP can
>>> be far better than two routers and the user has to manually disconnect
>>> from
>>> one (breaking all existing connections) and attach to the other.
>>>
>>>
>> Depends on signal strength. I'd rather reconnect to wifi box "upstairs",
>> clearly marked as such, when upstairs. I'd rather my wifi boxes live on
>> different channels, so devices in each part of the house get more
>> bandwidth, less errors/retries and lower latency.
>>
>
> the two routers should absolutly be on different channels.
>
> As for manually connecting to a particular AP vs just 'any AP on this
> band' (because it is _very_ useful to seperate the 2.4G and 5G bands), an
> expert paying attention can get a slight advantage from manually connecting
> to the right one, but in practice, people are not going to bother to switch
> until the connection becomes unusable (and some may not even do so then).
> This causes many retranmissions, and higher power levels which interfere
> with other users.
>
>  In the case of persistent connections these days I mostly use
>> mosh.mit.eduinstead of ssh, and mosh survives moving from any network
>>
>> to any network
>> and even suspend/resume. That was my main use of persistent connections,
>> admittedly.
>>
>
> having to abort and restart a video stream because you moved out of range
> of one router and so you now will have a different IP address is a bad
> thing for example.
>
>
>  That's me.
>>
>> Now, cero's preference for routing over bridging comes from the science
>> part, in that it was impossible to analyze the behavior of bridged
>> wifi/wired networks when we started, so we broke apart the 2.4 ghz, 5.xghz
>> and ethernet networks started exploring what it would take to make routing
>> easier and better.
>>
>> Along the way, for example, babel gained authentication.
>>
>> It certainly is possible to bridge or only partially bridge cero, it's
>> just
>> more complex than routing it, presently.
>>
>> Secondly, and I know I'm weird, I still generally use ahcp and babel on my
>> laptops and thus regain the ability to move from AP to AP, as well as act
>> as a mesh node for such, as well as move from ethernet to wireless and
>> back, transparently, without dropping connections.
>>
>> That's a bit of bleeding edge technology that few have tried... and has
>> become harder and harder to use on unhackable android devices, in
>> particular.
>>
>
> The question is "is this network only supposed to be able to support
> people running these bleeding edge technologies, or is it supposed to
> support all applications?"
>
> for most people, they need to support existing applications and do not
> have the option of changing the protocols in use, so for many people,
> bridging works best when you have multiple APs.
>
> Now, one thing I did not get into earlier, when you have multiple APs and
> bridge them, they should be getting bridged onto a dedicated 'wifi' wired
> network that is then routed to your wired device. You do not want to have
> your wired chit-chat and broadcast traffic bleeding over to your wifi
> network.
>
>
> David Lang
> ______________________________**_________________
> Bloat mailing list
> Bloat@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/**listinfo/bloat<https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/bloat>
>



-- 
Sandy McArthur

"He who dares not offend cannot be honest."
- Thomas Paine

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Re: [Bloat] Advice for dual wifi home network

[Dave Taht]

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On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 6:22 PM, Sandy McArthur <sandymac@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm looking to setup a home network with two APs connected by ethernet.  I
> think I understand the default network settings for use as a single cerowrt
> network but I'm struggling how to wrap my brain around how a second router
> should be configured so that the second access point isn't just another
> level of NAT deeper inside the first router.


Second cerowrt router:

It is essential to have a totally unique set of IPs per router.

1) Renumber to a different set of IPs - the two sed command documented here

https://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/cerowrt/wiki/Changing_your_cerowrt_ip_addresses

We don't have bind anymore, you can edit out that part


2) In /etc/config/firewall

Delete all but the first set of firewall rules, and the default INPUT
OUTPUT and FORWARD all be ACCEPT. This disables nat on the router in
particular.

4) Change /etc/quagga/babeld.conf to also use ge00 (currently commented out)

Plug the second cerowrt WAN port into the LAN port on the first router

(I note that if you do all this, and you don't change the SSIDs or
channels, they will also mesh together over wifi, and those are "guest" not
native,
so require a little more work to use than just ethernet, and are slower, so
use ethernet. :) )

Reboot.

On the primary router:

1) Edit /etc/quagga/babeld.conf to export it's default route (it's
commented out)

/etc/init.d/quagga restart

The

ip route show

command will then show routes to the other router.

If you have a 3rd AP, we  have issues with the avahi daemon that are
troublesome, but if you only have two, you can enable avahi on the ge00
port on the second router in /etc/avahi

Let us know what happens...

one of these days we gotta wrap a gui around that sed script....


> Internet ---- cerowrt A ---- cerowrt B
>
> Configuring the B router is what is confusing me.
> --
> Sandy McArthur
>
> _______________________________________________
> Bloat mailing list
> Bloat@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/bloat
>
>


-- 
Dave Täht

Fixing bufferbloat with cerowrt:
http://www.teklibre.com/cerowrt/subscribe.html

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