I have been using my UniFi system for a few months and I’m very pleased. The WiFi is very fast, I can roam around the house seamlessly, and the handoffs are seamless. Now I want to move to the two final stages: advanced access control and then content control for the kids. For access control, I’m going to use RADIUS, specifically pfsense’s freeRADIUS package. I’ve read that this it is a bit arcane, but my experimentation has shown that it’s actually pretty straightforward.
Month: October 2018
Cleaning Up My Network
I spent the majority of my tinkering time this week creating and solving various network problems. I moved my UniFi devices to a management VLAN, and I also moved my controller again. This time, I moved it to a fresh minimal Ubuntu installation from my old Kubuntu mining rig. Both had pitfalls. Continue reading “Cleaning Up My Network”
Switching my UniFi Controller to Ubuntu and HDMI Problems
I have been troubleshooting a really peculiar problem with my Unifi Setup that perplexed me for several days. Since I use HDMI over IP to stream my cable box to several TVs around the house over cat5, I wanted to isolate the video on its own VLAN. I use Mirabox extenders, and as I was working on my article about putting my video on its own VLAN, I found out that UniFi has a big problem with that. Continue reading “Switching my UniFi Controller to Ubuntu and HDMI Problems”
Setting Up a VLAN in pfSense
I got a reminder today of why my VLAN project will help me out. My 6 year old son had a play date with a friend, whom I’ll call Jake. I left them watching a movie in the attic while I worked around the house, and was very surprised when my wife found me and asked why I had let them surf the web. Here is what had happened:
My son has an old laptop that he uses to ‘write’ in Microsoft Word. Mostly, he writes the word ‘Ninjago’. His friend Jake, however, knows how to google. Jake, as it happens, is also a 6-year-old who is convinced that Bigfoot is real, and apparently took the available laptop and started to google videos about Bigfoot and other ‘cousins of Bigfoot’. I don’t know if there are content filters for cryptozoology, but there will be when this project is done. Continue reading “Setting Up a VLAN in pfSense”
VLANs in the Home
So it’s been a few weeks of selling old video cards (and anything else I could scrounge) to reduce my clutter and to free up funds for my UniFi setup. I now have my 3 APs, and 3 UniFi switches. The icing on the cake is that I also pulled fiber between them, so now I have a really cool setup to play with. Further, my WiFi is noticeably better, especially when wandering around using FaceTime. Now it’s time to implement my VLAN design. Continue reading “VLANs in the Home”