Slashdot Mirror
Building A (Serious) Home Network From Scratch
Casey Lang-Vie writes "THG are running an article that outlines how to build a home network from scratch. I wish I'd read this before I attempted - now I have a few (ok, 8) unsightly holes in my wall." This is the type of network that encourages home ownership rather than rental.
have 6 or 7 holes in every wall with in the house with blue wires hanging out of them.
Wall plates? "We don need no steenkin wallplates!"
Really now, why would anyone plan out a home network? That takes all the fun out ot it!
I mean what's more fun than pulling wires at the last minute when you really have to have that wire.
And then trying to untangle the whole thing when you have to trouble shoot it!
Real men have huge tangled and matted nests of wires and they KNOW what every wire is!
As is detailed here and here, Toms Hardware recently performed a media blackout at a Public event, the Million Man Lan Party.
They are currently threatening to sue an online journalist (who happens to be a poor college student) for libel regarding his reporting of this story. Fortunately, the friendly folks at Hardocp have stepped in to provide some legal assistance for the guy, to make sure he is not railroaded into pulling down his editorial describing THG's media shenanigans.
Do your part for Internet Free Speech. Boycott Toms Hardware Guide.
Just a thought...
Remember to follow spec when making your own network cables. Running the wires straight through will cause issues (signal interference). You must have pins 3 and 6 on the same twisted pair, otherwise, the cables won't work after 30 feet or so...
If I had done it correctly, I could have saved 2 trips to the store, and lots of headaches.
What's the point of putting an article together if you just hire some guys to do it for you? Is choosing the cable type and faceplate style that big of a deal? That's like saying "I wrote this article about building a computer from scratch, and we just asked Dell to do it for us. Oh, btw, I asked them to use grey face plates instead of the black one."
In Soviet Russia, articles before post read *you*!
It is trivial to sniff your non-encrypted packets and determine the subnet you are using (or at least the IP address of your machines and gateway).
Why not use WEP? It doesn't cost anything. Also turn on MAC filtering and turn off SSID broadcasts.
Then you can claim to have a reasonably secure environment. (As far as consumer wireless stuff goes.)
I made the mistake of reading this entire article. I recommend to all those who entertain the idea skip it. Important questions such as cat6 vs. 5e vs wireless a/b/g aren't given sufficient coverage. Instead it reads like an advertisement for some lame-o contractor. Few people build a home network like this. The guy tells you how to hire a contractor to do the hole punching for you! This isnt the slashdot way: we like punching our own holes in the walls and crawling around in attics and toiling in insulation. Sorry THG, usually your articles have at least marginal worth, this one was a real loser. From someone who has installed their own (highly pleasing, if you know what i mean) home network, dont read this article. Cover your eyes. If you want the advice this article gives you, I can summarize in one sentence. Hire a contractor. On the other hand, if you read slashdot, go to fry's, buy 1000m of cat5/e and a few face plates, get out the hammer and the pocket knife and start doing it big...
Another idea for a home network is to run special cable rather than separate phone, ethernet, and coaxial.
It is bundled Cat5, telephone, and coaxial, and comes in a tight package not much larger than heavily shielded (RJ-6 coax?).
You can easily run central distribution of phones, video on demand, networking...etc...
Kill 3 birds with one stone....
The choice to implement security AFTER there is a problem is a very poor choice IMO.
Bad call, for two reasons. First, security is not just to protect your stuff worth protecting. Your network itself is a valuable resource to hackers. Second, you can't always just "fix whatever they broke", because you don't know what they left behind. That's why even "white hat" hackers are bad when they go breaking into other people's computers -- they really may not have done anything but added a text file saying "You have been hax0red, here's how and what to fix", but you don't know that's all they did.
This lax attitude towards security is why there are so many DDoS networks out there built from the computers of ignorant cable and DSL users.
How can they have an article about "ripping holes in your walls to deploy gigabit ethernet in the home" without a chapter on "convincing the wife" ? What combination of fighting, pleading, and nagging does Tom's Hardware reccomend ? Where are the benchmarks ? I demand to see a bar graph.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Your home has phone lines, right?
Go onto EBay and get some nice US Robotics Courrier HST modems, one for each room. Next, find some speedy 486DX-50 (not DX2-50) boxen, also one per room.
As you add more and more 486 and HST modems, both your compute speed and comm throughput tends towards infinte.
This is the beauty of the Home Beowulf Network!
Ethernet is for wussies. Real Men (tm) do it at 16.8k.
Actually, no- it's not required in-wall. The only cases where plenum is required is in air ducts, hence the name, plenum cable. Want to guess why? PVC gives off extremely toxic fumes when it burns. Plenum is a little more fire resistant, and a little less toxic.
Try googling around, you'll find what I found:
"Plenum Cable: A cable with flammability and smoke characteristics that meet the safety requirements of the National Electrical Code® (NEC®) that allow it to be routed in a plenum area without being enclosed in a conduit. See plenum."
Regular CAT in a fire can act like a fuse, moving the fire from one part of the house to another inside the walls.
This is bullshit. It's not a "fuse", but regardless- plenum would eventually do the same thing- it's a little more fire-resistant than PVC, but it'll still burn.
Please help metamoderate.
(next)
This is my
(next)
story about how
(next)
I thought I was a
(next)
Real Man for hiring
(next)
a contractor to do my
(next)
manly work. Call me 404.
Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
Well I have a nice home network that consists of copper strung through the walls. And if you want a professional looking job here are some tips and tricks to use:
- first place to check is your basement. Older homes might have had duct work for forced air heating but since switched to steam/hot water. I have helped my friend wire his whole house using the old ducts as pathways for running the cable.
- IF you want to run cable through the walls the outer walls of your home are filled with insulation thus making it near impossible to pull cable. the next best walls are walls inside your home that both side of the walls are inside your home. they are hollow and can easily have cable pulled through them.
- Closets are your friend as you can drill holes in them without having to worry about people seeing them. I have a cable that runs from my basement to the second floor closet through a hollow inner wall and then through the closet floor into the ceiling into the attic where I pulled the wire along to another room and drilled down through its closet to run the cable.
- If you want to know where studs are inside the walls of your home the standard spacing is 16 inches from the nearest corner. most any tape measure will have 16 inch markings for stud locations. But be aware this method isn't always 100% as some times they might be a much as 2 inches off.
- attics are also another great place to run cable. locate the room below you want to run cable to and drill from the attic to that rooms closet if it has one to conceal the cable.
- most homes have a molding around the floor. you can remove it with a pry bar without damaging it and cut holes into the sheet rock or plaster and run wire through them. Replace the molding to cover up the hole. always remember to not make the hole higher then the molding otherwise you just made a mess. This is a good way to get cable from one room to adjacent room/closet.
- If you do have forced air heating/cooling you can run cable inside the ducts. If you do decide to do this make sure you use plenum rated cable to stay compliant with local/national building codes.
- Buying cable can sometimes be a problem as you do not know what type or brand to buy. there are two basic cable types regular jackets which most likely be PVC or plenum rated. Plenum cable is designed to give off little or no toxic smoke when burned. this is used inside buildings that use the space inside a drop ceiling as an air duct as well. Also if you plan to run the cable inside an air duct you must use plenum cable to comply with national building codes. So if its just the inside of your home walls the cheap PVC is fine. Also don't go overboard and buy expensive beldin cat 5e stuff. I bought a roll and found it difficult to work with when it came to making patch cables. The crap they sell at the Home Depot is just fine and works good even for gigabit.
These are good ways to conceal cable and do it the same way an electrical contractor would. Some of you might be a little nervous knocking a hole on a wall or ripping up floor boards but if you want to do it yourself and save big bucks you certainly can. I have personally ran over 500ft of cat5 in my home to 10 different computers in 5 different rooms in my home. And if you ever saw the work you would think a contractor did it.
It's all about the Point Management System (PMS). You endure awful movies, perform tasks around the house prior to being nagged to do it and do romantic thingys in order to score points. Points are rewarded depending on the level of commitment/endurance you demonstrated.
For example, sitting through Titanic requires a high level of endurance and will score quite well. But if you are looking to earn enough points for a home network then you are going to have to attempt to sit through a Fried Green Tomatoes, Driving Miss Daisy Double. Even this won't get you close to earning enough points. Dishwashing, vacuuming and taking out the trash are good, but even better if you do it without being told. A romantic date to the movies is good, if dinner is thrown in even better. Dinner at Hooters is not good.
And ofcourse, beware, points can be deducted. You must be on your best behavior. Unfortunately we cannot guarantee that any points will be retained for any period longer than a month.
Good luck
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
I wish I'd read this before I attempted - now I have a few (ok, 8) unsightly holes in my wall.
Worst of all, it was a wireless network. *rimshot* Thank you. You've been a great crowd.
I did mine (a small 3 bedroomed detached house in England) all by myself.
I was fortunate in the fact my walls are of plasterboard construction so I had no problems running cable down them, except between floors. I put a switch and a wireless router in the attic.
What did I learn?
a) If doing it again I would use some conduit pipe to make rewiring easier. However I did put 4 CAT5 ports in each room, which is enough for any small house!
b) buy a big roll of cable and make your own cables - its much cheaper that way.
c) Plan and check before you knock holes in walls
d) I'm a good network installer but a terrible plasterer, put any holes in walls where they'll be most hidden
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Don't fuck around. Need a hole? Use a sledgehammer. Fast, makes a nice, neat hole that's big enough for about 115 Cat5 cables. None of this sissy shit like wireless and threading little bitty cables through little bitty holes and fastening the ends on only AFTER threading the cables.
Worried about the landlord? Screw that! If you can afford more than one computer then you can afford to lose the security deposit.
Oh... and then do what I did. Move to New Zealand. Mwahhahahahaha