Category: Networking

Cellular backup (again) via Google’s Project Fi, a Cisco 3825 and an HWIC-3G-GSM

August 23, 2016 / / 0 Comments

I get really poor signal with TMo and Sprint in my area, but I am using Project Fi for my cellular service. I figured I’d grab one of their free SIMs and put my HWIC-3G-GSM back in service. Unfortunately.. I get really poor signal. Like -102dB RSSI! I’m going to have to see if I can get a cheap TNC antenna with a cord long enough to put it outside; for some reason I can get good signal according to my Nexus 5X — even getting LTE just by stepping outside.

For now I figured I’d get the basic configuration done. Even with little to go by it was fairly easy to setup — especially as most cell carriers don’t have PAP/CHAP authentication.



router(config)#
chat-script gsm "" "ATDT*99#" TIMEOUT 30 CONNECT
!
interface Cellular0/0/0
 description Project Fi - TMobile
 ip address negotiated
 ip nat outside
 ip virtual-reassembly in
 encapsulation ppp
 dialer in-band
 dialer idle-timeout 360 either
 dialer string GSM
 dialer-group 1
 async mode interactive
 ppp chap hostname h2g2
 ppp chap password 0 ""
 ppp ipcp dns request
!
ip nat inside source list 1 interface Cellular0/0/0 overload
ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 Cellular0/0/0
!
access-list 1 permit any
dialer-list 1 protocol ip list 1
!
line 0/0/0
 script dialer GSM
 modem InOut
 no exec
 rxspeed 3600000
 txspeed 384000
!
^Z


router#cellular 0/0/0 gsm profile create 1 h2g2 



Note that you can also pass authentication information in the GSM profile creation; however that isn’t needed for Project Fi.


This was a basic test just to see if I could get connectivity, I’m going to use it as an alternate route to the big cloud that is the internet in the event that I really need access and Time Warner Cable has let me down by abusing maintenance windows daily — as seems to be the case lately!


So far I’ve run into issues; I’d disconnect from the network and not be able to reconnect. Sometimes a modem power-cycle fixes this. I decided to upgrade the crusty old firmware to something slightly less crusty (note: I hate Sierra Wireless modems) — Cisco says “not for use in the US,” however it IS listed for the MC8775 modem on my HWIC and I know people have used it for the same modem in ThinkPads (trusty T61/T61p!) in the US. I couldn’t get it through Cisco as you need a support contract for Sierra Wireless firmware, oddly enough. I was able to find it online, you’d be looking for version 2.0.8.19 — generally named 8775_h2_0_8_19.tar. This of course will depend on the modem in your HWIC as they didn’t all come with MC8775s.


Check your hardware! It’s easy enough to see what modem is on your HWIC even if you don’t want to physically pull it to check it:


cell.wan#sh controllers cellular 0/0/0


Interface Cellular0/0/0
HSDPA/UMTS/EDGE/GPRS-850/900/1800/1900/2100MHz unit 0, 
HWIC cellular modem configuration:
---------------------------


Modem is recognized as valid for this HWIC
manufacture id: 0x00001199 product id: 0x00006812
Sierra Wireless MC8775 UMTS modem.
GPS State: GPS disabled


Pre-upgrade:


cell.wan#sh cell 0/0/0 hardware
Modem Firmware Version = H1_1_8_3MCAP C:/WS/F
Modem Firmware built = 03/08/07
Hardware Version = 1.0
International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) = NUMBERSHERE
International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) = NUMBERSHERE
Integrated Circuit Card ID (ICCID) = NUMBERSHERE
Mobile Subscriber International Subscriber
IDentity Number (MSISDN) = NUMBERSHERE
Factory Serial Number (FSN) = NUMBERSHERE
Modem Status = Low Power Mode
Current Modem Temperature = 23 deg C, State = Normal
PRI SKU ID = 0, SKU Rev. = 20.0


Upgrade process:


cell.wan#microcode reload cellular 0 0 gsm modem-provision
Reload microcode? [confirm]
Log status of firmware download in router flash?[confirm]
Firmware download status will be logged in flash:fwlogfile
Microcode Reload Process launched for hwic slot=0; hw type=0x51E
cell.wan#
*****************************************************
 The interface will be Shut Down for Firmware Upgrade 
 This will terminate any active data connections.
 Do not make any config changes related to the interface.
*****************************************************
Modem radio has been turned off
*****************************************************
 Modem will be upgraded!
 Upgrade process will take up to 15 minutes. During 
 this time the modem will be unusable.
 Please do not remove power or reload the router during 
 the upgrade process.
*****************************************************
backing up NV data..Could take up to 3 minutes


*Aug 23 10:18:06.423: %LINK-5-CHANGED: Interface Cellular0/0/0, changed state to administratively down++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Prepare modem for downloading boot image.
Begin boot image download
Firmware [size:234279 bytes] will be downloaded in 228 segments


Sync indication Successful
Sync indication Successful
***** Boot File Upgrade OK *****


******************************************
The firmware file will be copied in blocks 
from Compact Flash. Please DO NOT remove 
Compact Flash during Upgrade Process. Doing 
so will cause download failure and leave 
modem in unusable state
*******************************************
Begin application image download
Firmware [size:13393280 bytes] will be downloaded in 13129 segments
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sync indication Successful
Sync indication Successful
***** Application Firmware Upgrade OK *****


Modem Upgrade OK
*Aug 23 10:25:30.179: %CELLWAN-2-MODEM_DOWN: Modem in HWIC slot 0/0 is DOWN
*Aug 23 10:25:46.963: %CELLWAN-2-MODEM_UP: Modem in HWIC slot 0/0 is now UP
*Aug 23 10:25:46.963: %CELLWAN-2-MODEM_DOWN: Modem in HWIC slot 0/0 is DOWN
*Aug 23 10:26:00.191: %CELLWAN-2-MODEM_UP: Modem in HWIC slot 0/0 is now UP
Modem radio has been turned on
*Aug 23 10:26:44.587: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface Cellular0/0/0, changed state to down


Post-upgrade:


cell.wan#sh cellular 0/0/0 hardware
Modem Firmware Version = H2_0_8_19MCAP G:/WS/
Modem Firmware built = 08/29/08
Hardware Version = 1.0
International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) = NUMBERSHERE
International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) = NUMBERSHERE
Integrated Circuit Card ID (ICCID) = NUMBERSHERE
Mobile Subscriber International Subscriber
IDentity Number (MSISDN) = NUMBERSHERE
Factory Serial Number (FSN) = NUMBERSHERE
Modem Status = Online
Current Modem Temperature = 27 deg C, State = Normal
PRI SKU ID = 9991803, SKU Rev. = 1.3




The 2.0.8 line increases the HSDPA downlink speed from 3.6mbit/s to 7.2mbit/s (assuming your signal is acceptable, of course). I’m just hoping it stabilizes my connection and I don’t have to do any actual debugging! After installing the firmware update I had no problems bringing a connection up. So far it seems “more stable,” but only time will tell if it randomly drops. It also gives more information from “show cellular 0/0/0” ..


Once I get an antenna and (hopefully) better signal so I can maintain “usable,” speeds for basic browsing I’ll throw it in the routing table. For now, it can sit to the side as a novelty.


		


	

									
			

											
				
			

		
				



	
		

			
			

				How My Network Broke Today (Part I of atleast a billion)
			

			
					
		

		
			January 6, 2015
			
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So today I went to spin up a new VM for development use. It wouldn’t get an IP address, I saw the DHCP request on the DHCP server, and saw an offer go out but it was never received.  I dug through, and it seemed like this was just happening on one VLAN since everything else was OK.


Did I mention everything else was already running?


Did I mention if I had a trap collector with an alarm board that I would know what had happened almost immediately and been able to pinpoint the issue before I even saw the effects?


No? Well, now I have.


Let’s just say that I spent over an hour digging, running tcpdump on various interfaces, then finally hit the switches. I noticed there was only one port in the port channel on the Dell 5224 access switch when there should have been two down to the distribution switch. Odd but I thought inconsequential (at the time).


I got into the Cisco switch and saw MAC flaps (TRAPPABLE) all over the place with Po2. Odd again. The Dell switch must be to blame, so I go back to it and shut the port that’s not in the LACP port channel but should be. Things improve. Have I mentioned that I’d unplugged that fiber a week ago and only recently got a new one to plug back in?


I spend some time trying to get both ports in the port channel to no avail. I finally look at the config and notice the VLAN allowed config is slightly off (one is missing from eth 1/23), so I shut both the ports on the Cisco side as Dell won’t let you change interface configs while it’s part of a port channel and this was just faster — I reset the eth 1/23 config to match eth 1/24, and voila both ports came up.


But things were even worse now, barely any MACs were seen in ‘show mac address-table’ on my 3550-12 from Po2. And they were all on VLAN 1. Ugh. I shut the interfaces again and reset some more of the configuration on the Dell switch. I pray. (I don’t really pray). I bring the interfaces back up and all is good. The VM gets its IP address and everything is right in the world.


I really hate the Dell configurations. If I hated this switch before it’d be an understatement, and it’s only given me more of a reason to want to smash it with a hammer today. It’s mainly due to me not being familiar with them, but their configs aren’t as intuitive as I’d like.


		


	

									
			

											
				
			

		
				



	
		

			
			

				iSCSI Booting Win2012 Server WITHOUT an HBA (Intel I350-T2 / 82571 / 82574 etc)
			

			
					
		

		
			January 3, 2015
			
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Thankfully Intel cards have iSCSI initiators in their firmware, so I setup a ZFS volume to make my HTPC diskless to attempt to stress the file server a bit more and generally just play with things as I tend to do.


So I added some settings to my ISC DHCP daemon under my shared network stanza to pass IQN/server settings to the Intel I350 card (82574 etc would work equally well here):


shared-network "VLAN-451" {
 default-lease-time 720000;
 option domain-name "p2.iscsi.frankd.lab";
 option domain-name-servers ns.frankd.lab;
  subnet 172.17.2.128 netmask 255.255.255.128 {
  range 172.17.2.144 172.17.2.239;
 }
 host intel-htpc1 {
  hardware ethernet a0:36:9f:03:99:7c;
  filename "";
  option root-path "iscsi:172.17.2.130::::iqn.2014-12.lab.frankd:htpc1";
 }
}



Voila, the card came up, grabbed DHCP settings and immediately initiated a connection! Awesome, the first thing to go right so far!  I admit I briefly spent some time trying to get iPXE to work with the Realtek card, but I ran into issues and just decided to use something I had laying around to get up and running quicker. The onboard Realtek is now for regular network data only, I might get a single port Intel card since I don’t need MPIO to this machine.


I imaged Win2012 Server to a USB stick using Rufus and plugged it in, it saw the drive and installed to it. I can’t believe things are going so easy/well for once! Then the system reboots. And it mounts the volume. And the Windows logo comes up. Then an error message comes up saying it couldn’t boot. Right away I knew it wasn’t getting past the BIOS calls to the disk (which were taken care of by the Intel NIC), and some Googling came up with horrible answers until I found an IBM document saying a new Intel driver fixes the issue — in a very indirect way. They don’t specify what, but it apparently has something to do with the iBFT tables that are created for the handoff. So I downloaded the newest drivers, put them on the USB stick and I installed Windows 2012 Server AGAIN. This time I loaded the newest version of the network drivers off the USB stick before even partitioning the disk, though.


The machine rebooted..


 


And..


 


IT WORKED! I was up and running. I installed the User Experience stuff so I could get Netflix/Hulu up easy, downloaded nVidia drivers and am now getting my Steam games downloaded to the machine — although I could stream off my workstation/gaming PC. It can’t hurt to have more than one machine with them installed in case either one of them dies and I need to go blow some pixels up to relieve some stress though, right?


 


		


	

									
			

											
				
			

		
				



	
		

			
			

				Getting My Real VM Server Back Online Part III: Storage, iSCSI, and Live Migrations
			

			
					
		

		
			January 3, 2015
			
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After some dubious network configurations (that I should have never configured incorrectly) I finally got multipath working to the main storage server. All of the multipath.conf examples I saw resulted in non-functional iSCSI MPIO, while having no multipath.conf left me with failover MPIO instead of interleaved/round-robin.


A large issue with trying to get MPIO configured was the fact that all the examples I found were either old (and scsi_id works slightly differently in Ubuntu 14.04) or just poor. Yes, I wound up using Ubuntu. Usually I use Slackware for EVERYTHING, but lately I’ve been trying to branch out. Most of the VMs run Fedora, “Pegasus” or VMSrv1 uses Fedora, “Titan” uses Ubuntu.


Before I did anything with multipath.conf (It’s empty on Ubuntu 14.04), I got this:


root@titan:/home/frankd# multipath -ll
1FREEBSD HTPC1-D1 dm-2 FREEBSD,CTLDISK
size=256G features='0' hwhandler='0' wp=rw
|-+- policy='round-robin 0' prio=1 status=active
| `- 13:0:0:0 sde 8:64 active ready running
`-+- policy='round-robin 0' prio=1 status=enabled
  `- 12:0:0:0 sdd 8:48 active ready running



Note the disks are both round-robin — with only one member each! This works for fail-over, but did nothing for performance. The only thing that wound up working for multipath.conf was this:


defaults {
 user_friendly_names yes
 polling_interval 3
 path_grouping_policy multibus
 path_checker readsector0
 path_selector "round-robin 0"
 features "0"
 no_path_retry 1
 rr_min_io 100
}

multipaths {
 multipath {
  wwid 1FREEBSD_HTPC1-D1
  alias testLun
 }
}



The wwid/alias doesn’t work, however. All of the MPIO is just coming from the defaults stanza. I attempted many things with no luck, unfortunately. I’m going to have to delve into this more especially if I want live migrations to work properly with MPIO. As it stands the disk devices are pointing at a single IP (ex /dev/disk/by-path/ip-172.17.2.2:3260-iscsi-iqn.2014-12.lab.frankd:htpc1-lun-0), I’ll need to point at aliases to get the VMs working with multipath.


The multipath tests themselves were promising though, dd was able to give me a whopping 230MB/s to the mapper device over a pair of GigE connections.


The output from ‘multipath -ll’ now looked more reasonable:


root@titan:/home/frankd# multipath -ll
mpath1 (1FREEBSD HTPC1-D1) dm-2 FREEBSD,CTLDISK
size=256G features='1 queue_if_no_path' hwhandler='0' wp=rw
`-+- policy='round-robin 0' prio=1 status=active
  |- 39:0:0:0 sde 8:64 active ready running
  `- 40:0:0:0 sdg 8:96 active ready running



You can see the drives are both under the same round-robin policy instead of two separate ones.


The storage server also saw some slight changes, including upgrading from one Intel X25-V 40GB for L2ARC to 2xX25-Vs for a total of 80GB. I also added a 60GB Vertex 2 as a SZIL device. I really need to build a machine with more RAM and partition out the SZIL. I’ll likely wind up using my 840Pro 256GB for L2ARC and leave the old X25Vs out of the main array once I get a pair of 10GbE cards for maximum speed (hopefully near-native of the 840Pro — perhaps better with a large amount of ARC) to my workstation.


So we’re at a point where everything appears to be working, although in need of some upgrades! Great! I’m looking at a KCMA-D8 Dual Opteron C32 motherboard as I have a pair of Opteron 4184s (6 core Lisbon, very similar to a Phenom II X6 1055T) laying around, so I could put together a 32GB 12 core machine for under $400 — but as always, budgetary constraints for a hobby squash that idea quickly.


		


	

									
			

											
				
			

		
				



	
		

			
			

				Getting My Real VM Server Back Online Part II: Storage Server!
			

			
					
		

		
			December 31, 2014
			
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Anticipating the arrival of RAM for my VM server tomorrow I decided I needed some kind of real storage server, so I started working on one. I haven’t touched BSD since I was a kid, so I’m not used to it in general. I wasn’t sure how OpenSolaris would work on my hardware (I hear it’s better on Intel than AMD) so I opted for FreeBSD. Unfortunately I just found out FreeBSD doesn’t have direct iSCSI integration with ZFS, but that’s okay! We can always change OS’s later, especially since the storage array leaves a lot to be desired (RAID-Z1 with 4x1GB 2.5″ 5200RPM drives + 40GB Intel X25V for L2ARC, no separate ZIL).


I’m getting used to the new OS and about to configure iSCSI, which will be handed out via multipath over an Intel 82571EB NIC into two separate VLANs into a dedicated 3550-12T switch. We’ll see how it works, and if it’s fine I’m going to get my HTPC booting over it.


I’m going to look around for a motherboard with more RAM slots, for now I’m stuck with a mATX motherboard, a SAS card that won’t let the system boot, and 2 RAM slots (8GB) with an FX-8320.


Performance tests to come.. after I encounter a dozen issues and hopefully deal with them!


		


	

									
			

											
				
			

		
				



	
		

			
			

				Rearranging The Intranet of Things Part II
			

			
					
		

		
			December 31, 2014
			
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I’m sure there will be a lot more posts like this to come. I had formerly moved the edge router to the ‘closet’ (aka the garage, right next to the cable modem and 3560-24PS sitting there) and added another router there to have a routed gig port into my ‘office’ (aka my bedroom with a couple desks).


Today I replaced both routers with a single 7206VXR with an NPE-G1. I had it all configured and everything should’ve worked off the bat, but it didn’t — not exactly, anyway. The routing was perfect, the NAT was great. But I only have a VAM card which doesn’t work with 15.x (only VAM2 cards work with new code), and I didn’t want it doing VPN in software.


So I decided to keep the old WAN router as VPN-only duty. I briefly considered using a 1760 with a VPN module (I have a few), but when I finally get to having decent internet speeds it would choke. The 3825 has an EPII+ card on top of the onboard hardware engine, so it should at the least have no issue keeping up with my internet connection with weak Triple-DES. The only issue is when I went to forward UDP 4500 from the edge router to the VPN router I got:


% Port 4500 is being used by system


I was able to successfully forward ports UDP 500 and ESP, but here I got stumped. I verified there was no crypto config, I tried clearing crypto stuff, I tried disabling software crypto — all with no luck. Googling didn’t give me much to go on, but I finally ran into something showing this error as an IOS-XE bug for 15.2(4)S2 –and I was running 15.2(4)S3 (pure IOS, but basically the same), so being out of options and ideas I decided to just install 15.2(4)M7 and Voila! Problem solved!


Two routers replaced with — two routers, maybe that doesn’t sound very good, but it will allow me to do more at the edge with more ports available directly on the router instead of playing with switches and VLANs/VRFs.


And in case you want to see how my network is physically wired — and this is somewhat simplified, here you are!


Network Diagram
Simplified Network Diagram – 01/01/15


		


	

									
			

											
				
			

		
				



	
		

			
			

				Rearranging The Intranet of Things
			

			
					
		

		
			December 30, 2014
			
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So after dealing with a bunch of random dd-wrt based access points I decided to grab some LAP1142Ns off of eBay. I set up a vWLC on the VM machine, and was able to get it going fairly quickly even with no knowledge of Cisco Wireless technology.


So far my throughput is only slightly increased even after moving to 5GHz and having a 3×3 MIMO radio in my laptop.


I added a real router for the upstairs network (3825), and a gig link from the ‘closet’ to my office/workstations. Some of the interconnects in the lab are temporarily dual 100MBit load balanced via EIGRP to alleviate some of the bottlenecks. The LAP1142Ns are limited to 100mbit due to a 3560-24PS being the only POE switch I have, but I never see more than about 60mbit of throughput over wireless, and the port never exceeds 70mbit — so until I get that sorted out it’s not a limitation.


To get more gig links in my ‘office’ (aka my bedroom) I trunked a cheap Dell 5224 to a 3550-12G, replacing the 3550-12T that was formerly there. I wish I could afford newer Cisco gig switches my budget is basically non-existent.


I still need a total network redesign, my routing table is almost laughable:


dswr1.core#sh ip route
Codes: C - connected, S - static, R - RIP, M - mobile, B - BGP
 D - EIGRP, EX - EIGRP external, O - OSPF, IA - OSPF inter area
 N1 - OSPF NSSA external type 1, N2 - OSPF NSSA external type 2
 E1 - OSPF external type 1, E2 - OSPF external type 2
 i - IS-IS, su - IS-IS summary, L1 - IS-IS level-1, L2 - IS-IS level-2
 ia - IS-IS inter area, * - candidate default, U - per-user static route
 o - ODR, P - periodic downloaded static route

Gateway of last resort is 172.16.5.6 to network 0.0.0.0

D 192.168.30.0/24 [90/28928] via 10.255.1.6, 22:58:10, FastEthernet0/16
 [90/28928] via 10.255.1.2, 22:58:10, FastEthernet0/14
 172.17.0.0/16 is variably subnetted, 6 subnets, 2 masks
D 172.17.0.48/28 [90/28672] via 10.255.1.6, 1d00h, FastEthernet0/16
 [90/28672] via 10.255.1.2, 1d00h, FastEthernet0/14
D 172.17.0.32/28 [90/28672] via 10.255.1.6, 1d00h, FastEthernet0/16
 [90/28672] via 10.255.1.2, 1d00h, FastEthernet0/14
D 172.17.0.16/28 [90/28672] via 10.255.1.6, 1d00h, FastEthernet0/16
 [90/28672] via 10.255.1.2, 1d00h, FastEthernet0/14
D 172.17.0.0/28 [90/28672] via 10.255.1.6, 1d00h, FastEthernet0/16
 [90/28672] via 10.255.1.2, 1d00h, FastEthernet0/14
D 172.17.0.72/29 [90/28672] via 10.255.1.6, 1d00h, FastEthernet0/16
 [90/28672] via 10.255.1.2, 1d00h, FastEthernet0/14
D 172.17.0.64/29 [90/28672] via 10.255.1.6, 1d00h, FastEthernet0/16
 [90/28672] via 10.255.1.2, 1d00h, FastEthernet0/14
 172.16.0.0/16 is variably subnetted, 7 subnets, 4 masks
C 172.16.255.0/28 is directly connected, Vlan601
D 172.16.2.8/30 [90/28416] via 10.255.1.6, 1d00h, FastEthernet0/16
 [90/28416] via 10.255.1.2, 1d00h, FastEthernet0/14
D 172.16.2.4/30 [90/28672] via 10.255.1.6, 22:58:18, FastEthernet0/16
 [90/28672] via 10.255.1.2, 22:58:18, FastEthernet0/14
C 172.16.5.4/30 is directly connected, FastEthernet0/24
D 172.16.3.2/32 [90/156672] via 10.255.1.6, 22:58:14, FastEthernet0/16
 [90/156672] via 10.255.1.2, 22:58:14, FastEthernet0/14
D 172.16.1.0/24 [90/28672] via 10.255.1.6, 1d00h, FastEthernet0/16
 [90/28672] via 10.255.1.2, 1d00h, FastEthernet0/14
D 172.16.3.1/32 [90/156160] via 172.16.5.6, 10:49:53, FastEthernet0/24
 172.18.0.0/28 is subnetted, 1 subnets
D 172.18.0.0 [90/28672] via 10.255.1.6, 1d00h, FastEthernet0/16
 [90/28672] via 10.255.1.2, 1d00h, FastEthernet0/14
D 192.168.99.0/24 [90/28928] via 10.255.1.6, 03:03:00, FastEthernet0/16
 [90/28928] via 10.255.1.2, 03:03:00, FastEthernet0/14
 10.0.0.0/30 is subnetted, 2 subnets
C 10.255.1.4 is directly connected, FastEthernet0/16
C 10.255.1.0 is directly connected, FastEthernet0/14
D 192.168.0.0/24 [90/30720] via 172.16.5.6, 10:49:54, FastEthernet0/24
D 192.168.100.0/24 [90/28672] via 10.255.1.6, 1d00h, FastEthernet0/16
 [90/28672] via 10.255.1.2, 1d00h, FastEthernet0/14
C 192.168.101.0/24 is directly connected, Vlan400
D*EX 0.0.0.0/0 [170/30720] via 172.16.5.6, 10:49:54, FastEthernet0/24


		


	

									
			

											
				
			

		
				



	
		

			
			

				A lot of bit of nothing
			

			
					
		

		
			December 19, 2014
			
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As it sometimes happens personal stuff has taken hold of my life and stopped me from doing anything major with anything technology related. I decided that I should pick a little project to pick up some new skills, so I’ll be setting up Cisco’s AIR-CTVM Wireless controller along with a couple LAP-1142Ns 802.11n (draft) access points that I picked up off of eBay to get rid of the DD-WRT APs which haven’t been entirely cooperative. For example, the Netgear WNR834B v2 will only use the base channel assigned with the second channel being two channels above it (currently channels 6 and 8) which is clearly not optimal for throughput. 


I’m going to be rearranging my home network to segment it a bit more and do some more with routing. I want to keep the LAPs running off the 3560-24PS with PoE power instead of powering them with external bricks, so unfortunately each AP will be limited to 100mbit of throughput — that’s actually still better than what I get now over the 2.4GHz N AP, so it’ll still be a usable throughput improvement.


I’ll also be able to actually do some L3 segmenting instead of needing to share a VLAN across physical boundaries for the ‘dumb’ AP bridges currently in place.


I’ve been doing some work on IP management software, and while a lot of the back-end functionality is currently there for calculation, I’d like to rewrite some of it for speed. There are parts that are written strictly for readability using strings instead of bit compares, and they’re much slower than I’d like them to be for large address spaces. I should have something interesting to show if I can manage to put a little more time into it.