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Thread: Networking help for numerous machines |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 12
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ericinboston
Senior Cruncher Joined: Jan 12, 2010 Post Count: 258 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Ok, I think I may need a little help in my home setup for running a lot of WCG machines:
----------------------------------------I have a Netgear Nighthawk R6900P wireless router and I've got about 25 machines in my house dedicated solely to WCG (yay!). But I've also got about 20 devices that the family uses (tvs, idevices, etc.). So 45 devices in total that are "on the Netgear wireless router". Obviously the 25 WCG machines are very intermittent (and light traffic usage) for actual network traffic and send/receive very little data every hour/day. And for the remaining 20, about 15 are intermittent (and traffic), too. My setup is: -WCG machines are almost all ethernet into 3 different switches. 2 of the switches go back to a main switch which in turn goes back to the Netgear wireless router. -The home non-WCG devices are mainly wireless (3 iPhones, 4 iPads, 2 Roku, 4 notebooks, etc.) and of course are intermittently used. There's only 2 computers (1 ethernet, 1 wireless), that are used all day long for work/fun. I'm thinking that I should (or at least as I add more devices) figure out how to "get devices off" the main Netgear Nighthawk R6900P wireless router to relieve any stress if that is possible. I believe I should add a router (such as an older Netgear wireless router) and let the 25 WCG machines attach to that older router. Right? I would imagine that if they were "connected" to that older router then that older router is doing the management of the 25 devices at least from a physical view while the main wireless router is managing them from a DHCP point of view. I think of the older router as a funnel and all 25 WCG devices' network traffic get funneled, and, kind of, viewed as 1 device by the main router. Anyway, I'm just looking to expand my # of devices without the main router being overburdened. 1)I'm not exactly sure how burdened any router is with a device that is simply "on" it. If the device transfers 5MB a day and does no other network traffic the rest of the day, is that much of burden from a router's device management point of view? Obviously a device that is transferring data all day long is more of a burden than a device that sits idle 99% of the day...but I'm unclear about the router's need to manage devices regardless of their data transfer duties. These WCG machines are dedicated 24x7 WCG machines so there's no other traffic and I believe WCG is probably transferring back and forth maybe 25MB per day to each device. So far everything has worked out absolutely fine (knock on wood) because again, only 2 computers are actively used all day long for network traffic and by the time the kids start using their machines, our 2 computers are now idle. I just want to be able to add another 10-20 machines to the network to crunch WCG and not kill the network simply because they are "on the network". I could surely set their WCG Network settings to like 9pm-8am every day of the week but that just limits their network traffic usage. Another option I could do is use a wifi extender: connect the extender via an ethernet cable and set up all the WCG machines to connect to the extender via wifi. I believe the extender can hold 25+ wifi devices (and all the traffic ultimately goes back through the main wireless router (over ethernet)) but ultimately I want to make sure the main Netgear router is not going freak out with 45+ devices. Thanks so much for any advice!!  [Edit 1 times, last edit by ericinboston at Dec 19, 2023 4:50:03 AM] |
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bfmorse
Senior Cruncher US Joined: Jul 26, 2009 Post Count: 298 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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ericinboston,
I have a similar situation as you do. I have my WCG computers linked to the main Comcast provided router hub (handles the DHCP) but the family's network traffic is via Netgear's KnightHawk X6S Triband WIFI router (linked via LAN to the Comcast hub). There are two separate WIFI networks: 1) The family network uses the NighHawk (fancier and higher power) network over three bands (for family and friends) with their own password. They use their cell phones, cable streaming, gaming & etc on this network. 2) And the other network uses the entrypoint unit having a different WiFi password and primarily for my computer and the WCG computer farm. Virtually all of these systems are connected via WIFI except for two of those systems that not do not have WIFI interface. I have about the same number dedicated to WCG. Due to a recent configuration/policy change by Xfinity (aka Comcast), I no longer have access to the routers to define their use and function but have made-due with the current configuration. But, I may be reevaluating that decision - time will tell. I have also been recently considering changing the network to LAN zones rather than WiFi. The idea being to have a switch/router for each group of WCG systems |
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bikeaddict
Cruncher Joined: Apr 11, 2020 Post Count: 32 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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The R6900P is a pretty old and low end router from 2018. And I thought my old Netgear R7400 was old and slow.
• AC1900 WiFi - Band 1: 600Mbps @2.4GHz - Band 2: 1300Mbps @5GHz Those speeds are only attainable when the client is close and the signal is strong. Modern Wi-Fi 6 or 6E models can do these speeds or maybe better: 2.4GHz: up to 1.2Gbps 5GHz: up to 4.8Gbps 6GHz: up to 4.8Gbps Wi-Fi 7 will be even faster. A single higher end router is probably enough to handle the traffic from your setup due to the intermittent nature. When I upgrade, I'll probably go with TP-Link and their 2-year warranty over Netgear with a 1-year. There is a new BE6500 model that hasn't been released in the US yet. On my old setup, I was using a wi-fi extender to connect old workstations to the wireless network. The workstations where connected to a gigabit switch with Ethernet and the switch was connected to the extender that connected to my router and forwarded the traffic. You should be using static IP addresses on the clients and reserving them in the router config. But you have to keep track of what addresses are assigned to avoid conflicts. |
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hchc
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Aug 15, 2006 Post Count: 802 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Network+ and Certified Wireless Network Professional CWTS here. They're both very basic, entry-level certifications so not bragging with that one bit, but huge homelab nerd so I'll try my best.
----------------------------------------I just looked up the Netgear Nighthawk R6900P wireless router's specs, and it's modern enough honestly. I'll try to answer your questions in detail so it's more clear why I'm in favor of or against different ideas.. -WCG machines are almost all ethernet into 3 different switches. 2 of the switches go back to a main switch which in turn goes back to the Netgear wireless router. Daisychaining switches like this is perfectly fine. Heck, I have several layers of switches at home too, at least until I wire the whole place with Ethernet. -The home non-WCG devices are mainly wireless (3 iPhones, 4 iPads, 2 Roku, 4 notebooks, etc.) and of course are intermittently used. There's only 2 computers (1 ethernet, 1 wireless), that are used all day long for work/fun. Not bad. I'm thinking that I should (or at least as I add more devices) figure out how to "get devices off" the main Netgear Nighthawk R6900P wireless router to relieve any stress if that is possible. I believe I should add a router (such as an older Netgear wireless router) and let the 25 WCG machines attach to that older router. Right? This is called double-NATing, and it's generally not a best practice and can introduce new problems. In your situation, adding another router just for the WCG farm that then uplinks into your main R6900P won't relieve any stress at all, since 100% of any data streams (at least Layer 3 things) will still be sent. The Layer 2 traffic (like broadcasts, ARP, etc.) that uses MAC addresses instead of IP addresses (Layer 3) will be isolated, but I promise that that isn't an issue here. Maybe once you get 1000 devices or something. My opinion is not to do this, as there are better ways to plan for the future and grow both your WCG crunching farm as well as adding more household devices. I would imagine that if they were "connected" to that older router then that older router is doing the management of the 25 devices at least from a physical view while the main wireless router is managing them from a DHCP point of view. If you're double-NATing, the older router will have its own IP subnet and will also serve as DHCP server for WCG devices. But back to my point, I think this would be a step backwards and not forwards. (In case it's not clear yet, I think your current router isn't being taxed or stressed at all at this point. But even if it was or will be, there's better ways to grow.) I think of the older router as a funnel and all 25 WCG devices' network traffic get funneled, and, kind of, viewed as 1 device by the main router. Yep, that's what NAT does. So the main router will only see the WAN interface's IP address of the older router. Anyway, I'm just looking to expand my # of devices without the main router being overburdened. I haven't looked at the horrid Netgear wireless router web interface in over a year or two (my stepdad has one), but I do know Netgear outsources all programming to outside developers, and I remember it being really clunky and some ways of doing things annoyed me. I think my Asus wireless routers really spoiled me. For consumer-grade stuff, was very happy with Asus. Anyway, where I was going with this is I don't remember if there is a way in the Web UI to see CPU usage and RAM usage. Because then you could really know for sure if you're overburdening the main router. I'm very confident you're not anywhere close to that and won't be for hundreds more devices. Dedicated crunchboxes don't initiate a whole bunch of sessions that need to be torn down. So something like torrenting would be pretty evil to the main router if all WCG boxes were torrenting or hosting servers or something. They're just sitting idle doing MCM1 all day, which is nothing. Honestly Windows spying uses more traffic than WCG by a long shot haha. 1)I'm not exactly sure how burdened any router is with a device that is simply "on" it. If the device transfers 5MB a day and does no other network traffic the rest of the day, is that much of burden from a router's device management point of view? Practically zero burden. You're fine both now and even if you doubled or tripled your WCG farm in my opinion. You'd want to make sure your DHCP lease pool is big enough to hand out enough IP addresses, of course. Obviously a device that is transferring data all day long is more of a burden than a device that sits idle 99% of the day...but I'm unclear about the router's need to manage devices regardless of their data transfer duties. These WCG machines are dedicated 24x7 WCG machines so there's no other traffic and I believe WCG is probably transferring back and forth maybe 25MB per day to each device. It's really the session traffic like torrenting with thousands of simultaneous temporary connections that are created and destroyed that can overwhelm a consumer router. So if they were all seeding and torrenting it could stress out the router's CPU and RAM keeping track of thousands of sessions. 1 WCG session to upload and report work units that lasts a few seconds? That's basically zero traffic and zero burden. I bet even a router from 2007 could handle that easily. I just want to be able to add another 10-20 machines to the network to crunch WCG and not kill the network simply because they are "on the network". I could surely set their WCG Network settings to like 9pm-8am every day of the week but that just limits their network traffic usage. It's good to plan for the future and reduce risk, etc. But you're completely fine as is from a capacity standpoint. (I'll offer some suggestions on better organizing things though.) Another option I could do is use a wifi extender: connect the extender via an ethernet cable and set up all the WCG machines to connect to the extender via wifi. I believe the extender can hold 25+ wifi devices (and all the traffic ultimately goes back through the main wireless router (over ethernet)) but ultimately I want to make sure the main Netgear router is not going freak out with 45+ devices. If I thought double-NATing with the older wireless router was a mediocre solution, this is 50x more destructive simply because switching devices over from wired ethernet to wireless will slow WiFi down significantly. Wireless is a shared medium, so all devices must wait their turn to talk and listen. In other words, half-duplex. Ethernet switching is full-duplex so all devices can talk at the same time with no issue. WiFi is significantly chattier and there's a whole bunch of control frames and management frames being sent out by everyone, and your Netgear would also have to do a whole hell of a lot more management on its end tracking the positions of those client devices for explicit beamforming and implicit beamforming to work, and it'll really stress both of the wireless radios (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz) and cause extra heat and wear and tear and any devices you actually care about (phones, iPads, laptops, etc.) may feel significantly slower on WiFi. Network extenders (really repeaters) were the worst thing to hit the consumer market, and I'm glad they're becoming obsolete. Consumer mesh (with wireless backhaul) is still a dirty solution but better than extenders/repeaters. Doing this strategy and you'll feel the pain haha. ================================== tl;dr: you're completely fine as is and also have ridiculous amounts of room for growth for the future. I bet you could add 50+ more WCG devices and not stress the router much at all (although Windows Updates once a month will use up your Internet bandwidth, especially if each device fetches from Microsoft independently and you have the "Download Updates from other PCs" setting off.) The only gotcha with current setup is make sure the DHCP pool is large enough to hand out enough IP addresses. A /24 subnet (also known as a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0) allows for 255 total hosts (.0 through .254). Usually the .1 is the router on that subnet, and the last one (.255) is reserved as the broadcast address. But still room for 250+ IP addresses. ================================== So if you do want to do something just for better network organization, I think network segmentation is the way to go. Either using VLANs (virtual LANs) or physically separate switches to handle separate broadcast domains. What this means: Say everything is currently 192.168.1.1 - 192.168.1.254. That's one happy family, one broadcast domain for the whole household. It would be cleaner (and more secure) to create a VLAN for WCG devices -- 192.168.2.1 - 192.168.2.254 for example and have network switches that are Layer 2+ (often called "smart" consumer switches that understand Layer 3 VLANs...or buy a Layer 3 switch (overkill and expensive for home use). And a router that understands VLANs or has multiple interfaces (or both) and not only routes traffic from your entire home network to the Internet (WAN) network but can route between your "main" VLAN and your "WCG" VLAN. And you can even create some security rules/access control lists (ACL) such that WCG devices are not allowed to ever talk to your home network but only outbound to the Internet. And a rule that your main home network can talk to WCG network (to manage them of course). So kind of a 1-way street. It's beautifully organized this way and more secure. Many/most consumer routers aren't VLAN aware, but maybe that's changing. Firewalla looks really fancy and has tons of cool parental controls and security/threat monitoring controls. Maybe look into the Firewalla Gold, Firewalla Gold SE, or Firewalla Gold Plus depending on your needs and Internet speed. But it's a consumer device that does handle VLANs and from what I've seen, makes it easy enough for an advanced home user to set things up without needing to be a network engineer. I don't have kids yet, but the parental controls on that look really, really cool. Of course, once you head down this path of thinking, you'll maybe want to separate out the router and wireless access points (APs) in your network, since the Firewalla is really just a really good router but you'll need APs to handle WiFi needs at home. This does let you upgrade router and WiFi as technology improves instead of putting all your eggs into one wireless router that tries to do everything. But it also adds more complexity to your home network. But I do see the home network turning into a small business network at this point. Modern homes are wired for Ethernet. There's going to be more Internet of Things devices. Cameras, smart vacuums, smart lights, thermostats, etc. Those IoT devices are horribly insecure so it'd be nice to give them a separate "IoT" VLAN so they're not allowed to see or talk to your main home network. So if your smart doorbell gets hacked/compromised, a hacker can't then start attacking your main work PCs as easily. And heck, Network Attached Storage (NAS) are becoming more common at home now too to hold all our files and do backups and other stuff. Serve media/music/movies. I digress and ramble. Hope this wasn't clear as mud but ask if you need me to clarify! You're completely fine the way thing are, because WCG devices can be thought of as basically nothing.
[Edit 2 times, last edit by hchc at Dec 19, 2023 3:33:39 PM] |
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Sgt.Joe
Ace Cruncher USA Joined: Jul 4, 2006 Post Count: 7668 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Network extenders (really repeaters) were the worst thing to hit the consumer market, and I'm glad they're becoming obsolete. Consumer mesh (with wireless backhaul) is still a dirty solution but better than extenders/repeaters. That was an interesting and informative post. Thanks for the extended explanations. I don't run anything as complicated as ericinboston does, but I have had really good luck with a wireless network extender. I have some of my older servers in a shed a good 50 yards from the main house. There is no way I could wire that distance without a lot of hassle. I origainally had "G" but upgraded to "N" a few years ago. "G" worked OK, but "N" so far has worked flawlessly. I have had up to 104 threads (all connected through a switch) running from the shed to the main house. These things may not be what more sophisticated setups require, but for me it has been a good fit. I think the only time that system even becomes slightly saturated is when the supply of MCM dries up and the machines need to reload that one 100mb file for all the machines.It would be nice if that file were sticky. Cheers
Sgt. Joe
*Minnesota Crunchers* |
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ericinboston
Senior Cruncher Joined: Jan 12, 2010 Post Count: 258 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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The R6900P is a pretty old and low end router from 2018. And I thought my old Netgear R7400 was old and slow. Actually the R6900P cost a pretty penny back in the day. :) My internet connection is 500Mbit down/25Mbit up so I'm really nowhere near the speed limits of this router. I've been thinking of upgrading to a new one solely because I would like 5G a lot further than what this one throws. I bought a wifi Extender and connect it via ethernet (which is 500Mbit here since I have Cat6) and it does a good job for the backyard. I'm not a fan of Extenders and really only plug it in a few times a year, again, for the backyard. |
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ericinboston
Senior Cruncher Joined: Jan 12, 2010 Post Count: 258 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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@hchc,
----------------------------------------Thanks for the great post. A great read and yes, I was aware of all the items you mentioned. A few notes: 1)I'm not actually daisychaining the switches to *each other*. 1 switch runs back to the Netgear router. 1 switch actually gets its internet connection from an old Win7 laptop...the laptop grabs internet from wifi and pushes that internet connection out its ethernet jack (remember when laptops had ethernet jacks :) ) into the switch. The final switch does run back to a large switch which in turn runs back to the Netgear so that config is daisychained. 2)I didn't know it was called double NATing but yea, it didn't seem like a great idea. 3)Definitely agree with you on the no-no using a wifi Extender. :) That was a last resort. 4)The router, sadly, does not have a CPU utilization indicator. Again, my main concern was not traffic (because of the tiny amount WCG uses and intermittently)...it was the amount of machines attached (regardless of wifi vs. ethernet) to the router. For example, if I plopped 225 machines on this router and they were doing almost 0 traffic, would the router barf? I dunno. If you and others here think I can bump it from 45 to 70+ (and all new ones will all be ethernet) then that's awesome to know. Thanks again for the great post! [Edit 2 times, last edit by ericinboston at Dec 19, 2023 6:31:07 PM] |
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ericinboston
Senior Cruncher Joined: Jan 12, 2010 Post Count: 258 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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I don't run anything as complicated as ericinboston does... Honestly it is not complicated at all. Seriously! 1)Connect a Switch (I like Netgear or TPLink due to their prices) to the router's ethernet jack. 2)Plug your computer into the Switch using an ethernet jack. Unlike 1996, the Switches do any/all magic for consumers. They are truly plug-and-play. Models I have (a few are not in use) that range $30-$70: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MPVR50A https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000063UZW https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01AX8XHRQ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PFYM5MZ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GR9S6FN The hardest part of this entire setup was drilling the initial hole in the wall in my first floor room into the basement and then stuffing a CAT6 cable down it so it would feed my Switch. [Edit 1 times, last edit by ericinboston at Dec 19, 2023 6:31:31 PM] |
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hchc
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Aug 15, 2006 Post Count: 802 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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@ericinboston
----------------------------------------Again, my main concern was not traffic (because of the tiny amount WCG uses and intermittently)...it was the amount of machines attached (regardless of wifi vs. ethernet) to the router. For example, if I plopped 225 machines on this router and they were doing almost 0 traffic, would the router barf? If those 225 machines are wired via ethernet, then no barfing. The RAM used to keep track of DHCP leases and hostnames in DNS is tiny. If those 225 machines are all hogging the airwaves via WiFi, then your wireless speeds, latency in responding, etc. will noticeably suffer, and you'll feel the pain haha. I dunno. If you and others here think I can bump it from 45 to 70+ (and all new ones will all be ethernet) then that's awesome to know. Yep, I bet you wouldn't notice it at all. I'd be more concerned about premature router failure from heat and old age or whatever. (Heck, my old Asus RT-N66U from 2012 still works even after being struck by lightning, which slowed it down a lot) The IEEE 802.11 working group is supposed to ratify 802.11be in Quarter 1 2024 (which will be marketed as WiFi 7 by the Wi-Fi Alliance). I'm really looking forward to upgrading my home from ac (WiFi 5) to be (WiFi 7) mostly for the faster 4096QAM and 6 GHz band and some other neat things. I'll probably wait til end of 2024 to see what's out. I'm using a Ruckus R710 802.11ac Wave 2 Access Point I got used on eBay for $350 (normally $1200 new) and it's a tank and it's enterprise-grade. My router I'm running pfSense, which is really cool and technical and has a ton of features for nerds. Thanks again for the great post! My pleasure! Connect a Switch (I like Netgear or TPLink due to their prices) to the router's ethernet jack. As much as I hate on Netgear's routers, I do love their switches. Great price for the value for home use. Especially the ProSafe ones with lifetime warranty. My 5-port Netgear switch -- one port stopped working -- and doing the RMA thing and submitting pics and proof of purchase online wasn't that bad, and they sent a brand new replacement via express shipping. I respect that.
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gj82854
Advanced Cruncher Joined: Sep 26, 2022 Post Count: 106 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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@ericinboston If you are concerned about capacity and the ability to monitor the router, i would highly recommend this one:
https://www.amplifi.com/alien I have been very satisfied with this router. Once WCG starts ARP again your data stream will increase significantly. This router handled 15 systems running ARP back when IBM was still managing WCG. This router handled that data stream plus all the wifi phones, firetv wifi streaming etc. Never a hiccup. This was on a 1 gig fibre network. In fact, the network vendor advised that I set their router to pass-thru mode and let my router do all the routing. |
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