Building a robust home network is an evolving journey, especially when optimizing for demanding self hosting applications. This article delves into crucial lessons learned from hands-on experience, from the initial planning stages to the nitty-gritty of cable management and power considerations. Discover how to avoid common pitfalls, budget effectively, future-proof your network infrastructure, and ensure seamless connectivity for your growing home lab. Arm yourself with insights to build a stable, scalable foundation for your digital endeavors.
My home network is never quite finished, partly because I had some oversights while wiring it up, partly because the existing wiring wasn’t designed well, and partly because it’s a large task and I never have the time or the budget to finish it in one go. The number of things I’m learning along the way is also never finished, whether that’s software setup like VLANs, or physical skills like how to terminate 8P8C connectors (and how there are two different wiring schemes). The next stage for me is to pull the mess the builders left hanging outside back into the garage, terminate it all in a patch panel, and set up a dedicated server rack. This should be a lot easier than the last stage, but I fully expect some snags because there’s always some problem that crops up and needs adjustments to the plan. If you’re at the planning stages of your home network, here are some tips I’ve learned the hard way, so you don’t have to.
Planning Your Network Infrastructure: Expect the Unexpected
No Blueprint is Perfect: Embrace Flexibility
The best-designed network in the world will look like a suggestion once you actually start wiring things. There are some general things to keep in mind, like using quality cables, running them through conduits (if you don’t already have boxed in walls), and pulling more cable than you think you need, because it’s easier to do it once than to pull more cable later on. But it’s also crucial to be somewhat flexible in that plan as you execute it. Sometimes cable drops are more difficult than first thought, and things like horizontal cross members for fire-break purposes might make pulling cable through one wall cavity harder than the one next to it, and the only way to figure that out is with a quality stud finder. You might find the tools you picked aren’t up to snuff, which is easily rectified but slows the job down, nonetheless. And like any other task that you’re learning about on the job, you don’t know what you don’t know, at least until the time you do.
Powering Your Home Lab: Beyond PoE
Strategic Power Placement
I love Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) and I’ll use it wherever I can, from smaller network switches to IP cameras. But it’s not the only way to power things on your home network, and sometimes moving a power socket or adding another spur is what’s called for. My current wiring job is somewhat limited in that wall sockets are near the existing Ethernet wall jacks, but they’re not all that close without hiding things inside furniture. The point is that while I knew where things would be connected with wires (and so did my builders), there was only a vague acknowledgment that things would also need a power supply. I’m unsure if I could have got the builder to change plans, as the whole development is built to templates, but I know better now for when I get an electrician in to move things around.
Navigating Regulatory Compliance for Your Network
Code Compliance and Cable Management
Pulling cable through your walls is no fun at the best of times, and I can completely understand not wanting to make the process any longer than it needs to be. I’m fortunate that I’m in a new-built house with some cable runs already done to each floor, inside conduit, and (hopefully) not near any power cables. However, most of those drops don’t go to where I actually want to wire things, so I’m going to have to figure out some additional runs and that’s the problem. Whatever you’ve been told up til now about running twisted-pair cable near mains electric wiring, if the advice was anything but keep them separated, you were told wrongly. In the US, you need to consider the National Electric Code (202) and National Fire Protection Act (70) guidelines, which were revised in 2020. That specifies that coaxial, Ethernet and low-voltage fire alarm cables can be run together, but not with 120V or higher electrical cables, unless you make provisions for a dedicated divider. There are also a bunch of things to follow if you don’t have those cables in a raceway or other barrier, and really unshielded or ungrounded cables should be eight inches from any power cables, or in the next wall cavity if possible. But there could be more local building codes that specify other conditions not set in the NEC, and I’m going to have to look those up before I start buying any equipment or supplies for additional cable runs. The last thing I want to do is for any work to be out of code, whether it’s purely data wires or I’m using PoE.
Budgeting for Your Home Network and Lab
Beyond Cable Costs: Essential Tools and Supplies
Every time I start a project, I always think “oh this seems simple and inexpensive,” and almost every time I’m wrong. Cable costs are a tiny part of the overall cost of wiring your home network, because quality tools are expensive, network testers are even more so, and even consumables like 8P8C plugs, keystone jacks, wall plates, zip ties, and Velcro all add up to substantial sums over the number of cables and sockets involved. And that’s just the initial costs plus some expected overhead for broken plugs and other issues that I knew would happen, because that’s how it always goes with learning a new physical skill. Then there are the tools I didn’t realize I’d need before starting, like a better drill than my existing underpowered one for boring holes through 2×4’s, and fishing rods and tape for pushing cable where it doesn’t want to go. At least the tooling will be usable the next time I decide to do this, although I’ve half a mind to pay someone to do it for me because it’s an annoying task that I dislike dealing with.
Future-Proofing Your Self-Hosting Network
Planning for Scalability: The 10GbE and Fiber Imperative
When I planned out my network hardware, I didn’t consider that I’d want to wire more things at 10GbE speeds. At the time, only my NAS and one PC had 10GbE NICs inside, and so I picked a managed switch with plenty of 2.5GbE ports but only a couple of 10GbE ones. I think at the time I was conservatively worried about scope creep, which is all too easy when planning networks or home lab gear, but I got it wrong on this occasion. At least I did get some 10GbE ports, however, because now I can use those to connect to a dedicated 10GbE switch and still wire all the devices that I now want on faster connectivity, with extra ports for future use as my network expands. If I’d limited myself to a few 2.5GbE ports, I would have no such expansion options, and would need to purchase that part of my network again. I also didn’t think about fiber for the backhaul, before the builders put the drywall up, so that’s going to be a costly upgrade when (or at least, if) that gets done.
Optimizing Wi-Fi for Your Home Lab Environment
Leveraging Wi-Fi Heatmaps for Optimal AP Placement
I’ve been using mesh networking for years, but with wireless backhaul because the apartments I’ve lived in didn’t allow us to run wiring through or around the walls. That made me pretty good at manually repositioning the mesh nodes for consistent coverage, so when I moved into our current house, I didn’t consider using wired backhaul at first. But our builders pulled Cat 5e through the walls to each floor, and after some issues with coverage on the top floor, I plugged in the satellite nodes to use the existing wiring. It hasn’t completely solved the coverage issues up there, but it’s better than it was, and now I’m figuring out what to do next so that there are no deadzones up there. If I’d used something like Netspot to create a wireless heatmap to show where the signal was strongest and weakest, or even gone around with a simple Wi-Fi analyzer app on my phone and recorded the values for each room, I’d have known exactly where signal issues were and have a better idea where to place the access points. This would also have given me pointers as whether it was range or interference that were at fault, so I could either move wiring for the APs or add another on the other side of the house, or even if I needed to tweak the broadcast power to avoid issues.
Wiring my home network the first time was a learning experience
While these were all issues I encountered when wiring my house for network connectivity, they’re far from the full list of things to consider. And I’m sure I’ll learn more things the next time I redesign my home network, because every installation has its own unique quirks. But at least next time I’ll have more knowledge about what to plan for, and I’ve got time to plan things properly so that any unexpected issues can be dealt with and won’t derail the entire plan.