Home Network & NAS setup help

[Jonathan W]

I'm trying to create my own wireless network.

- I want the XBox to have as open a connection as possible so I don't get interference trying to play online

- I want to have a NAS box [thinking of running freenas] that is accessible by all systems [xbox excluded]

- I want to have a wireless AP that my devices and my guests's devices can connect to to NAS [and I can access the internet but the guest cannot]

- I don't want my guest to be able to see any device on the network aside from the NAS box

- Guests will have view only access to the files on the NAS, can't download or upload files, and will be able to activate file streaming to my media center PC in the living room

 

I need help in the hardware procurement and the hardware/software setup of the system. Gigabit is unnecessary because I think we only get like 5MB/s up and down here and the system is mostly used for viewing and streaming, not transferring files.

 

Also reference included picture for those visible learners lol

Edited August 30, 2016 by Jonathan W
Just realized the photo link was broken lol

[Eniqmatic]

All quite easily feasible from the brief explanation except from the last one. To handle all but the last one, I would get a router that supports multiple SSID's (guest SSID as some of them call it) and this will help segregate the traffic. Another way you could do it if you were so inclined would be to make your own pfSense router that would allow you to do the same thing.

 

The last one will take a bit of trial and error with setting up permissions on the NAS correctly.

[Jonathan W]

10 minutes ago, Eniqmatic said:

All quite easily feasible from the brief explanation except from the last one. To handle all but the last one, I would get a router that supports multiple SSID's (guest SSID as some of them call it) and this will help segregate the traffic. Another way you could do it if you were so inclined would be to make your own pfSense router that would allow you to do the same thing.

 

The last one will take a bit of trial and error with setting up permissions on the NAS correctly.

You say it's easily feasible but I know very little about networking [I couldn't even get an un-managed switch to work] lol

 

Also what kinds of hardware are we talking about needing? Cost/performance ratios etc

[Eniqmatic]

On 8/28/2016 at 0:35 AM, Jonathan W said:

You say it's easily feasible but I know very little about networking [I couldn't even get an un-managed switch to work] lol

 

Also what kinds of hardware are we talking about needing? Cost/performance ratios etc

No better time to learn like the present!

 

Hardware for what? pfSense? It will run on any hardware pretty much, no need for anything fancy in the slightest (unless you plan to do high bandwidth VPN). The only requirement you need really is 2 network cards or ports. If you have a PCIe slot then that can be used to populate with NICs.

[Deldran]

So just to recap what your looking to accomplish.

You want 2 networks.  Your network, and a mostly separate one for guests

You want the XBOX traffic to be prioritized so it does not get hindered during gaming

You want a standalone AP

You do not want guests to access any machines on the network except the NAS.

 

A pfsense or sophos UTM based router device would be ideal, but you could likely achieve your goals with an OTS router from your local store as well.

I would highly recommend a ubiquiti AP as they are very cost effective and perform great.  We manage several hundred of them here at my work.

What you will need to accomplish at a higher level is 2 networks using VLAN's

1 VLAN for all of your equipment, the 2nd for the guest network

Your NAS device will need to exist on both VLAN's.  While I am not familiar with freenas since it is *nix based you should be able to create a virtual interface on it that will exist in the guest network.

 

As for your last item.  Have you looked into using Plex as your media server?  I would highly recommend it, then your guests with an App or by going to plex.tv/web could access all of your media.  They could do this even outside of your home, if you configure Plex to be access able to the outside world.

[Jonathan W]

13 hours ago, Deldran said:

 

 

18 hours ago, Eniqmatic said:

 

 

Thank you both for your wonderful information. I was originally going to FreeNAS but it requires a system with at least 8GB of RAM on it to run optimally and the system that is running the NAS is just an Odroid C2 [1.5GHz ARMV8 CPU with 2GB of RAM] so I will have to use something else obviously. I haven't looked into PLEX at all but my friend has an XBMC server that he said he would happily help me setup on it if I asked. Would XBMC be a good alternative to PLEX? I've heard great things about PLEX from the LTT community/videos but idk. 

@Deldran I fixed the image I drafted of how I think the whole network would work. You're essentially right. I would have 2 seperate networks on the same wireless AP, one that can connect to the internet and every other device on the switch, that will be password protected, and another guest network that will have somehow have view only access to the NAS so they can view and queue files [but not upload new files, or download/delete/move/etc. existing files]

@Eniqmatic Yes, I meant hardware, like how Deldran recommended even a general type of router or AP I want to be looking for.

 

I obviously don't want to spend a lot of money on this project, and I know practically nothing about where the price/performance line is for networking hardware.

[Jonathan W]

Also, i'm worried because the Odroid C2 only has USB 2 and a 40 pin GPIOS header [which i've discovered can go to eSATA with special adapters] Is there any way to turn multiple USB 2 ports into a single USB3? The PROBOX that houses my storage drives has only eSATA and USB 3 ports

[Deldran]

Plex is far superior to xbmc IMHO.

I have ditched cable, use SickRage and Couch potato to automatically fetch any TV shows and movies i want to watch. It will process the files if they are zipped or anything like that, then move them into the folders for plex, then update the plex server library.  With things like plexpy and pushover i get notifications on my phone when the content is downloaded and when users are using the system.

 

There are several great write-ups on how to set this all up.  I have been meaning to do one myself actually. 

[Deldran]

I looked at your drawing a little close.

 

Why hang the switch off the NAS box?  The switch should be directly down stream from your firewall.  You will need a VLAN capable switch to truly accomplish what you need.  Then on the port in the switch that the NAS box is attached to, you will TAG that port with both VLAN's.  Then on the nas box, setup a virtual nic so it can exist in both networks.

 

[Jonathan W]

10 hours ago, Deldran said:

Plex is far superior to xbmc IMHO.

I have ditched cable, use SickRage and Couch potato to automatically fetch any TV shows and movies i want to watch. It will process the files if they are zipped or anything like that, then move them into the folders for plex, then update the plex server library.  With things like plexpy and pushover i get notifications on my phone when the content is downloaded and when users are using the system.

 

There are several great write-ups on how to set this all up.  I have been meaning to do one myself actually. 

^^^
I want to avoid doing this lol. This is illegal and just not what i'm trying to do with the whole project. I still purchase my own content, or at most, get HULU logins from family/friends. I have no interest in getting into torrents

7 hours ago, Deldran said:

I looked at your drawing a little close.

 

Why hang the switch off the NAS box?  The switch should be directly down stream from your firewall.  You will need a VLAN capable switch to truly accomplish what you need.  Then on the port in the switch that the NAS box is attached to, you will TAG that port with both VLAN's.  Then on the nas box, setup a virtual nic so it can exist in both networks.

 

You're right here, I didn't think about it until you said it, but you're right, the Switch's input should be hooked direct to the Firewall, then the NAS comes off the switch along with the rest of the stuff I listed. Also, I followed you until the end of the second sentence

[Deldran]

You can use plex for your legal content as well.  You can also use things like Sick rage and Couch just to process your purchased content.  It can grab all the meta data from public databases to populate your plex server with cover art, ratings so on and so fourth.  I was not recommending it because its only good for Illegal Content.  Was recommending it for either because it is an excellent media server.

 

So a Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) operates by tagging your packets with a VLAN ID.  Your switch needs to be capable of doing this.  Most "managed" layer 2 switches will be capable of this.  So then when you configure the switch.  the port that is connected to your NAS box needs to be a member of both VLANS, there will be the default one and your guest vlan.  Then on your NAS box, since you seem to most likely being going with a *Nix based solution, you can configure a virtual nic to exist in your public VLAN.  This will allow your NAS box to have a functioning IP in both networks.

 

Here is some light reading.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_LAN

 

https://linuxconfig.org/configuring-virtual-network-interfaces-in-linux

 

https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200264746-Quick-Start-Step-by-Step-Guides

[Jonathan W]

On 9/1/2016 at 11:44 AM, Deldran said:

 

I just re-read my post and I'm sorry if I came off the wrong way and offended you some how.

 

Thanks for the links, i'm at work now so I can't really dive into them yet but what about hardware? Do you have any specific ideas of what I should be looking at? Or even model names?

[Deldran]

If you dont want to do a home brew router i would try and scoop one of these up.

 

Router

https://www.neweggbusiness.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9B-0XK-000W-00060&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleBiz-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleBiz-PC-_-pla-_-Network+-+Firewalls-_-9B-0XK-000W-00060&gclid=Cj0KEQjw0rm-BRCn85bm8uS-zK0BEiQAHo4vrI6mEdg2yzJ0O8bEHOSqdLZ98HzYnyJoe9fnHlCwvR4aAhJJ8P8HAQ

 

Switch

https://store.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-switch-8-150w.html

 

AP

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9GZ3YP7939&cm_re=Unifi_AC_Pro-_-0ED-0005-000W0-_-Product

 

Running all ubiquiti equipment will make management super easy as it all talks to the same controller.

 

As far as your nas. Either build a linux based box and use samba shares to share the stuff.  Or do a freeNAS or Unraid setup.  I would vote unraid although its not free after 3 drives.

 

[Eniqmatic]

55 minutes ago, Deldran said:

If you dont want to do a home brew router i would try and scoop one of these up.

 

Router

https://www.neweggbusiness.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9B-0XK-000W-00060&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleBiz-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleBiz-PC-_-pla-_-Network+-+Firewalls-_-9B-0XK-000W-00060&gclid=Cj0KEQjw0rm-BRCn85bm8uS-zK0BEiQAHo4vrI6mEdg2yzJ0O8bEHOSqdLZ98HzYnyJoe9fnHlCwvR4aAhJJ8P8HAQ

 

Switch

https://store.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-switch-8-150w.html

 

AP

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9GZ3YP7939&cm_re=Unifi_AC_Pro-_-0ED-0005-000W0-_-Product

 

Running all ubiquiti equipment will make management super easy as it all talks to the same controller.

 

As far as your nas. Either build a linux based box and use samba shares to share the stuff.  Or do a freeNAS or Unraid setup.  I would vote unraid although its not free after 3 drives.

 

Out of interest, why would you choose unRAID?

[Deldran]

The flexability and ease of use. Much easier to use than a full blown Linux distro.  Easy to add and remove more drives. Flexible in regards of being able to use docker containers and create full blown virtual machines.

 

I understand many on this form recommend freeNAS and ZFS.  Not to say this is not a great solution, but not as flexible or easy to use for some.

[Eniqmatic]

13 hours ago, Deldran said:

The flexability and ease of use. Much easier to use than a full blown Linux distro.  Easy to add and remove more drives. Flexible in regards of being able to use docker containers and create full blown virtual machines.

 

I understand many on this form recommend freeNAS and ZFS.  Not to say this is not a great solution, but not as flexible or easy to use for some.

I was just interested what personally made you recommend unRAID over FreeNAS. I believe everyone is entitled to their own opinion and to run whatever they please so was just curious is all!

 

Why would you say its more flexible or easy to use?

[Mikensan]

So I would let your firewall handle who can go where and just use subnets to separate out the networks. You'll just want your firewall to have 3+ LAN/NIC ports. 1 for WAN, 1 for LAN, 1 for "wifi." Lot of wireless routers offer a guest network multi-SID solution but you'll pay a little more for it...

 

https://www.gliffy.com/go/publish/image/11105947/L.png

 

You should end up with 3 subnets, say... 192.168.0.1/24 for your LAN, 192.168.1.1/24 for your WiFi, and 192.168.2.1/24 for your Guest Wifi. Can't really explain how to configure anything until you decide on what NAS/Firewall solution you're going to go for. 

[Jonathan W]

7 minutes ago, Mikensan said:

 

 

11 hours ago, Eniqmatic said:

 

 

On 9/6/2016 at 2:10 PM, Deldran said:

 

I want to thank everyone for their help but the guidelines for the project have changed. I've outlined it in this post 

 

 

 

[Mikensan]

11 hours ago, Eniqmatic said:

I was just interested what personally made you recommend unRAID over FreeNAS. I believe everyone is entitled to their own opinion and to run whatever they please so was just curious is all!

 

Why would you say its more flexible or easy to use?

I use FreeNAS and love it. After giving unRaid a quick once over (youtube / screenshots) it looks a lot more user friendly / point and click. I think FreeNAS 10 based off a few pictures I've seen will be a lot easier too. I think for a lot of newbies the amount of buttons / flexibility of FreeNAS could be overwhelming. Would I use unRaid? Maybe as a file archive but nothing else. Even then I don't feel like paying for it... so overall I wouldn't personally use unRaid. I can see however for a non-IT person how easy and simple unRaid appears.

[Eniqmatic]

12 hours ago, Mikensan said:

I use FreeNAS and love it. After giving unRaid a quick once over (youtube / screenshots) it looks a lot more user friendly / point and click. I think FreeNAS 10 based off a few pictures I've seen will be a lot easier too. I think for a lot of newbies the amount of buttons / flexibility of FreeNAS could be overwhelming. Would I use unRaid? Maybe as a file archive but nothing else. Even then I don't feel like paying for it... so overall I wouldn't personally use unRaid. I can see however for a non-IT person how easy and simple unRaid appears.

Indeed, this is my opinion too (I haven't personally used unRAID yet but appreciate everyone has different opinions). Having used FreeNAS 10 Alpha and more recently Beta, I'm excited for it. There are a couple of features I can't wait to use. I don't personally see the attraction to unRAID over FreeNAS for storage, particularly like you say when there is a cost.