Home network setup

[Guilders]

Hi Guys,

 

First post, long time reader and user of Netduma.

 

I'm a network noob, DHCP, DNS, NAT and Static etc is all gobbly gook to me, so if you can help keep it simples lol

 

Here we go;

 

I have a modem > netduma r1, all work really well but have noticed the congestion flower is absolutely chock a block with unnamed devices, which affects percentages to each device etc.

 

What I was looking to do was have modem > Netduma ( with ps4, computer and skyQ wired in with wifi off ) > Linksys wrt1900 ( as access for all other devices to connect, either wireless or wired )

 

My thinking is that the congestion flower would have just the ps4, computer, skyQ and the Linksys wrt1900 showing, and I can then control bandwidth to the Linksys which can have all the devices it wants and I would only have one control point ( hope that made sense )

 

So is there someone who can give me a step by step guide on how to do that, or direct me to a page that shows me.

 

Hope this made sense, Cheers in advance

[Netduma Jack]

 

Hi Guys,

 

First post, long time reader and user of Netduma.

 

I'm a network noob, DHCP, DNS, NAT and Static etc is all gobbly gook to me, so if you can help keep it simples lol

 

Here we go;

 

I have a modem > netduma r1, all work really well but have noticed the congestion flower is absolutely chock a block with unnamed devices, which affects percentages to each device etc.

 

What I was looking to do was have modem > Netduma ( with ps4, computer and skyQ wired in with wifi off ) > Linksys wrt1900 ( as access for all other devices to connect, either wireless or wired )

 

My thinking is that the congestion flower would have just the ps4, computer, skyQ and the Linksys wrt1900 showing, and I can then control bandwidth to the Linksys which can have all the devices it wants and I would only have one control point ( hope that made sense )

 

So is there someone who can give me a step by step guide on how to do that, or direct me to a page that shows me.

 

Hope this made sense, Cheers in advance

 

 

Hi, welcome to the forum! The devices showing on the flower are (or were) connected to the Netduma. If you only wanted to use this feature with those 4 mentioned devices, you will need to disconnect any other devices from the Netduma, reboot from Settings > Miscellaneous, and then delete those devices in the Device Manager.

 

We do recommend that all devices are connected to the Netduma however, since if this is not the case the Congestion Control features won't work as intended. I would also say that with Share Excess enabled, you shouldn't worry about having other devices showing up on the flower - each device will only take what is required. You likely won't need to control their percentages very precisely; we usually recommend resetting Device Prioritisation, ticking Share Excess and leaving it be unless there are specific circumstances.

 

I hope that made sense, please let us know if that advice works for you

[Dan]

It's possible as I have that set up. Step by step not so simple if, to use your words, you're a network noob. Very hard to write a guide without the gobbledygook. Even harder to implement if you are a little light on the understanding. I've got a forehead like Frankenstein banging my head getting mine to work.

 

Do you actually need to control the bandwidth. If not tick share excess and let the Duma do what the Duma does

[Guilders]

 

Hi, welcome to the forum! The devices showing on the flower are (or were) connected to the Netduma. If you only wanted to use this feature with those 4 mentioned devices, you will need to disconnect any other devices from the Netduma, reboot from Settings > Miscellaneous, and then delete those devices in the Device Manager.

 

We do recommend that all devices are connected to the Netduma however, since if this is not the case the Congestion Control features won't work as intended. I would also say that with Share Excess enabled, you shouldn't worry about having other devices showing up on the flower - each device will only take what is required. You likely won't need to control their percentages very precisely; we usually recommend resetting Device Prioritisation, ticking Share Excess and leaving it be unless there are specific circumstances.

 

I hope that made sense, please let us know if that advice works for you

 

Cheers for the quick response Jack.

 

The reason for asking was that some of the best games I've had of late were to use the device prioritisation to place the congestion directly on my ps4 and untick share excess, I found this the games have been a lot more good than bad and hit detection pretty much on par the majority of the time. Only asking if possible as I thought if I put it all through a separate router, other than important stuff, then I could do the prioritisation and then still have the Linksys getting decent amount of bandwidth to rest of family devices, as they were complaining of buffering etc.

 

Looks like I'm stuck with it the way it is then, especially after what Dan said!!! lol

 

Cheers anyhow boss

 

It's possible as I have that set up. Step by step not so simple if, to use your words, you're a network noob. Very hard to write a guide without the gobbledygook. Even harder to implement if you are a little light on the understanding. I've got a forehead like Frankenstein banging my head getting mine to work.

 

Do you actually need to control the bandwidth. If not tick share excess and let the Duma do what the Duma does

 

Hey Dan, thanks for the fast reply.

 

Certainly not as tech savvy as most, I know some solid basics but if your saying its a hole in the wall headbang moment, I think this may be outwith of my reach lol

 

thought it might be a case of setting up something within Netduma Lan/Wan and changing IP on the Linksys, but not quite as simple.....oh well lol

 

Did you find it worked as per what you hoped?

 

Cheers

[Netduma Jack]

Cheers for the quick response Jack.

 

The reason for asking was that some of the best games I've had of late were to use the device prioritisation to place the congestion directly on my ps4 and untick share excess, I found this the games have been a lot more good than bad and hit detection pretty much on par the majority of the time. Only asking if possible as I thought if I put it all through a separate router, other than important stuff, then I could do the prioritisation and then still have the Linksys getting decent amount of bandwidth to rest of family devices, as they were complaining of buffering etc.

 

Looks like I'm stuck with it the way it is then, especially after what Dan said!!! lol

 

Cheers anyhow boss

 

You can connect devices to a separate router, though those devices won't see the benefits of the Netduma Congestion Control features. I think this may also cause issues with the devices connected to the Netduma in regards to Congestion Control functioning properly.

 

Games require less than 0.5mbps bandwidth at any time, so prioritising them using Device Prioritisation is not necessary. You'll likely find (as with a lot of things) that this is a placebo effect if your ping is the same as it was before you prioritised it. That's not to say you can't prioritise what you want, but personally I don't think it's worth doing unless you're doing a large download on a device.

 

Anyway, let us know what you decide to do

[Dan]

I think this may also cause issues with the devices connected to the Netduma in regards to Congestion Control functioning properly.

Hi Jack

What's your thinking behind this?

 

The Duma just sees a device that gets some bandwidth to share as it sees fit. How would that affect the primary devices directly attached to the R1?

[faulko]

 

Hi Guys,

 

First post, long time reader and user of Netduma.

 

I'm a network noob, DHCP, DNS, NAT and Static etc is all gobbly gook to me, so if you can help keep it simples lol

 

Here we go;

 

I have a modem > netduma r1, all work really well but have noticed the congestion flower is absolutely chock a block with unnamed devices, which affects percentages to each device etc.

 

What I was looking to do was have modem > Netduma ( with ps4, computer and skyQ wired in with wifi off ) > Linksys wrt1900 ( as access for all other devices to connect, either wireless or wired )

 

My thinking is that the congestion flower would have just the ps4, computer, skyQ and the Linksys wrt1900 showing, and I can then control bandwidth to the Linksys which can have all the devices it wants and I would only have one control point ( hope that made sense )

 

So is there someone who can give me a step by step guide on how to do that, or direct me to a page that shows me.

 

Hope this made sense, Cheers in advance

 

 

Yes would work to your desired levels as you describe.

[Guilders]

 

Hi Jack

What's your thinking behind this?

 

The Duma just sees a device that gets some bandwidth to share as it sees fit. How would that affect the primary devices directly attached to the R1?

 

That was my thinking Dan, it would see the router and not attached devices, iPhones/iPad/Sonos etc, but the important ones would be getting benefits of the netduma, ps4 etc.

 

Yes would work to your desired levels as you describe.

 

Do you have any pointers on how to set this up properly lol

[Netduma Jack]

Hi Jack

What's your thinking behind this?

 

The Duma just sees a device that gets some bandwidth to share as it sees fit. How would that affect the primary devices directly attached to the R1?

That was my thinking Dan, it would see the router and not attached devices, iPhones/iPad/Sonos etc, but the important ones would be getting benefits of the netduma, ps4 etc.

 

If you had devices connected to another router besides the Netduma, bandwidth would not be properly allocated by Device Prioritisation since those devices would be on a separate network not recognised by the Netduma. The Netduma cannot prioritise packets or share bandwidth when it cannot recognise all the devices using the bandwidth, and Anti-flood cannot prevent bottlenecks or bufferbloat if it cannot recognise the devices causing it in the first place.

 

We either recommend connecting all devices to the Netduma to allow the Congestion Control features to function, or only using the Netduma for the Geo-filter and sacrificing Congestion Control

[Dan]

Thanks Jack

You're the experts so I don't doubt you. I did some testing with on a pc with two TV streaming Netflix. First scenario was with all devices connected to R1, the second test was with a second router attached to R1 and the Two the streaming through the router. I'm not using share excess as I allocate sufficient bandwidth but actually found the second router gave a slightly better result. Not a huge difference but consistently never worse.

One of the main drivers for the latter approach is because the R1's WiFi reach is shorter than a midget on its knees. Would the R1's functionality work if the second router daisy chained as a WiFi point with the R1 allocating the ip addresses

[pollutionblues]

Thanks Jack

 

You're the experts so I don't you. I did some testing with on a pc with two TV streaming Netflix. First scenario was with all devices connected to R1, the second test was with a second router attached to R1 and the Two the streaming through the router. I'm not using share excess as I allocate sufficient bandwidth but actually found the second router gave a slightly better result. Not a huge difference but consistently never worse.

 

One of the main drivers for the latter approach is because the R1's WiFi reach is shorter than a mile on its knees. Would the R1's functionality work if the second router daisy chained as a WiFi point with the R1 allocating the ip addresses

 

Many users (myself included) use a second router and set it to 'Access Point' mode, that way you get all the features of the R1 and better wifi range.

[Guilders]

Hi Guys,

 

Thanks for all the feedback.

 

Think I'm going to give the second router a go. Worst case scenario it doesn't work, I will then revert to using the Netduma as a sit alone again.

 

Like others have said the wifi range is very small on the Netduma, plus this having to switch off and on to remove devices is rather tedious, that's why I wanted to have all the "not so important" devices go through separate router, turn wifi off on Netduma and control from there, plus the fact my best connections have been with share excess off.

 

I'll try it over next week or so and update here, hope Dan was over exaggerating but get the feeling he wasn't lol

 

Cheers for the help guys

 

[pollutionblues]

If your second router has an ‘access point’ mode set it to that. That way everything will still go through the Duma so you can take advantage of all the features but you will have better wireless range, this is a setup many of us use (myself included)

[Dan]

Hi

 

Daisy chaining an access point will help with the wifi but will have all of the devices appearing on the R1 which is what the original post was looking to avoid. It will as Jack has pointed out give the very best performance intended by NetDuma. To achieve your original aspirations you will basically run two networks with each router granting leases to those attaching to it. It's not that difficult to implement if you are prepared to do a bit of research first and have the patience to work through it as it will not be plug n play. You will want your consoles on the R1 though along with other bandwidth gobblers. Depending on what devices you use you may have to work through port forwarding to address strict NATs etc. Do you have more than one console running at a time.

 

If all you are concerned is about getting sufficient bandwidth to the console when playing games  and have a regular set of known devices connecting to your R1 there is a simpler option you might want to try first. Use DHCP lease to reserve an IP address for each device. You can use Device Manager to name each device so you recognise them. Now think about who consumes bandwidth and who are the main internet users when you are gaming. Use the Device Prioritisation to allocate a proportion of bandwidth to each device depending upon how fast your internet is. Devices don't need much actual bandwidth; I only give 5Mb to Netflix which is about 8% for my connection - could probably go lower but I don't need to.

 

Whilst you aren't gaming leave Share Excess ticked; the router will give everyone what they need. When you are gaming un-tick Share Excess to get the bandwidth you require. Anyone who is throttled too much will soon shout plus you can review on the network monitor.

 

Might take a little time to settle up but easy to refine. I would recommend saving as a profile so that you can reset at the press of a button.To save Device Prioritisation settings you must keep Save Deny & Allow Lists (there is a bug in the software).

 

Lastly if you have some crafty users you may want to password your router access before they learn to counter throttle :-)

[Guilders]

Hi

 

Daisy chaining an access point will help with the wifi but will have all of the devices appearing on the R1 which is what the original post was looking to avoid. It will as Jack has pointed out give the very best performance intended by NetDuma. To achieve your original aspirations you will basically run two networks with each router granting leases to those attaching to it. It's not that difficult to implement if you are prepared to do a bit of research first and have the patience to work through it as it will not be plug n play. You will want your consoles on the R1 though along with other bandwidth gobblers. Depending on what devices you use you may have to work through port forwarding to address strict NATs etc. Do you have more than one console running at a time.

 

If all you are concerned is about getting sufficient bandwidth to the console when playing games  and have a regular set of known devices connecting to your R1 there is a simpler option you might want to try first. Use DHCP lease to reserve an IP address for each device. You can use Device Manager to name each device so you recognise them. Now think about who consumes bandwidth and who are the main internet users when you are gaming. Use the Device Prioritisation to allocate a proportion of bandwidth to each device depending upon how fast your internet is. Devices don't need much actual bandwidth; I only give 5Mb to Netflix which is about 8% for my connection - could probably go lower but I don't need to.

 

Whilst you aren't gaming leave Share Excess ticked; the router will give everyone what they need. When you are gaming un-tick Share Excess to get the bandwidth you require. Anyone who is throttled too much will soon shout plus you can review on the network monitor.

 

Might take a little time to settle up but easy to refine. I would recommend saving as a profile so that you can reset at the press of a button.To save Device Prioritisation settings you must keep Save Deny & Allow Lists (there is a bug in the software).

 

Lastly if you have some crafty users you may want to password your router access before they learn to counter throttle :-)

 

Hi Dan,

 

It's basically the two network setup I would like to achieve, that way all the non-important stuff goes into the second network, where bandwidth isn't as important if you get my drift lol

 

I've looked into cascading the routers, on reading up on it I think it may work, here's what I've been reading;

 

https://www.linksys.com/us/support-article?articleNum=132275

 

I've had used the device manager and DHCP lease in the past, which has been handy, but even after I track down all the IP addresses of all that is connecting within the house, I still get loads of unnamed devices, and it is very tedious having to reboot router in order to remove unnamed devices, hence my thinking of having the Netduma as wired in only, PS4, computer, SkyQ and having everything wireless go through WRT1900ac.

 

I'm actually starting to confuse myself now, so I hope it made sense.

 

So to clarify I'm going to try cascade first see how that goes if that works then happy days, if not its research time for the two networks, which will be fun going by what your saying, might have to have a padded wall in preperation

 

Might be a weekend project.......probably run onto the New Year lol

[Guilders]

If your second router has an ‘access point’ mode set it to that. That way everything will still go through the Duma so you can take advantage of all the features but you will have better wireless range, this is a setup many of us use (myself included)

 

Cheers for the idea, Will having it as an access point still have the congestion flower fill up with all devices, including unnamed devices?

[pollutionblues]

Cheers for the idea, Will having it as an access point still have the congestion flower fill up with all devices, including unnamed devices?

Yes it will but you can always manually name the ‘unnamed devices’ you can lookup each devices MAC address online or take a note of there IP addresses and then name them. That way you don’t have to worry about other devices causing you to lag while gaming as everything is going through the Duma so you can use the congestion control.

[Dan]

@Guilders

 

Do you know who all these unknown devices are. I have a lot of users in my networks like flies on a dead gazelle's carcass but I still know each and everyone of them. You sure you don't have unauthorised access using your. Bandwidth

[Netduma Fraser]

Let us know how you get on. Happy to help should you run into any issues.

[Guilders]

@Guilders

 

Do you know who all these unknown devices are. I have a lot of users in my networks like flies on a dead gazelle's carcass but I still know each and everyone of them. You sure you don't have unauthorised access using your. Bandwidth

 

Hi Dan

 

There always seems to be 2 to 4 unnamed devices suddenly appear, via wifi, I've reserved addresses for all my devices yet these unnamed devices still turn up. There the main reason I wanted to separate networks and turn wifi off.

 

I've changed all passwords to wifi etc and applied password protection to the GUI which only I know, maybe its a little glitch on my end somewhere.

 

I'm thinking this topic may have to take a back burner as other more pressing worries are in hand in relation to whether or not netduma is still working properly, but I'll start another topic for that.

 

On this topic, I've decided to bin the second network idea, too much work for me lol but thanks again for all your help.

[Guilders]

Let us know how you get on. Happy to help should you run into any issues.

 

Hey Fraser,

 

I've decided to put on back burner at the moment, other issues taking priority. Your more than welcome to close this topic if you want.

 

To all the guys' thanks for the advice and guidance, you have given, much appreciated.

[ColonicBoom]

Try these, might help you work out what the devices are.

 

https://macvendors.com

https://www.macvendorlookup.com

[Netduma Jack]

Hey Fraser,

 

I've decided to put on back burner at the moment, other issues taking priority. Your more than welcome to close this topic if you want.

 

To all the guys' thanks for the advice and guidance, you have given, much appreciated.

 

No problem - I'll keep this topic open in case you want to discuss it further. Please let us know of any unrelated issues / questions you want to ask us about in another thread

[Guilders]

Hi Guys,

 

Thought I would update on the topic.

 

My cousin knew a guy who is great at networking so he came in and done it for me lol

 

My setup now is;

 

BT Hub basically as a modem with the Netduma being given a DMZ

 

Netduma R1 as my wired access to all important devices

 

Linksys wrt1900ac as a stand-alone subnetwork which works through the Netduma to allow all other devices access to the internet.

 

So all that is in my congestion control is;

 

Linksys

PS4

MacBook Air (for access to change duma settings)

 

 

All other devices now go through the Linksys and after having all them watching either Sky Go or Youtube and doing downloads there were no issues at all, I was also doing a multiplayer game at the time, and tbh some of the best hit detection and games for a while, just like when I used the flower and unticked share excess, but without the family coming down and complaining of slow internet/buffering etc (hope that made sense)

 

The guy was in for practically 30mins, he was delighted it was a Linksys wrt1900ac and said it should all just fall into place, which it did!! 

 

From what I saw, he connected to Linksys by ethernet and looked up its IP which IP address starting 10.xxx.xxx.xx, he then connected with ethernet cable the internet port on back of Linksys to an ethernet port on the Duma, he then connected an ethernet from ethernet port one on Duma to the BT Hub.

 

Changed the wifi password on Duma to one that has never been used before, this was to allow MacBook access for Duma changes.

 

Turned off Bt hub, Linksys and factory reset the Duma. Then turned everything back on.

 

Everyone then was given the details of the Linksys and low and behold the thing worked!! Like I said we did a test last night, but he says the next few days will be the test, but he does have a fall back plan if it doesn't work (didn't ask what that was but reckon it would be the headbanging one)

 

So far so good, but will test over the next few days and update after about a week, think that should be long enough to test.

 

Big thanks to you all for your input and help with this, its much appreciated. Now to focus on the other little issue.

 

 

 

[Dan]

Congratulations. When you understand what you are doing it is straightforward. I tested my network with second router in AP mode. Made no improvement over two networks. I prefer the latter so will probably switch back.