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Sunday, September 19, 2021

Project #24 - Cover the House with WiFi - Implement a WAP in the Basement

There was some discussion about changing up the makeup of our home; during that time I decided to add an additional WiFi capability to the downstairs.  I am still going to accomplish that.  So far:

  1. I have done a WiFi survey throughout the house only to discover that there are portions of the house which have only a -80 dBm signal from the WAP in the living room; so an additional WAP would be necessary
  2. The WAP that I would use needs to be able to accommodate at least 4 VLAN/SSID combinations; my current WAP is a UniFi AP AC Pro where I am using four SSIDs
  3. I have decided that the best WAP to meet the need is the Unifi UAP-IW-HD-US which is an in-wall unit with an additional 4 ports on the bottom that can be used for other things; this unit actually has better range than my current one (but will be mounted under a steel beam which will mess with the signal straight up) and should be able to work seamlessly with the current unit
  4. I have purchased the Unifi UAP-IW-HD-US from my local MicroCenter along with a POE+ injector since I do not have POE+ switches
  5. I have decided to mount the unit outside the wall with an electrical outlet that mounts to the wall and has sufficient depth to allow an Ethernet cable to come through the side and be attached to the back of the WAP; I also will have the POE+ injector mounted at the same location downstairs 
  6. I have moved the current WAP onto my Admin vlan since I consider the WAPs to be part of the network infrastructure; in that way I can close off all connection to the Admin vlan unless I need to change the architecture
  7. I have set up a temporary port on my Edgerouter-12 for testing the new WAP prior to changing the connection through my fiber optic cable which currently goes to an old Netgear router and will then be permanent
  8. I mounted the UAP-IW-HD on the wall downstairs, mounted a POE+ injector under it, connected Ethernet to my ER-12, and proceeded to check it out
  9. I resolved a couple of errors (not being on the same vlan with the controller was one) and then did a wifi survey.  This seems to have cured the problem in the wifi throughout the house.
  10. I changed the vlans coming to the family room downstairs so that I can set up the UAP-IW-HD with the same ones plus others so that I have a complete setup.
  11. Rebooted the UAP-IW-HD, added a trunk out on port 1, and everything came up just fine.  Project complete.