Ruckus Wireless as an Unifi alternative?

[sth]

Wanted to share for folks thinking of upgrading to Ruckus AP's.
This is with a 2020 MacBook Pro 16" and a Ruckus R730.
Not too shabby 115MB/s peak and sustained average of circa 106MB/s for a file sync to local file storage.

 

[hmw]

How can I use Unleashed to change the WLAN to 802.11n & 802.11ac only?

I used the CLI to set OFDM-Only to Enabled



But when I check the WLAN info, 802.11b support is still enabled



I also tried to set the radios to 11ac and 11n only, the Unleashed guide says that this option is in the GUI. Radio (2.4G) and Radio (5G)



However, I don't see this in my GUI



What am I missing?

 

[Vesalius]

Seems you have it enabled on vlan 1, but you actually want it enabled at the Wlan. vlan changes won't change the actual radio the AP broadcast and receives. Try the cli steps I listed in the post below for 1 or both of the wlan's you have and that should result in what you want.

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/ruckus-wireless-as-an-unifi-alternative.26384/post-286169

How can I use Unleashed to change the WLAN to 802.11n & 802.11ac only?

I used the CLI to set OFDM-Only to Enabled

View attachment 17007

But when I check the WLAN info, 802.11b support is still enabled

View attachment 17008

I also tried to set the radios to 11ac and 11n only, the Unleashed guide says that this option is in the GUI. Radio (2.4G) and Radio (5G)

View attachment 17010View attachment 17011

However, I don't see this in my GUI

View attachment 17012

What am I missing?

 

[hmw]

Seems you have it enabled on vlan 1, but you actually want it enabled at the Wlan. vlan changes won't change the actual radio the AP broadcast and receives. Try the cli steps I listed in the post below for 1 or both of the wlan's you have and that should result in what you want.

Huh? I don't understand what you mean about VLAN1, that's just an excerpt from "show wlan name <WLAN>". VLAN1 is the default VLAN for ruckus - all untagged traffic is tagged as VLAN ID = 1. I don't think it has anything to do with the WLAN. The CLI steps you linked to are what I used to disable 802.11b

In any case, this still doesn't explain why there's no 802.11n or 802.11n/ac checkboxes in the GUI

 

[Vesalius]

Huh? I don't understand what you mean about VLAN1, that's just an excerpt from "show wlan name <WLAN>". VLAN1 is the default VLAN for ruckus - all untagged traffic is tagged as VLAN ID = 1. I don't think it has anything to do with the WLAN. The CLI steps you linked to are what I used to disable 802.11b

In any case, this still doesn't explain why there's no 802.11n or 802.11n/ac checkboxes in the GUI

Sorry misunderstood where that picture came from.

Under the Gui I can confirm everything you are seeing. Have you tried to connect any device with 801.11b? I don't have any at home to verify if the Gui is simply in error because the changes made via CLI do not get reflected there or if the CLI commands are not working as the Ruckus-live video stated they were. I also do not see the 802.11n or 802.11n/ac checkboxes in the GUI. Another documentation error or potentially could the OFDM-Only to Enabled by cli remove that option via GUI. Maybe check and see if it reappears if you disable OFDM-Only via cli.

I am confident the

ruckus(config-wlan)# bss-minrate 12   #will cause AP to only connect clients that have a faster rate. can choose 1,2,5.5,12 & 24
    The mgmt-tx-rate will be set to the same value as bss-minrate.

commands are having an effect because if I take it all the way to 24 one of my desktop devices on the margins between the 2 AP's has issues staying connected.

 

[hmw]

Maybe check and see if it reappears if you disable OFDM-Only via cli.

Tried that, rebooted and checked - no such checkbox. Weird ...

 

[sth]

Tried that, rebooted and checked - no such checkbox. Weird ...

In smartzone, I disable OFDM and set min broadcast rate to I think 11mhz and that disabled it.

 

[Vesalius]

In smartzone, I disable OFDM and set min broadcast rate to I think 11mhz and that disabled it.

Same stuff we are doing in Unleashed. I am thinking these are bugs in the unleashed Gui more than anything else. Would need someone with a 802.11b device to corroborate that.

 

[sth]

My diagnostics tools verify 'b' is disabled on my network. Just a thought to help diagnose.

 

[rootpeer]

Hey guys! Really happy I stumbled upon this thread!

I have got a cousin who owns a small hotel and wants to implement WiFi everywhere.

Every quote he has gotten is around 16K EUR and Mikrotik for everything.

I am really concerned about security and performance with Mikrotik. I was searching for a solution that is compatible with 802.1x so that no guest could unplug the AP, plug their device in and start snooping around on the network. There is no full support for 802.1x in Ubiquiti, Mikrotik or TP-Link as far as I could figure out. Something like Brocade switches, Ruckus APs and a pfSense firewall running RADIUS sounds perfect for this application.

I went through this thread but do still have some questions mainly about performance.

How do H vs R models stack up? Do the R models have better characteristics compared to H as Unifi APs have to AP-IWs?

I still don't really get the difference between Rx00 and Rx10 devices, as well as R5xx, R6xx and R7xx. Anyone care to clarify?

The rooms are sort of "bungalows" in a 2x2 pattern, meaning 2 adjacent rooms on ground floor and 2 adjacent on 1st floor. Quotes from Mikrotik-loving companies say one AP per two horizontal rooms. The rooms are probably around 20-30msq and the buildings are concrete.

Just to get some sense, would we be looking at one Hxx0 device per room, one Hxx0 per floor, one Rxx0 device per floor or one Rxx0 device per 2x2 room configuration? I know we can't really judge that in theory unless we do some testing but I am just trying to get an idea of how great these APs are reportedly.

 

[Vesalius]

@rootpeer the H series antennas are optimized for wall mounting while the R series attennas are designed/optimized for ceiling mounting.

The the Rx00 are 2 generations old at least, probably wave 1 and likely EOL on the software front, the Rx10 are 1 generation old at least and with a mix of wave 1 and wave 2. Some of the higher models R710 for examples still getting updates to current software And work great for everything but WiFi 6.

the R*50 devices are latest releases. The higher first number the more capable the device generally. Whether those capabilities matter to you are not is something for you to decide. 2x2 versus 4x4 radios. Number of simultaneous users and such. unless you are running a conference center the 850 series is almost certainly overkill. Once you get to the R(5,6 or7)50 You have a very capable AP.

would stay away from the 720 and 730 variants, if POE might be used, as those require more power than even newer more capable Ruckus AP. The R*50 series has WiFi 6 (no 6E though) as the main new feature over the R*10 generation, but no upgrade path to WiFi 6E is likely without a new hardware releases.

1 Ruckus AP per floor should be more than adequate.

 

[Sealside]

I just tried to set up a couple of R500s at a friends house. I was using Ubiquiti 48V poe adapters ( PoE Injector, 48VDC, 24W )
But I only got 100 mbs uplink. Switch to an exernal DC power supplier I got gigabit uplink.
The 48V adapter is supposed to support 802.3af so should work right?
Any recommendations on other adapters that would work?

Found this one as well, but unsure if it would work: Product details

Regards, S

 

[epicurean]

The R610s I have, work fine via POE from the ICX6450 POE.
The lone R710 I have connected to a non POE ICX6610 also work fine with a POE injector I stole from a unifi AP AC Pro -gigabit rates

BTW @Sealside any update on your OH3 binding for Ruckus and unifi? Hoping you can update it to one without dependencies.

 

[adman_c]

I just tried to set up a couple of R500s at a friends house. I was using Ubiquiti 48V poe adapters ( PoE Injector, 48VDC, 24W )
But I only got 100 mbs uplink. Switch to an exernal DC power supplier I got gigabit uplink.
The 48V adapter is supposed to support 802.3af so should work right?
Any recommendations on other adapters that would work?

Found this one as well, but unsure if it would work: Product details

Regards, S

Per the datasheet on Ubiquiti's site, that POE injector lacks gigabit ports, so that explains the 100mbit uplink.

 

[Sealside]

Per the datasheet on Ubiquiti's site, that POE injector lacks gigabit ports, so that explains the 100mbit uplink.

I guess that could be the case. I think I've used them together with a Unifi nano hd previously, and it actually came with the unifi ap ac pro package.
I've bough a couple of gigabit rated injectors now, hopefully that will do the trick.

 

[Sealside]

The R610s I have, work fine via POE from the ICX6450 POE.
The lone R710 I have connected to a non POE ICX6610 also work fine with a POE injector I stole from a unifi AP AC Pro -gigabit rates

BTW @Sealside any update on your OH3 binding for Ruckus and unifi? Hoping you can update it to one without dependencies.

Yes I have R710, R510, R500 and R600 powered by a Juniper EX3300 switch, and that works fine.
Not currently working on the binding but hoping to do that. I have a couple of other bindings I'm working with, but always the lack of time that is the issue.

 

[Morgan Simmons]

Will my Unifi UAP-AC-PRO poe injector work with the R710? Or will I need to order another POE injector?

Thanks!

 

[IamSpartacus]

I'm in the process of looking for unifi alternative myself and Ruckus is on my radar. Can anyone running Ruckus at home enlighten me on how management of multiple AP's works? Is there a subscritpion cost associated with the management software? I'm not willing to part with a single controller interface for configuring and managing all my AP's so I'm quite curious if this could be a drop in replacement for what I'm running now.

 

[bgpa]

As someone who recently spun up a Ruckus Unleashed WiFi network (3x 750's, 1x 720 as mesh) instead of a Unifi-based one, I would claim that the Unleashed interface is a simple, single point of management interface. The first AP (usually) becomes the master and it's IP address is the address of the controller interface. Any subsequently added AP is managed through this interface. There is no cost for Unleashed and it does work reasonably well. The docs are also pretty clear (https://docs.commscope.com/bundle?l...alue=&rpp=10&sort.field=title&sort.value=asc#)

 

[Sealside]

Will my Unifi UAP-AC-PRO poe injector work with the R710? Or will I need to order another POE injector?

I would guess it will. My 100mbit problem for r500 turns out to be a limitation in the injector. Apparently there are 100mbit and 1G versions off the black 48V ubiquiti injector. I had mixed up the one that came with the ap ac pro and a spare I bought.

Regards s