Ruckus Wireless as an Unifi alternative?

[mattlach]

Sorry. Too much time spent replying to Reddit questions.

I had mini DC UPSs on everything because I get frequent 5 or 10 minute power cuts, so a small online UPS has been a good replacement.

Regarding the 1Gb vs multigig injectors, I had good luck running 2.5Gb through a variety of 1Gb injectors to an R650. Definitely not guaranteed though: my current R730 is very fussy and trains down to 1Gb after a few minutes.

Nothing important on my network is running unencrypted traffic anymore, so I'll live with the theoretical chance that someone in China is using my $30 switch to spy on me. I'm still using a bunch of Google services and social media apps, so the privacy ship has well and truly sailed already.

After manually going through every single PoE injector on Amazon and Newegg I landed on these intended for industrial applications.

They are a little pricy, but there is a $20 coupon, and that price is well worth it if they work for my application (DC 24v input -> 802.3at PoE output.)

I will report back if the Ruckus R650's can actually negotiate 2.5Gbig through them despite them being validated at Gigabit, in case anyone else needs to know.

nm - didn't read your post properly - good find on that PoE adapter

Good news is it seems to negotiate 2.5gig connection across that PoE injector

Bad news is, I can't seem to figure out how to get to the admin login to initiate the Unleashed flash... This is probably my mistake as I didn't read up on it yet. The units came with EU Declaration of Conformity documents, but no manual Found a manual online though!

It is sitting there with Power LED on, and CTL LED flashing.

Before I powered it up for the first time I entered its MAC address into my DHCP server and gave it a static IP. Cant tell if it actually pulled DHCP, but I'm guessing it didn't, and just has the default 192.168.0.1 set statically, which is a shame. (Now I am going to have to go grab the laptop to do initial config...

EDIT1: Yep. Turns out it is all static. Does not respond to DHCP by default. Grabbing the laptop and setting its ethernet port to the 192.168.0.1/24 range did the trick...

EDIT2: Ugh. Ruckus requires an account to download firmware. Such data mining bullshit.

EDIT3: Hmm. Seems like I may have celebrated the PoE injector a little bit too soon. It claims to be 802.11at, but the first R650 I ahve been testing is complaining of insufficient power. Trying to manually set at mode and reboot and see if that does it. Otherwise I may have to find other injectors :/

EDIT4: Yeah, manually forcing 802.11at mode on the R650 and rebooting it did not do the trick. It tries to boot, but then eventually gives up, and there is no link to the switch. I've tried a couple of different cables just in case that was the problem, but no luck. I'm guessing these PoE injectors are either not meeting the power spec, or failing to negotiate 802.11at for some reason.

But that's all the trouble shooting I have time for tonight.

Since I didn't find any other DC->DC injectors, this leaves me a little stuck.

The same seller has a model that claims to be compatible with 802.11af/at/bt up to 95 watt... Maybe I'll give that one a try instead.

EDIT5:

Got it working.

The PoE injector I bought says it can accept 12v-48v DC input. My current hardware all runs on 24v DC (with a custom DC-DC UPS) and these Ruckus AP's are planned to be drop in replacements in this configuration which is why this DC->DC PoE injector was so important.

For my tests - however - I was using a 12v 5a AC adapter. I have several 12v adapters, and tested them all, and none of them worked.

It looks like despite the specifications of this PoE unit, it is unable to pull 12v all the way up to the voltage it needs. Once I connected it to a 24v source everything works, and the R650 no longer complains of inadequate power.

EDIT6: Decided that since it was working, I'd return the settings to "Auto", and the AP immediately dropped into low power mode. Sounds as if 24v+ and "force at" configuration might be necessary... Either that, or the injector is still flaky at 24v and it was just a coincidence that it dropped to low power mode at the same time. Going to continue to monitor it.

EDIT7: Ugh. It lost power again at 24v input + force at. The funny thing is all of the other reviews for this injector are positive. Maybe it is just some sort of random "they don't like each other" incompatibility. Going to have to look around for another injector :/

If I can't find one, it looks as if straight up 48v 0.75A input is an option, but it would be a pain in the butt to run a dedicated power cable...

 

[mattlach]

Good news is it seems to negotiate 2.5gig connection across that PoE injector

Bad news is, I can't seem to figure out how to get to the admin login to initiate the Unleashed flash... This is probably my mistake as I didn't read up on it yet. The units came with EU Declaration of Conformity documents, but no manual Found a manual online though!

It is sitting there with Power LED on, and CTL LED flashing.

Before I powered it up for the first time I entered its MAC address into my DHCP server and gave it a static IP. Cant tell if it actually pulled DHCP, but I'm guessing it didn't, and just has the default 192.168.0.1 set statically, which is a shame. (Now I am going to have to go grab the laptop to do initial config...

EDIT1: Yep. Turns out it is all static. Does not respond to DHCP by default. Grabbing the laptop and setting its ethernet port to the 192.168.0.1/24 range did the trick...

EDIT2: Ugh. Ruckus requires an account to download firmware. Such data mining bullshit.

EDIT3: Hmm. Seems like I may have celebrated the PoE injector a little bit too soon. It claims to be 802.11at, but the first R650 I ahve been testing is complaining of insufficient power. Trying to manually set at mode and reboot and see if that does it. Otherwise I may have to find other injectors :/

EDIT4: Yeah, manually forcing 802.11at mode on the R650 and rebooting it did not do the trick. It tries to boot, but then eventually gives up, and there is no link to the switch. I've tried a couple of different cables just in case that was the problem, but no luck. I'm guessing these PoE injectors are either not meeting the power spec, or failing to negotiate 802.11at for some reason.

But that's all the trouble shooting I have time for tonight.

Since I didn't find any other DC->DC injectors, this leaves me a little stuck.

The same seller has a model that claims to be compatible with 802.11af/at/bt up to 95 watt... Maybe I'll give that one a try instead.

EDIT5:

Got it working.

The PoE injector I bought says it can accept 12v-48v DC input. My current hardware all runs on 24v DC (with a custom DC-DC UPS) and these Ruckus AP's are planned to be drop in replacements in this configuration which is why this DC->DC PoE injector was so important.

For my tests - however - I was using a 12v 5a AC adapter. I have several 12v adapters, and tested them all, and none of them worked.

It looks like despite the specifications of this PoE unit, it is unable to pull 12v all the way up to the voltage it needs. Once I connected it to a 24v source everything works, and the R650 no longer complains of inadequate power.

EDIT6: Decided that since it was working, I'd return the settings to "Auto", and the AP immediately dropped into low power mode. Sounds as if 24v+ and "force at" configuration might be necessary... Either that, or the injector is still flaky at 24v and it was just a coincidence that it dropped to low power mode at the same time. Going to continue to monitor it.

EDIT7: Ugh. It lost power again at 24v input + force at. The funny thing is all of the other reviews for this injector are positive. Maybe it is just some sort of random "they don't like each other" incompatibility. Going to have to look around for another injector :/

If I can't find one, it looks as if straight up 48v 0.75A input is an option, but it would be a pain in the butt to run a dedicated power cable...

Good news everyone!



So, I decided to order the 95w bt version of the DC->DC injector, and unlike its little brother, it seems to work perfectly in at mode.

I shouldn't have had to do this, but at least it works.

Looking forward to setting these up now!

 

[mattlach]

I haven't actually mounted my R650's yet, but I found it interesting that the Ethernet ports are pointed downward when the "RUCKUS" logo is upright. I would have expected the ports to be hidden up against the ceiling, like most other AP's.

I presume they should be mounted with the logo upright, but does this matter from a technical/coverage perspective? Or is it only aesthetic?

 

[Vesalius]

the R series antenna pattern is optimized for ceiling mounting not wall mounting, unless I mistaken. I think the H series is for wall mounting.

 

[mattlach]

the R series antenna pattern is optimized for ceiling mounting not wall mounting, unless I mistaken. I think the H series is for wall mounting.

Interesting. The manual includes wall mounting instructions (template + two screws that fit in matching keyholes on the devices) so I figured that would be a pretty good (read: manufacturer endorsed) way to do it.

That said, in my application these things are probably so crazy overkill anyway, that I am not sure it really matters, but I do appreciate peoples takes.

 

[ms264556]

Interesting. The manual includes wall mounting instructions (template + two screws that fit in matching keyholes on the devices) so I figured that would be a pretty good (read: manufacturer endorsed) way to do it.

That said, in my application these things are probably so crazy overkill anyway, that I am not sure it really matters, but I do appreciate peoples takes.

Vertical mounting is there for stairwells etc, I think. You'll get much better coverage mounting horizontally.

 

[sth]

The specifications advise wall, ceiling, or desk mounting. Theres nothing meaningful if you have appropriate AP density. If your rocking a single AP across a two story home you may be impacted at the fringes of reception.

 

[ms264556]

The specifications advise wall, ceiling, or desk mounting. Theres nothing meaningful if you have appropriate AP density. If your rocking a single AP across a two story home you may be impacted at the fringes of reception.View attachment 36324

Where did you get these diagrams from? My experience was that my R650 matched the datasheet composite pattern charts (which unfortunately don't have the same scale, or in fact provide any scale).
Azimuth:-

Elevation:-


I got much weaker signal from the base of the AP, and a weaker signal directly above the top of AP than off diagonally to the sides.

So if I mounted the AP vertically then I needed to position it at the edge of my desired coverage area facing inward, whereas horizontally mounted it could be at the centre of the desired coverage area. This meant immediately I was getting double the coverage area. Then additionally, the better antenna pattern got me through an extra wall when mounted horizontally vs vertically.

 

[mattlach]

So I installed the R650's last night, and apart from the short stint where one wouldn't grab an IP address and I spent way more time troubleshooting than I care to admit just to find I forgot to hit "apply" after changing the DHCP static IP assignment in OPNSense...

(Seriously, I will never understand why this is a two step process. Open the configuration page. Complete all of your entries, then click save to close the configuration page and return to the main screen. Now you also have to hit "apply" before changes become effective. I've been doing this for a long time, and know better, and I still forgot to hit "apply " )

But that has nothing to do with the Ruckus R650 AP's.

These things rock.

I got two of them because I absolutely needed two Unifi UAP-AC-LR's to cover my entire house without issues, but I probably could have gotten away with just the one R650. The signal is just that strong, in spite of difficult walls.

One of them is installed on the side of the house where the main entrance is, and the other is on the other side. Right now, phones and other mobile devices connect to the one near the front, and never migrate to the back because they don't need to. That definitely was not the case with my Unifi AP's. I had to tinker with the client load balancing adjacent radio thresholds to get clients to actually migrate to the second AP for better load balancing. Crazy.

When I moved to Unifi in 2009 it was becuase I lived in a dense neighborhood where the 2.4Ghz band was overloaded, and performance was awful. (While 802.11n came out in 2008, 5Ghz wasn't in common residential use yet at that point). I tried all sorts of consumer routers of increasing levels of expense and nothing worked. Then someone on here recommended Unifi, and it cut through the noise like it wasn't even there. I was thrilled.

When I upgraded to the 802.11ac long range access points, they were even better than my first one (I presume it was 2.4Ghz only b/g/n? I can't remember)

I didn't think it was possible, but these Ruckus units blow away the Unifi AP's from a radio signal perspective. Like, night and day. I am very happy.

They are pricy, but I guess you get what you pay for.

My only complaints (and these are minor) with the R650 and Unleashed combo are:

1.) Limited client activity and traffic logging (but maybe I just haven't figured out how to do this right yet)
2.) Seriously long boot times when you make a configuration change that requires rebooting a unit. (which thankfully is rare)

I have two of them set up, both using the aforementioned DC-> DC PoE injectors. One with a ~25ft Cat6 cable and one with a 75ft cat6 cable.

The Injectors are only rated for gigabit, but they do negotiate 2.5gig. Except the one with the longer cable eventually drops down to gigabit.

Right now I have them going into one of the 10gig SFP+ ports each of my Mikrotik CSS326-24G-2S+RM switches using one of Mikrotiks S+RJ10 2.5/5/10 SFP+ to copper adapters and then going into the Gigabit rated PoE Injectors.

Excuse this hastily edited and reused network diagram for illustrative purposes:



I knew it was no guarantee that the gigabit rated PoE injectors would work at multigig speeds, but I also knew it was a possibility, as as far as the switch and AP's are concerned, the injectors are just a cable. The PoE insertion has no part in the auto-negotiation process. As long as the signal is good enough, they will negotiate 2.5gig.

Which brings me to my only hickup thus far. The one with the longer cable - after several hours - will drop down to gigabit speeds. An anticipated risk.

It is notable that the S+RJ10 adapters run very hot (2.7W of power into a tiny footprint with limited heat dissipation will do that.

The one hooked up to the secondary device hovers at 68C at idle. The one to the Master at 72C at idle. And this is in ~67F ambient rooms.

My theory is that the temperature contributes to the dropping down to gigabit.

The CSS326-24F-2S+ switches are passively cooled which contributes tot he problem. I may try adding some small heatsinks to the SFP+ cages and some scaled back (to keep them silent) 40mm Noctuas to these switches to keep the temps down and see if that helps.

If it doesn't, maybe swapping the long run for a better category cable will help. (solid core Cat8?) I mean, Cat6 should be fine for 75ft of multigig, but I suspect the signal drops across the PoE injector. I figure since it is right on the edge of working reliably, maybe if I reduce the signal loss by switching to Cat8, the total signal loss in the chain will be low enough that it will stay at 2.5Gig permanently.

I mean, 2.5Gig is really not necessary for what I do with WiFi, but if I can I would prefer my wired network to be non-blocking as far as the AP's are concerned just on principle.

I will post back with results when I get around to it.


But all of that said, I am pretty excited about this setup. These Ruckus units really are kickass.

 

[custom90gt]

Glad they are finally up and running for you. We are in the process of buying a new house and I'm excited to get my R850 and R650 up and running to see how it covers the bigger place. My only regret is we didn't find the house until it was nearly finished building otherwise I'd have ran the Cat6 to a couple of ceiling drops.

 

[sic0048]

So I installed the R650's last night, and apart from the short stint where one wouldn't grab an IP address and I spent way more time troubleshooting than I care to admit just to find I forgot to hit "apply" after changing the DHCP static IP assignment in OPNSense...

(Seriously, I will never understand why this is a two step process. Open the configuration page. Complete all of your entries, then click save to close the configuration page and return to the main screen. Now you also have to hit "apply" before changes become effective. I've been doing this for a long time, and know better, and I still forgot to hit "apply " )

It's for your protection. If you make a change that breaks your network and prevents you from accessing the device to correct it, all you have to do is reboot the device and it will be back at the old configuration because any recent changes would only be stored in the RAM (non permanent memory). It's only when you hit the "Apply" button that the changes are written to the ROM (permanent memory). If the changes were written to the ROM automatically, you could find yourself in a world of hurt if you messed something up.

But believe me, we have all forgotten to "apply" our changes at some point!

 

[mattlach]

But believe me, we have all forgotten to "apply" our changes at some point!

I'm glad I'm not alone.

So, is there a way to get more detailed tracking and trending out of Unleashed?

I have found a drop down on some screens that will let me see the last 12 hours, but anything beyond that seems to be lost.

I did enter an IP address to have Unleashed send logs to my rsyslogd server, but those logs don't appear to have data and statistics in them, just troubleshooting information.

I see something about an "Unleashed Multisite Manager". Now I only have one "site", but maybe if I run that I'll get more data and statistics out of this setup?

Appreciate any info.

 

[ms264556]

I'm glad I'm not alone.

So, is there a way to get more detailed tracking and trending out of Unleashed?

I have found a drop down on some screens that will let me see the last 12 hours, but anything beyond that seems to be lost.

I did enter an IP address to have Unleashed send logs to my rsyslogd server, but those logs don't appear to have data and statistics in them, just troubleshooting information.

I see something about an "Unleashed Multisite Manager". Now I only have one "site", but maybe if I run that I'll get more data and statistics out of this setup?

Appreciate any info.

You select which debug log components should be sent to the syslog server from Admin & Services > Administration > Diagnostics > Debug Info.

For perf stuff probably it's easiest to enable SNMP and grab some Unleashed templates for your favourite monitoring platform. I see zabbix mentioned in the forum quite often, and there are templates on GitHub for this.

Or if you have measures you want to see in Home Assistant then I can expose them out of aioruckus and raise a PR get them surfaced in HA.

 

[LodeRunner]

I see something about an "Unleashed Multisite Manager". Now I only have one "site", but maybe if I run that I'll get more data and statistics out of this setup?

It may give you more info than SNMP and the Unleashed dashboard, but it's going to cost you around $700 USD initial, plus additional licenses per AP after the first one.

 

[mattlach]

It may give you more info than SNMP and the Unleashed dashboard, but it's going to cost you around $700 USD initial, plus additional licenses per AP after the first one.

Yikes. OK. Maybe that is not in the cards.

 

[LodeRunner]

Yikes. OK. Maybe that is not in the cards.

Yeah, their licensing can be aggressive. I really wanted to play with the Virtual SmartZone (vSZ) but between the nearly hour long startup process (really) and the $1k cost of entry, plus annual maintenance, I just settled for Unleashed at home. And enabling Zigbee on it is another license (AFAIK Unleashed cannot enable the IoT radios, so SmartZone + IoT license).

Heck, even if I replaced our Aruba Instant setup at work with Ruckus, I'd do Unleashed and buy an extra AP to run as dedicated master since we'd under the max AP limit for Unleashed (25, same as Aruba Instant) despite being a 90k sq. ft. facility.

 

[mattlach]

You select which debug log components should be sent to the syslog server from Admin & Services > Administration > Diagnostics > Debug Info.

For perf stuff probably it's easiest to enable SNMP and grab some Unleashed templates for your favourite monitoring platform. I see zabbix mentioned in the forum quite often, and there are templates on GitHub for this.

Or if you have measures you want to see in Home Assistant then I can expose them out of aioruckus and raise a PR get them surfaced in HA.

Thanks for the heads up.

I will poke around.

What I am missing is a little bit more history in the standard metrics. Maybe that is there already but I just haven't found it yet, so this one may be on me.

The standard Unleashed charts and graphs are helpful (bandwidth use charts, client connection charts, etc.) but I just wish I could get longer term trending than 1H or 12H.

Additionally it would be valuable to be able to see clients other than the currently connected ones for access management / hunting down inappropiate or rogue clients and knowing if I have a problem. You know stuff like "Client <mac address> connected from date-time to date-time." etc.

But this kind of stuff can quickly start using a lot of data. Maybe this is a limitation due to the embedded nature of Unleashed, and what I presume is limited RAM/Storage on the device to keep statistics compared to what one could do on a general purpose server platform.

It would be really cool if I could emulate a generic Ruckus device as a VM on my server and run it as a dedicated master, allowing for lots of storage space on the server for additional metrics.

Though that would probably start infringing on Enterprise License product categories. And - well - I am not an enterprise user with an enterprise budget, so that would put it outside of my means, just like the Unleashed Multisite Manager.

Either way, just some thoughts on that.


I don't have very much SNMP / performance reporting experience, but I will have to look into that and see how it works. Appreciate that info.

 

[sth]

Yeah, their licensing can be aggressive. I really wanted to play with the Virtual SmartZone (vSZ) but between the nearly hour long startup process (really) and the $1k cost of entry, plus annual maintenance, I just settled for Unleashed at home. And enabling Zigbee on it is another license (AFAIK Unleashed cannot enable the IoT radios, so SmartZone + IoT license).
<snip>

An hour is unusual and excessive. My 4 core, 16GB VM takes ~5-8 minutes to load which is longer than most services, but far short of an hour. When I started using vSZ I recall there was nuance when setting up re network connections for vSZ-e in contrast to vSZ-H to do with control and data-planes that led to odd/similar issues. Maybe worth checking the docs to verify.
Cost wise, I just renewed a 5 year vSZ with support for 6 access points at ~$800. I guess $600 with one or two APs thats more typical in a home. The gap to Unleashed is coming down pretty quickly so I'm not sure I'll be renewing past this window.

 

[ms264556]

The standard Unleashed charts and graphs are helpful (bandwidth use charts, client connection charts, etc.) but I just wish I could get longer term trending than 1H or 12H.

It's been a few months since I wrote the relevant code, but I think there was quite a long history available for most of the charted statistics: the web UI has a small set of timespans but the backend AJAX API lets you choose a start-time & end-time for interval-stats.

I'll have a check when I get home.

 

[ms264556]

An hour is unusual and excessive. My 4 core, 16GB VM takes ~5-8 minutes to load which is longer than most services, but far short of an hour. When I started using vSZ I recall there was nuance when setting up re network connections for vSZ-e in contrast to vSZ-H to do with control and data-planes that led to odd/similar issues. Maybe worth checking the docs to verify.

It can be really bad if you ignore their guidance and use dynamic disk images, and put it on slower disks.

I turned on unsafe writeback caching (relying on snapshots if things blow up) and I see the same sort of startup time as you.

Initial setup is a shocker though. When the progress dialog says it'll be 20 minutes to finish up, so go and get coffee, they're not exaggerating.