Ruckus Wireless as an Unifi alternative?

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TXAG26

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Aug 2, 2016
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go get some folks! I think I’ll let those marinate for at least a few years then check back in then.
Too expensive for me. I picked up a couple of R350’s from Provantage a few months ago but now they aren’t even listed there anymore. Great little 2x2 Wifi 6 AP’s.
 
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Vesalius

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Nov 25, 2019
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New RUCKUS Unleashed AP 200.12.10.105.129 (MR1 Refresh1).

Resolved Issues in Build 200.12.10.105.129
• Resolved a display issue of guest portal page for mobile devices. [ER-11330]
• Resolved an issue where the OS types and host names were not recognized properly for certain devices. [ER-10981]
• Resolved a packet loss issue during background scanning on some particular APs. [ER-10181]
• Enhanced the SMS notification feature to support JSON format in post data. [ER-11148]
• Resolved an issue where certain allowed service got unexpectedly blocked when application policy denial rule was configured as blocking all Tunneling. [ER-11140]
Resolved Issues in Build 200.12.10.105.100
• Uplink throughput is better than downlink throughput in R710 AP with 3x3 clients; performance is well below when compared to that of AP R610. [ER-10474]
• APs R710 and R610 reboot due to kernel panic. [ER-10607]
• T610/T710 APs - Air Time Fairness (ATF) with 8x8 11ax clients; 2 clients receiving nearly zero throughput. [ER-10530]
• R320 AP VoIP silence, wrong sequence number. [ER-10181]
• R710 AP reboots due to kernel panic. [ER-10918]
• AP R750 UE with high idle time are not getting cleared from the host table. [ER-10844]
• All the clients randomly lost network connection on the AP. [ER-10797]
• R850 AP reboots due to kernel panic. [ER-10944]
• Random EAP disconnects on Zebra Scan Guns. [ER-10760]
 
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hmw

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Apr 29, 2019
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Before the pandemic I picked up a R720 for $250. Right now the price of new or second hand Ruckus AP's is so high that I was forced to go for a couple of Ubiquiti Wifi6 APs (at $149/$179 ea) for my new house. Once the supply chain madness is over - I am sure refurb and used Ruckus APs will come down to their usual pricing - but till then, will have to rely on Ubiquiti :(
 

zer0sum

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Mar 8, 2013
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I have been running 2 x R710's and they have been flawless, apart from the connectivity I get on my Nvidia Sheild Pro :(

It keeps dropping the wifi connection, and generally just being flaky even though the AP is only in another room through one drywall.
Doesn't matter if I use 2.4GGhz or 5Ghz wifi and the shield has always worked perfectly with Mist and Aerohive AP's, so I'm at a loss.

Anyone else seen something similar?

I just hard wired it, so I'm still happy, but it's a weird situation.
 
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Sealside

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May 10, 2019
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I have been running 2 x R710's and they have been flawless, apart from the connectivity I get on my Nvidia Sheild Pro
I have been fault searching my shield pro for the past 6 months, replacing my media switch, changed cables, changed wall rj45 socket etc. Connection was working intermittently. Turned out to be an ip conflict with a unit I thought was offline, felt so dumb when I found out.

I would try to use a static ip without dhcp and see if things get better
 

mshook

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Jun 9, 2020
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I found an old bit of code I wrote to decrypt Ruckus ZoneDirector backups and software images, and whacked it up on github: Decrypt Ruckus Unleashed/ZoneDirector Backups

I'm assuming it also works to decrypt Unleashed backups, but it would be cool if someone could give it a check and confirm for me.
I converted your algorithm to python and yes, it works for me with unleashed backups (both crypting and decrypting).
 
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ms264556

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Sep 13, 2021
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I converted your algorithm to python and yes, it works for me with unleashed backups (both crypting and decrypting).
Nice, thanks.
I've added a python version to the page so the whole process can be done in Linux.

Update:
Crikey, Python isn't quick. You don't want to be doing much work outside native C libraries.
I had to jump through some hoops to get passable performance on large files, without dragging in a numpy dependency.

Update 2:
I added a tiny decryption tool webpage. JavaScript is much faster than python, so this is the simplest and fastest option for decrypting.
 
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ms264556

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I converted your algorithm to python and yes, it works for me with unleashed backups (both crypting and decrypting).
It looks like this will be useful.

I was able to add a patched metadata file and restore a backup onto a different firmware.
This allows restores where the backup is from a premium-only firmware; and 'upgrades' from a ZD3000 to ZD1200 without having to setup everything from scratch

And I was able to add / remove / update DPSKs, including setting manually chosen (i.e. non-random) passwords & VLANs.

Edit:
Software Updates have no signing, so they can be used to apply arbitrary changes to ZoneDirector 1200s.
So I added a guide to add 64 AP Licenses and 5 years Software Upgrade entitlement: Add Licenses and Support to ZoneDirector
 
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danb35

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Nov 25, 2017
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Maybe a dumb question, and doubtless a little off-topic, but why would someone want to run a ZoneDirector rather than Unleashed? Is there any benefit to it in a home setting? Or is this something that would only be beneficial in a much larger environment?
 

ms264556

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Sep 13, 2021
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Maybe a dumb question, and doubtless a little off-topic, but why would someone want to run a ZoneDirector rather than Unleashed? Is there any benefit to it in a home setting? Or is this something that would only be beneficial in a much larger environment?
I think most people don't even need Unleashed - if you're running a single Ruckus AP then the standalone firmware is completely adequate. Sure, it's ugly to setup, but I bet 99% of people don't touch their WiFi setup again once the initial config is done.

I think a ZoneDirector is good if you want to have a complicated VLAN config, or tunnel some AP traffic back to a central point, or do various other HomeLab style fun.

It's great if you're buying used APs for your home. You can buy whatever's cheap and hook it into one system.
I run R600s, H510s and R650s at the moment, and they're all running the latest ZoneDirector release with WPA3. This is not possible with Unleashed.
And before that I was running ZF7982s, R700s, R600s and R610s together.

Mainly though it's much easier to hack a ZoneDirector 1200, so that's what I've been doing.
Unleashed is a real pain to mod - you need to unpack and repack squashfs images, and generate the magic headers for them. And when something goes wrong (which it does A LOT when you're trying hacky stuff out) you have a dead AP which needs rescuing over the serial pins.
With the ZD1200 I can do most of the testing by just remounting / as rw; and the couple of times I bricked it were no stress - I just popped the cf card out and re-imaged it on my PC.
There is not much difference between the ZoneDirector and Unleashed system. E.g. all of the apps and scripts are the same for both. So anything interesting (e.g. non-random DPSK passwords, and VLANs per DPSK) can usually be retargeted to Unleashed once I've figured out how to script it.
And because ZoneDirector 1200's software is x86, and was designed to run fine on their developer's PCs, my assumption is that I'll have no roadblocks virtualizing a ZD from their installation images (which I won't feel guilty about once they stop selling them at the end of the month).
 
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Vesalius

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Nov 25, 2019
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And because ZoneDirector 1200's software is x86, and was designed to run fine on their developer's PCs, my assumption is that I'll have no roadblocks virtualizing a ZD from their installation images (which I won't feel guilty about once they stop selling them at the end of the month).
First thing I thought of, know of anyone doing this yet? I infer from your comments ruckus is abandoning this device (and development of the software that directly runs on it?) so maybe fewer updates and just critical issues fixes going forward?
 
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ms264556

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First thing I thought of, know of anyone doing this yet? I infer from your comments ruckus is abandoning this device (and development of the software that directly runs on it?) so maybe fewer updates and just critical issues fixes going forward.
Sure. It's End-of-Sale in a couple of weeks, and they didn't even bother supporting the R760 on it, so my assumption is I'll get no new features going forward. Just 5 years of bugfixes.

For sure if nobody else does it then I'll probably give containerizing a go.
The install scripts and init process are very simple. And everything platform specific is routed through shell scripts, so that I suspect not a single executable would need patching.
 
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