Want to wire the house up with a few connections. Would like to add in the BT modem/hub so I can access in my home office (some distance from the hub). Would also like to add in RPi CCTV, printer and have a couple extra points (TV possibly). What sort of layout/connections in terms of hardware will I need – firewalls, switches etc. Already have purchased the cable, connectors, wall sockets and crimping tool/tester.

Why, when wireless is getting faster and faster, reasonably secure, and easy to use and add extra devices without all the hassle of cables.

because you can’t get 10GBs over wifi?

What PY said. if you want reliability and proper speed (which will become more important as years go on) you need wires.

Very difficult to answer this question without some indication of the layout of your house.

I’d keep all switches etc in the same place (loft?) and route everything from there.

EDIT: You’ve already bought cables etc but have you considered powerline?

Would powerline stuf not do the job for you?

Why Wired: More secure & stable, you can avoid bottlenecks.

You will just need a switch, a good switch, I’ve used Netgear Prosafe stuff and it runs pretty well. 100m+ of Cat 5e/6 Ethernet cable (it’s surprising how much you use), connectors and crimping tool.

If you can run each wall socket with its own cable to the switch you will avoid having bottlenecks. When looking at switches, always buy one with way more sockets than you will use, it’s surprising how things just seem to expand. I put everything, switches, router, wifi, nas all in the airing cupboard with a little ventilation, central spot keeps it all neat n tidy, also means you only have to go to one place to fix a problem.

When I did this at home, we installed 2x lan sockets in each room. While this is fine for the bedrooms, over the years the devices have been added to in the living room, now using 7 ports. So whatever you do decide on, I would add some more for the future.

I would not put switches in the loft. Incredibly hot up there generally when the sun’s out, which is not ideal for electronics.

I’m looking at doing this soon (the house needs some re-wiring and it seems daft not to put in a network when I’ve already got someone digging channels in the walls). The hall cupboard is likely to become my server room.

Anyone got any recommendations for a simple “how to” guide? Or at least tell me what the switches are doing (I realize this is a dumb question).

I’ve done this, external grade Cat 5 running round to the living room to a gigbit switch for all my media stuff and a run that goes up to a switch in the front bedroom storage cupboard. That has cabled in to my office, the loft and the back bedroom.

It’s amazing for moving files around and simple enough to do. Invest in a good set of tools to crimp the connectors and punch them down.

I’ve got a router on one floor, a switch on the the other floor and another in the office. One cable from each switch to the router.

The router does the broadband and all the clever network stuff (like assigning IP addresses, firewall etc). All the switches do is dumbly merge and pass the data / packets on to their destinations.

Try and get Gigabit switches if youre moving lots of files etc.

I’m not sure this is a simple how to but it will probably answer a lot of your questions.

Thanks – the Wifi signal isnt great as I am 2 floors up from the hub and would prefer the office gets the full speed available. Thinking the switch will be up here as will any NAS, will run individual cables to each socket. Will I need a separate firewall? Just a matter of connecting everything into the switch?

Will I need a separate firewall?

Presuming you have a router from your ISP that normally has a firewall in it to protect you from the outside world

Assuming a dumb switch and a typical broadband router (with a firewall) then you shouldnt need an extra firewall.

And yes – plugging stuff in to a switch should work exactly like directly into the router.

Yes BT router so good to go, bit of wiring to be done 😉

milkie – good ‘how to’ link.

Thanks.

Thanks – the Wifi signal isnt great as I am 2 floors up from the hub and would prefer the office gets the full speed available. Thinking the switch will be up here as will any NAS, will run individual cables to each socket. Will I need a separate firewall? Just a matter of connecting everything into the switch?

Powerline adaptors would provide more bandwidth than your outbound connection unless you’re on some serious fibre. 500Mbps for under £30. Plus they are transparent so you can leave your router doing DHCP/DNS proxying/firewalling as it already is – just plug them in and you have a port two floors up.

Then a cheap Gbps switch plugged into that in the office, to give enough ports. I really doubt you need more than that – if you actually truly need 10Gbps throughout you’d probably have half an idea of how to do it. I have plenty of 100s user systems still on Gbps connections, the odd one or two bonded but mainly for resilience rather than raw speed.

Unless you have a easy access riser through the floors I wouldn’t bother.

All the switches do is dumbly merge and pass the data

Switches aren’t dumb…. they know which computer (mac address) is at which port so it doesn’t have to broadcast data to every port which slows the network. This is what a hub does.

Or at least tell me what the switches are doing (I realize this is a dumb question).

You know when you look at the back of your ADSL router and there’s usually four (or so) network sockets next to each other for you to plug PCs etc into? That’s a switch. A standalone switch you buy is exactly the same thing (for most practical purposes of this discussion anyway) only without the ADSL and WiFi bits.