Anyone Network Techs.. need help
 

This is the layout of the hotel i work at..
http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/530/layouttb.png

There seems to be issues with floors higher then 2nd floor with people connecting to our wireless routers.

the way its setup is:

Lobby
Has a Wired Ethernet Switch which feeds to a wireless dual band wireless router. The hotel front desk (2) computers are connected to the ethernet switch for internet access. People in the lobby uses the wireless router to connect.

2nd Floor:
There is a Linksys Cisco Wireless N router in the Housekeeping closet. Im not sure if the Linksys is connected to the wired or wireless router from the lobby. From the Linksys, there are these Meraki Access Points, one on each wing.

Im not even sure what Meraki things really do.. tried reading on the website, if someone can give me the layman's definition, would be great.

4th Floor
There is a netgear router in the Housekeeping closet. Im not sure if the netgear is connected to the wired or wireless router from the lobby. From the netgear, there are these Meraki Access Points, one on each wing.

Im not even sure what Meraki things really do.. tried reading on the website, if someone can give me the layman's definition, would be great.

So pretty much everyone above the 2nd floor are having difficulty connecting to the internet, either connected but not internet or limited connectivity. People on the 2nd floor have slow speeds.. Only the Lobby has the best connection.

Anyone have any ideas on how to fix this or even set it up so all the floors have good connection??


NOTE
This hotel is built in 1914, so i dont know if material wise from the walls might cause some interference with the wireless connection..
Also our current tech guy is douche.. there always seems to be problems even after he "fixes" it... he also seems reluctant to come in too.. ive mention to the boss we should find another guy.. or if its not too much trouble i couldnt work on it, if someones able to let me know what should be done..

well without knowing how the router on the 2nd floor is connected we can't really help much. But I will say this having a router connected to a router then a switch is really confusing. I would suggest putting a switch (perfer a better one) on the lobby, have the connection feed to each floor in the hotel VIA weird. Then from each floor install a router.

Is easier to troublshoot as well it makes the connection a lot cleaner.

EDIT: Also what type of cables are you using inside the structure>? Is it cate3, or cate5? Have you check how long the wire is from and to each router to the actual connection? Have you power cycle the router, check singal strength, Try a wried connection?

Without having much info can't really help you much. But I suggest hiring someone who know networking to take a look at it and see if there are any improvement you can make.

Is the netgear on the 4th floor connected to your network with a wire, or is it a wireless bridge?

Meraki Access points are just used to extend the internet from the housekeeping closet. But I agree. There are way too many routers in the mix. There should be a centralized router where the internet source comes in and switches everywhere else. Unless those wireless routers are being used as wireless bridges from the router downstairs. But linking a wireless to another wireless to another wireless is pretty bad. We definitely need to know how the floors are connected.

YGPM

you should have 1 router, 1 switch and 1 wireless access point on each floor. these wireless access points should be connected via cat5e or cat6 cable to the switch. depending on how strong these wireless access points are you may need more than 1 on each floor to cover the area needed.

the routers on the 2nd and 4th floors are wired connection to either the switch or the wireless router in the lobby..

the meraki are wired connection to the wireless routers on the 2nd/4th floors..

the worst part is the cables arent even labelled so therefore i can not tell.. i can see 3 wire cables running up from the routers...


would there be ip address issues from running the wireless routers from the 2nd/4th floor to the switch? or does it automatically resolve these issues?

^^^

in regards to ip addressing, make sure there's only 1 router that has DHCP enabled (lobby). Also, confirm that the network cables from the lobby router are connected to one of the LAN ports on each router, and not the WAN/Internet Port.

so bascially these are like the high gain antennas you hook up to the routers to extend the range...

anyone familiar with setting these up or know what settings to have on or change to?

i dont think i have access to the switch settings to see this...
as for the cables, i really have to unplug each one and see what its connected too... i will ask my boss and see if he wants to come in on my day off and play around with it..

Not quite. They should be connected via ethernet to the router in the housekeeping closet. It's basically an access point only that relays to the router.

I dunno, if it were my setup, I'd have the internet connection in the main office, a router there for the local machines, and a switch on the LAN side of the router... then on each floor, I'd put a central router, connected via WAN port to the main-floor switch, and the LAN ports feeding the outlying access points.

This would put each floor on its own private LAN for additional security and easier maintenance.

One problem you could run into with an installation this size, if you only have a single DHCP server, is running out of available IPs to your LAN: on a 192.168.x.* network, .0 and .255 are not available, and the router itself is typically .1. That leaves 253 addresses available, and according to this drawing, there are 32 rooms per floor, times five floors, which is 160 rooms right there - seems like not a lot, but unless you set very short lease times, you have the chance that a machine could connect, pull an IP, and then leave the area... that IP is then unavailable to anyone else for the remainder of the lease period. People connecting ther iPhone in the lobby would take up an IP. Your in-house machines also need IPs. I've had this happen in downtown restaurants I service, and in most of those cases, I've needed to reduce the lease times to 30 minutes or less.

If you have a separate router for each floor, with all that floors using only that router's LAN and DHCP server, you can minimize that problem. And you could arrange the IP structure to further aid easy troubleshooting - second floor gets 192.168.2.*, fourth floor gets 192.168.4.*, and so on. Then if someone calls from the fifth floor and says their connection is bad, you can ask their IP... if it's anything but 192.168.5.*, you know they're connected to a more distant access point. You could even name the APs for the floor they're on, to make it easier for the guests.

the proper way of setting up a deployment like this would be one router on the main floor, and a switch on each floor, with access points (like the meraki's) connected to each switch.

What soundy was saying about running out of IP addresses isn't much of a concern... just don't use a 192.168.x.0-255 network. Use 10.1.1.0-10.1.255.0 or something, you'll never run out of IP's then. Even just 192.168.1.0 with a subnet mask of 255.255.254.0 would be fine. As long as you don't have a network with more than 500 devices there shouldn't be a huge problem, although I would make sure you have a separate network for your in-house computers. Otherwise anyone that hacks in to your wireless will be free to try and compromise your computers.

Trying to introduce separate networks for each floor would be way more complicated, as then you'd need a way to route between them.

My offer still stands, I'll come down there and get you sorted out for free if you want. :) I manage the wireless networks for 20+ warehouses across Canada.


edit: You really need a business class router for something like this though. If you try and have 50+ computers accessing the internet off a linksys/netgear type router you'll destroy its performance. Something like a cisco 18xx series, if you're on a tight budget you can usually find used ones in the $300-400 range.

edit2: Theres actually an 1841 for $350 on CL, awesome deal. http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/va...312050192.html

Or a Linux based pc router. Super cheap to build and can handle a lot. Jeremy617 has it right. You don't want to link so many routers together.

That'd work too, though PC based routers are generally more vulnerable to failure. It's only really worthwhile to use these in a business environment if you're wanting to spend 2-3k+, then you can buy a high availability server, which will give you performance way above any 2-3k routers, and still have a reasonable level of assurance its not going to just up and die on you.

Yes, but then you need to make sure to get a router that supports that. Many consumer routers hardcode the "192.168" portion.

Also not something that all routers support.

No you wouldn't - you don't want users being able to route between each other, or to set up incoming connections. They only need to be able to access the internet. You put a router on the floor, run its WAN port to the LAN behind the main router downstairs, and you're done.

And if you need to access the access points? You're going to go to each floor to connect to that network so you can access them? Or access the router control pages? Thats just a lot of needless headache. You're also introducing a double layer NAT by doing this, which can cause some very strange behavior, especially if you have routers from different manufacturers.

I've only ever used 3-4 consumer routers before, all d-link and linksys, and using networks larger than /24 was always possible, idk about other brands but newer gear thats relatively high end should be able to. I'm going to assume they aren't using the cheapest routers out there.

Not difficult at all - presumably when troubleshooting, you're connected to the main network downstairs, so you just access each router's config via the WAN address (making sure to enable remote admin on each one during installation).

and the meraki access points?

Having the entire network with 1 public subnet for wireless is just better network design. (Thats how every hotel/airport I've ever been to is set up as well)

Ideally you would have VLAN capable switches on each floor, and have an internal and a public VLAN, so if you need to have a hotel PC on the upstairs floors its separate from guests on the wireless.

so i would need 5 swtiches for floors 1-5 connecting to a router on the main, so i would need a router that has 5+ ports... unless i use another switch in the lobby (which all the other switches connect to) which connects to the router... and the hotel computers connect to that router... is this correct?

You'll also need a more powerful router in the lobby in addition to whatever wireless access point you have there.

you should only have one device handling DHCP so one router on the main floor, one switch on every floor above, and multiple AP's connected to each switch to distribute wireless on each floor

For better performance, ensure all devices are wired. Wireless links between AP's are often bottlenecks of wireless network and being wireless, the chance of it breaking vs a wired link is much higher

so after researching around on the internet and on here.. this is the impression im getting

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/7420/correcty.png
This diagram shows the 2nd/4th floors using the same Meraki APs, but using switches instead of routers.


so if the wireless connect on the floors are weak, i can either add switchs and AP to the other floors or get a stronger AP unit?

should i also be looking at unmanaged switches, which would be less problematic?

You should have APs on every floor, regardless of whether you tie them in via switches or routers.

by having many switches, it would configure itself all the way down to the lobby router, i wouldnt have to make any changes to them manually..

No shortage of tech geeks around here. :D

This would be the first thing I would confirm.

I'm also not in favour of Soundy's suggestion... I think it just makes things more complicated than it needs to be in terms of routing.

So just to sum up what I would personally do...

Single DHCP-enabled router in the lobby.

Wired connection to all other access points, making sure DHCP is disabled and network cable is in a LAN port.

Pretty much it...