David Gardiner - Networking

The network switch that keeps switching more than it should

2026-06-16T20:30:00.000+09:30

A couple of months ago a suggestion came up at home about getting some kind of low-powered light in the hallway for people who might need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Not an unreasonable request - maybe some LED strip lights would work? And then I wondered, how about adding a motion sensor? And then could you integrate it with some home automation of some kind? And that's how I ended up completely distracted looking at Home Assistant!

Installing it on our Synology NAS seemed the logical choice, and it was pretty straightforward, going down the Docker container route. I clicked around the UI and it looked interesting, but didn't go much further (and I must admit by that time I'd forgotten the original reason for heading down this rabbit hole).

Then a couple of weeks ago we got a new car (a Kia EV5) and it has an app that you can use to check current status and some limited remote control options. Given the need to charge it at home started me off on a new area of research for home charging devices, and also considering the current state of our home solar panels - whether to upgrade them, or at least figure out how to replace some that have had to be taken out of service due to impact damage.

That inspired me to go back and take another look at my Home Assistant instance, and see if I could add some 'integrations' with some of the existing networked devices we already have. It turns out our current model solar panel inverter (a Fronius) is supported, as well as the Ubiquiti UniFi networking gear I have installed. That is pretty cool.

And that is a very long way of getting to the point of this blog post - once I had these devices integrated, I noticed in Home Assistant's Activity page, that there were heaps of these entries being logged for my UniFi USW Flex Mini switch:

For some reason, either the Flex Mini switch itself, or my UniFi Cloud Gateway Ultra thinks that the uplink MAC address for the switch is changing every minute. That is really weird.

The physical arrangement of networking hardware in our home looks roughly like this:


graph TD;
    ISP --> GW
    GW[Cloud Gateway Ultra]
    click GW href "https://www.amazon.com.au/Ubiquiti-UniFi-Cloud-Gateway-Ultra/dp/B0D8PSW2BZ?&linkCode=ll2&tag=flcdrg07-22&linkId=39ad4320d21517a1048ccd7df111cbd5&ref_=as_li_ss_tl" "Cloud Gateway Ultra on Amazon" _blank
    GW --> TP

    TP[TP-Link Switch]
    TP --> PR

    LT(UAP AC Lite)
    TP --> LT

    PR(AC Pro)
    click PR href "https://www.amazon.com.au/UAP-AC-PRO-UBIQUITI-Ac1750-Access-Injector/dp/B07JDNS774?&linkCode=ll2&tag=flcdrg07-22&linkId=bfe6e1c092cbf6dbf88d14b28e295ed4&ref_=as_li_ss_tl" "AC Pro" _blank

    USW(USW Flex Mini)
    click USW href "https://www.amazon.com.au/Ubiquiti-Flex-Managed-Gigabit-Switch/dp/B08VRV9PWD?&linkCode=ll2&tag=flcdrg07-22&linkId=0dfeac74af4a36b6280c22ca74a2afad&ref_=as_li_ss_tl" "USW Flex Mini switch on Amazon" _blank
    TP --> USW

I had to do some hunting within the Cloud Gateway UI to figure out what the devices where that corresponded to the two MAC addresses.

One was indeed the gateway (which is what I would expect). The second, surprisingly turned out to be AC Pro wireless access point. That doesn't make a lot of sense - it's a wireless access point. It should not be acting as the upstream for a wired device.

It's funny though. Once you're paying attention to something, you often notice other things that have probably been there the whole time.

Switching to the Cloud Gateway UI and bringing up the Network page, I noticed something interesting.

At first it looked as I would have expected:

But then while on that page it updated and woah! That lines up with those logs!

Both the Flex Mini switch and the AC Pro access point use Power over Ethernet (PoE), and the TP-Link switch provides that on some of its ports so I had them both plugged into that.

The TP-Link is not a managed switch. It is essentially 'invisible' to other devices on the network (notice how it doesn't show up on those Gateway Network diagrams above), so I wonder if that may be relevant?

To test this theory, I changed the cables so that the Flex Mini is plugged directly into the Cloud Gateway. But as the gateway doesn't provide PoE I needed to power the Mini directly through its USB-C port.

Making that change, and now the Cloud Gateway's Network page reverts back to the expected layout and doesn't change. Home Assistant's Activity log also becomes a lot quieter.

That seems to have solved the problem. I'd really prefer to keep using PoE for the Flex Mini switch, but I suspect to do that in a reliable way might mean replacing the unmanaged TP-Link switch with a newer managed one - something like the UniFi USW Lite 8 or USW Ultra. Except it does seem the price jumps quite a bit when you go from 5 ports to 8. Maybe I'll stick with the USB-C power option for now.

Amazon affiliate links

Farewell FTTN, Hello FTTP

2024-08-24T08:08:00.000+09:30

It's all happening here on the Internet front. Last week I switched ISPs, and today we've upgraded from copper to fibre (or 'fiber' for North Americans!). I had a few concerns about how it was going to go, but TL;DR it went really well.

First off, the existing conduit that runs to the house is pretty narrow, so I was worried that it wouldn't be suitable for pulling the fibre, in which case they'd likely need to install a new conduit - digging up the front garden and maybe either cutting through our concrete path or lifting up lots of pavers. Messy and disruptive options.

Secondly, when NBN fibre is installed, they install two boxes. One on the outside of the house (the 'NBN utility box'), and the second inside (the 'NBN connection box' which terminates the fibre and gives you an Ethernet port to plug into). Ideally I really wanted the latter to be located right up the back of our house in a storeroom where all my other networking gear lives. However it's a fair distance internally so I wasn't sure if they would agree to go that far.

Step one was locating the small communications pit that was hiding in our front garden under quite a few layers of leaves and tree bark. I didn't even know this existed until the initial NBN survey of our street almost two years ago uncovered it. It's roughly under the big stick in the photo 😀.

The NBN technicians tested the existing conduit that runs from this pit up to the house for blockages by squirting some water from the hose down it. I gather this was successful, so they were happy that the conduit was usable.

The external box was mounted on the outside wall just above where the old conduit came out of the ground. The old copper wire was kept in place. In my case the copper goes into the wall cavity via a brick air vent and up to the fascia underneath the roof gutter where there's a little box that then connects to the internal telephony wiring (in my case I had a central splitter just inside the roof and then CAT5 cabling running back up to the aforementioned storeroom).

Rather than pulling the fibre up through the wall cavity following the copper line (I suspect it's probably too risky getting a kink in the fibre), they added extra conduit runs up to the roof and it enters the roof space.

Crawling around inside our roof is not fun, but they managed to get the fibre all the way over to the storeroom and used an existing hole in the ceiling (from when I'd previously run network cables to two wireless access). If I'd been thinking ahead when that room was built, I would have put in a proper large conduit from the wall up to the ceiling so that all those cables could use that!

They installed the 'NBN connection box' on the wall of the storeroom right next to my modem/gateway, network switches and Synology, exactly where I'd hoped it could go.

There was a short outage while they were doing the install - I gather they disconnected the copper for a bit when they were using it to pull the fibre. But it was reconnected and I was back online after a few minutes.

While they were finishing up, I received a text from Leaptel confirming that the new fibre connection was ready.

I've been using a Technicolor MediaAccess TG789vac v2 modem/gateway since we switched from ADSL to FTTN. It was supplied by Internode, but it isn't locked, and it has a WAN port so I was confident it would work as a gateway once our fibre was live.

I pulled out the telephone cable from the back of the gateway and confirmed that there was just a LAN patch cable from the 'NBN connection box' plugged into the gateway WAN port.

Opening the gateway configuration, I navigated to the 'Internet Access' page and clicked on show advanced.

I then enabled Auto WAN sensing and clicked Save, then Close.

After a few seconds, the status updated to show the gateway using the WAN connection

And finally, a quick speed test, and wow, isn't that awesome - 106.74Mbs download and 18.1Mbps upload!

Down the track, upgrading the gateway to something like a Ubiquiti UniFi Cloud Gateway Ultra could be nice.

UniFi USW Flex Mini 5-port switch

2022-06-20T08:00:00.000+09:30

My work from home desk has a great outlook, but unfortunately, it's on the opposite side to the room's network wall sockets. For this reason, I run a single cable around the room perimeter (mostly hidden behind sofas).

In my work with SixPivot, clients sometimes provide a laptop for me to use. In that case, I was having to use wireless, but I'll always prefer wired over wireless if possible. I could run a second cable, but that's getting messy, so the tidier option was to install a small switch on my desk to allow adding extra devices there. 5 port switches are pretty cheap, but often you pay a premium if you want a 'managed' switch. My colleague Shaw pointed out that Ubiquiti has a managed 5-port switch for around $AU50, and even better, it can be powered by Power over Ethernet (PoE).

The UniFi USW Flex Mini 5-port switch is (no surprise) a Gigabit switch with 5 ports. It can be powered either via a USB-C adapter, or 802.3af PoE (via port 1).

You can buy it from resellers on Amazon AU or Amazon US, but I had to hunt around to find a reseller with stock in Australia. I ended up going with UBWH Australia. The web page specifically calls out that the product does not ship with a power supply (which was fine as I was intending to use PoE).

It took a few days to arrive (I was starting to wonder if it was walking across the Nullabor! Despite the previous warnings, I was surprised to find that it did indeed include a power supply, but curiously it appears to have a US-style plug (so not that useful).

I made sure that the network cable coming to the UniFI switch had PoE and then plugged the network cable in. The device status LEDs then illuminated, giving me confidence that it was working. Adding extra cables to connect the two laptops on my desk and moments later they were both online.

It's a managed switch, and as I already run the UniFi Network Application (formerly UniFi Controller) software in a Docker container on my Synology server, I was able to add the device to the management application.

I followed these steps to manage the switch:

Open UniFi Controller
Navigate to 'UniFi Devices' tab
Click on Click to Adopt
In the details tab for device, click on Adopt Device
Wait for device status to change to Online.
You may see an optional firmware update available. You can apply the update by clicking on Click to Update in the device list, or on Apply Update in the device details panel

Here's the Overview panel for the device after it has been in operation for a few days:

So far, so good!

UniFi Controller on a Synology

2021-07-26T09:00:00.000+09:30

I've been using Ubiquiti's UniFi wireless access points for a few years around home. Until now I've only used the UniFi Controller application on an as-need basis (when setting the configuration or installing updates). But having the Synology DS1621xs on hand gives me an opportunity to try out its Docker support and in particular being able to run UniFi Controller continuously in a Docker container on the Synology.

I say 'UniFi Controller' but I gather that as of version 6.2 they've renamed it to 'UniFi Network Application'. Same software, just an updated name.

Installing Docker on the Synology

Open the Package Center
Select All Packages and scroll down to the Third-party section
In the 'Docker' package click Install
When installation has completed, the button changes to Open. Click on it to open the Docker UI.
The first time you open Docker a welcome screen message is displayed. Select Don't show this again and close the message.
Docker is now running on your Synology

Installing UniFi Controller

Select the Registry page.
In the search bar enter unifi and click Search.
Double-click on the jacobalberty/unifi image.
You now need to select a tag. Review the options to understand what the different tag values mean. (Choose latest to go with the latest stable version).
The image is now being downloaded.
Go to the Image page.
When the download has completed, the Launch button will be enabled. Click on Launch.
If desired, you can customise the Container Name.
Select Enable resource limitation.
Click on Advanced Settings.
Select Enable auto-restart.
Select Volume tab and click Add Folder.
Select the docker folder and then click on Create Folder.
Enter unifi and click OK.
Click Select.
In the Mount path column, enter /unifi. (See Volumes for volumes used by this image).
Select Network tab and select use the same network as Docker Host.
It is recommended to not run this image as root. Go to the Environment tab.
Change the value of RUNAS_UID0 to false.
As we will be binding to a port > 1024, we can also set the value of BIND_PRIV to false.
Click Apply.
Click Next.
Review the Summary details, then if they look correct click Apply.
Select the Container page.
You can see the UniFi image is now running in a container.

If you have the Synology Firewall enabled, you will need to allow access to the application, the port needs to be opened in the Synology Firewall. In my case because I hadn't exposed the Synology directly to the Internet, the firewall was disabled. I figured it was probably a good idea to enable the firewall.

From the Ports documentation there are a number of TCP and UDP ports to select.

Go to the Synology main menu and select Control Panel.
Select Advanced Mode and click on Security.
In the Firewall tab, select the custom profile and click Edit Rules.
Click Create and under Ports select Custom and then click on Custom.
Ensure Protocol is set to TCP.
In the Ports field enter 8080,8443,8843,8880,6789.
Click OK, and OK
Click Create and under Ports select Custom and then click on Custom.
In Protocol select UDP.
In the Ports field enter 3478.
Click OK, and OK
Click OK to save the firewall profile changes.
If it is highlighted, click Apply to save firewall changes.

Accessing UniFi Controller

Navigate to https://your-synology-box:8443/ (replacing your-synology-box with the DNS name of your Synology).
As the UniFi Controller comes with a self-signed TLS certificate you'll need to tell your browser to trust the certificate.
After this you should see the UniFi start-up wizard. If this is the first time you've used the software, proceed through the wizard following the steps. Alternatively (like me) if you're migrating from another installation you can click the or restore setup from backup to upload a back from the old system.

And with that you should be good to go!

Final thoughts

The ability to run Docker containers on a Synology is a great advantage. The UI is easy to use but flexible enough to allow you to run useful Docker images. Do check out my review of the DS1621xs, and check it out on amazon.com or amazon.com.au

Acknowledgements

There are quite a few different Docker images for running UniFi. Thanks to Simon Waight for the suggestion of https://github.com/jacobalberty/unifi-docker.
Ruud's instructions which formed the basis of the steps I followed here.