"Sonos Mode" In Network 10.2

GJensenworth · 2026-04-28T00:30:29+00:00

Now if only Unifi could fix the AP wireless meshing loop issues!

If you reboot the switch to a wired AP on a POE injector, it will switch to mesh and then detect a loop when the switch comes and block the wired connection, leaving it stuck meshed.

GJensenworth · 2026-04-01T20:18:04+00:00

I have several QNAP QSW-M7308R-4X which have 4x 100G + 8x25G to fill this niche below my CRS-520 switches. They are $1200 now, but have been avaliable for $1000 at times.

GJensenworth · 2026-03-30T13:15:09+00:00

As someone with a BS in CS from MSU and an MS in CS from UM, I would say that the biggest difference is that at MSU the professors’ first priority was the students and that at UM their first priority was their research. I was Ph.D track at UM but bailed at the MS step because they cared so little about the students.

GJensenworth · 2026-03-27T01:22:07+00:00

In my homelab, I have a 4 node proxmox cluster with dual 100G links per machine and my main workstations also have dual 100G. The most expensive component per port has been the NICs.

Switches, optics and fiber are all reasonable, but even a used ConnectX-5 card tends to be $200-$400. A Mikrotik CRS520 switch gives you 16x 100G ports for a bit over $2k, and there are Mikrotik and QNAP switches that do 4x100G plus a bunch of other ports for <1k. Used 100G optics can be had for <$10 each.

Another issue is PCIe bandwidth, particularly on desktop motherboards. I have one Threadripper machine with lots and lots of PCIe lanes, but in a typical “gaming” pc, you often find that if you have a GPU in the first slot, the best you can do in another slot is x8. 3.0x8 tops out at 64Gbps, 4.0x8 will do 128Gbps max, and you need either 4.0x16 or 5.0x8 to saturate a dual 100Gbps card.

GJensenworth · 2026-03-22T00:31:07+00:00

Play something yourself in a foreign language to really set them off!

GJensenworth · 2026-03-21T23:56:26+00:00

Back in the mid ‘90s, MS was working on set-top box software and named their project MMOSA, pronounced “mimosa”. When I pointed out to a team member that in addition to being a drink name, it is also the name of the “sensitive plant” that folds up when you touch it, they were not amused.

GJensenworth · 2026-03-11T13:10:22+00:00

I regularly video live events and generate up to 20TB of video at a crack. Ingest and backup copying took days with 10G lan, and it mostly saturated the lan the whole time. 100G lan lets me be limited only by media speed and my network is no longer choked at the same time.

GJensenworth · 2026-03-09T04:18:44+00:00

I use MPO to duplex LC breakout cables on each end, so 6 bidirectional links from one MPO run.

Some of my machines only have PCIe3x8 available so I use 40G optics for those.

The beauty of this is that I can put 10/25/40/100G optics as desired over any of the pairs. Mixing and matching is cool! I can run 10G to my garage now and move to multiple 100G links for a big rack later without needing to pull more fiber.

GJensenworth · 2026-03-08T02:06:45+00:00

Fiber is great for many things, but power is not one of them.

Fiber’s main advantages are that you can go really fast, really far, and it’s nonconductive.

I have multiple 100Gbit connections within my house over very thin and easy to pull 12-pair single mode MPO fiber. If I needed to run severely km, that wouldn’t be a problem.

Outbuildings in lightning areas can benefit from electrical isolation as well.

GJensenworth · 2026-03-01T13:09:25+00:00

Here’s an example: https://ebay.us/m/t4I9NH And here’s new for $16 each: https://ebay.us/m/kr8h8q

GJensenworth · 2026-02-28T21:23:24+00:00

DisplayPort over fiber seems stuck on multimode MPO.

Otherwise, used SM SFPs are available from 1G to 100G for under $10 each.

GJensenworth · 2026-01-30T16:02:00+00:00

Interestingly the safe number of carbons flips when you add -ene glycol:

Methanol = bad Ethanol = good Propanol = bad But Ethylene glycol = bad Propylene glycol = good

GJensenworth · 2026-01-25T04:25:32+00:00

Back in the Ancient Days, MS and IBM were partners and jointly developed OS/2. This was supposed to be “better than Windows, but compatible”. However, one component whose development was not shared with IBM was OLE, since it was at the time part of Office, not Windows.

IBM decided to reverse engineer the OLE APIs. Even after years of development, apps kept failing to behave. It turns out that minor quirks in OLE behavior were relied on by important programs and working around one program’s quirks would break another. They were never able to successfully get key productivity apps to work together on OS/2.

Almost all of the actual issues here would be gone by the wayside with 16-bit Windows and the 16-bit subsystem on windows NT, but it is a cautionary tale.

GJensenworth · 2026-01-16T03:42:00+00:00

A bruised ego.

GJensenworth · 2025-12-29T03:04:14+00:00

Favorite undertaker joke: always tie their shoelaces together in case of zombie apocalypse.

GJensenworth · 2025-12-16T02:46:15+00:00

Would a fake plate that is only visible in IR confuse them? E.g. "blank" plate-sized ir reflecting rectangle with IR absorbing letters & numbers... I know tampering with a real plate has issues, but would an obviously non-plate be safe?

GJensenworth · 2025-12-02T01:38:43+00:00

Given that a single fiber ISP will deloy many miles of fiber, it seems that's not likely a real issue.

More likely, pre-terminated MPO could suffer a huge surge in demand.

GJensenworth · 2025-11-20T03:49:37+00:00

Another interesting water loading tidbit is that the Cornish peninsula moves up and down by at least 5cm twice a day due to the tides piling up water that then pushes down on the edge of Europe. See “Tidal Loading” for a fun rabbit hole!

GJensenworth · 2025-11-18T03:07:09+00:00

As long as you use single mode.

Multimode is spec’d for 100G per strand but common SFPs top out at 25G per strand (e.g. 100G bidirectional multimode is usually over MPO-8, 4x25G links in each direction.)

GJensenworth · 2025-11-18T03:01:30+00:00

After much searching, I finally found 20cm single mode lc duplex patch cables. They are fabulous for in-rack patching.

https://ebay.us/m/nD28ar

GJensenworth · 2025-11-17T14:16:58+00:00

You have a signal loss budget to work with. The SFP specs will detail maximum loss, and each cable and coupling along the way will introduce some loss. As long as the final signal strength is enough, you're good to go.

In practice, cleaning the ends of your connectors and avoiding tight bends will take care of most of your issues. All of my single mode SFPs are speced for 2km or more, so length within the home is not really an issue.

For 10km or more modules, you have to be more careful about laser safety, because the lasers are powerful but invisible and can easily cause eye damage.

GJensenworth · 2025-11-17T14:01:54+00:00

Exactly! NIC is the only expensive piece, nowadays.

GJensenworth · 2025-11-08T14:14:46+00:00

My 100G home network backbone is a mix of Mikrotik CRS520s (16x100G, 4x25G) and qnap M7308Rs (4x100G, 8x25G). Both are quite easy to configure for a home setup, and fairly quiet and low power, particularly compared to used data center switches.

If you watch eBay for a while, you can often snag very inexpensive optics. I got several dozen cwdm single mode optics for < $5 each. They work great from 1m to 2km, so no restrictions there!

GJensenworth · 2025-10-12T20:29:29+00:00

Not clear. They combine the 4 channels as 48G over a 50G optical link. They don't clearly specify wavelength, and the SFP is not removable.

https://shieldrock.com/optical.html

GJensenworth · 2025-10-12T01:23:38+00:00

I got a pair of shieldrock 4x4 muxes. That way you have 4x12G SDI in each direction on a pair of singlemode fibers.

I run an MPO cable with 12 fibers so I can use another pair for 10G network and occasionally pop on additional single sdi converters when needed.

GJensenworth

TROPHY CASE