Routers to the left of me, Wireless to the right…

Greetings and happy 4th of July to all. Today is Independence Day for all Americans…Except me.

Yes, I’m working in the bowels of the Anger Central Data Center again on a holiday weekend. Yes the Angry Webmaster is out having a good time…the scumbag, leaving ME with all the work.

So, what am I writing about today? Well the title of this post should give you a hint. I’m replacing a router in the Data Center.

Previously, we had a Netgear router that served us for many years. Then it stopped loyally serving and deserted to the enemy. I replaced it with a Linksys router which has been working well for over a year.

Recently, I bought the Webmaster a new phone with WiFi capability. The problem was that the old WAP the Webmaster bought years ago was so ancient that it wouldn’t work with the new phone…or anything else made in the last 5 years.

I recently replaced it with a new Netgear WiFi router, but ran int a small problem. Mrs. Webmaster uses a laptop with a PCMCIA WiFi card in it. That card is also so old it won’t talk to anything other then the old Wireless Access point. Since Mrs. Webmaster uses that laptop to call her family in China, I couldn’t shut off the old WAP.

So I ended up having essentially two routers going with one hell of a lot of custom configurations to keep everything going. Yesterday I said “ENOUGH!” and pulled the Linksys router out of the mix.

The first thing I had to do was configure the new Netgear router to be the DHCP server as well as set up routes for web cams and stuff. Then I had to update the firmware on the router.

Yeah…

After I did that and got the router set up as the primary system, the WiFi stopped working. I banged away at it all afternoon then said “Screw IT!” and went out for lobster. When I came back it was working perfectly.

Go figure…

Anyway, it’s up and running now and working rather well. One of the things I like about it is that you can log the amount of traffic going out and coming in. Since ComCrap put those bogus caps in place, this is going to become critical for us.

The second benefit is the reduction in cables all over the place. The rack looks far neater now then it did when I started. I also have a backup router now in case this one fries and has to be replaced. (Considering that we have gone through three cable modems since we opened the data center, this is a good thing)

The original router wasn’t the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it did the job. Both are available on Amazon.com so click the ads at the bottom of the post.

Have a good Fourth and try not to blow off to many digits…or limbs. 😉

~The Angry Systems Administrator~

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