Ruckus H510 few questions.

[oleh_serko]

I purchased two Ruckus H510 APs and want to cover my house with WiFi as my current one Mikrotik hAp ac2 has poor WiFi coverage. 

I work as a system administrator in the IT department for more than the last 10 years, we mostly use Mikrotik products but I have zero experience with Ruckus products yet. 

I flashed the first Ruckus H510 with Unlased firmware to use it as master\controller, the second one is currently in standalone mode. Everything seems to work fine (at least in my "test" configuration on the desk) but I still have a few questions: 

1. Ruckus Solo Access Point 114.0.0.0.6565 (GA) Software Release (H510) - can't download because "That file is only available to Premium Support users." 

 Pretty strange situation... This is the first time I see a vendor not allowing customers to download the latest firmware. Usually, vendors push users to update the device's software to avoid possible problems\bugs\0days already solved in newer firmware. Especially in a situation when available for download 114.0.0.0.1360 Solo version warns you about known issues. No way to get the last firmware? 

2. What is the type of H510 DC power jack you are using? I have the appropriate AC\DC adapter but can't find the correct DC jack. 

3. In the UNLASHED firmware in the WAN section there are only: "Static", "DHCP", and "PPPOE" options. My ISP gives me Internet via PPTP... No way to connect to ISP using PPTP on Ruckus devices? 

4. And a most important question. 

I want to use AP as a classic home AP but I also need to filter incoming WAN port traffic. I want to NAT traffic to the WAN from my internal LAN and block everything from outside except few necessary ports for port forwarding. 

I can't find IPv4 Firewall and NAT, is it present or not in the UNLASHED firmware?

 Sincerely, Oleh. 

[hayward_kong]

For your 2nd AP, you need to also flash it to the same version of unleashed as your master.  After that, plug it into the same network as your master controller and the master controller will auto find it and auto configure it. 

Question 1:

This is the first time I've seen that Ruckus made Solo firmware for Premium support users. However, it was free all this time even before Unleashed.  Besides Unleashed is more featured than Solo and I see no reason to run Solo anymore because of Unleashed. 

Question 2: 

Don't know what size of jack  size it uses..

Question 3: 

You're out of luck on PPTP VPN since Ruckus APs are mainly Wifi APs and not routers. They are best for WiFI AP deployment. Typical Installs are APs and best not to use them as gateways.   And If you did deploy a single Ruckus as a gateway, it won't get too much throughput for WAN to LAN because of the overhead from Ruckus's adaptive antenna design to the CPU.

Question 4:

There's an IPv4 firewall and NAT on unleashed when using it as a gateway, but you don't have much control..... it's pretty basic when you have it in gateway, but then again I haven't bothered since Ruckus APs are really designed as APs, but they do provide that basic gateway feature for coffee shops etc.

Your best bet is to use your Mikrotik hap ac2 as a wired router only and shut off the wifi and just hook up the H510(s) as Wifi APs using Unleashed firmware and use them as just APs.

Note: H510 probably don't have as much range as the R510 from Ruckus since H510 are designed to be wall mounted and doesn't have 64 different antenna patterns per band. 

I'm guessing  you probably got the H510 cheap since R510 are normally more expensive even when used. 

Anyway, I'm familiar with Mikrotik routers.  I'm currently using RB450gx4 as my primary router currently and have deployed a few more to a few more of my clients. I was looking for alternatives to the Edgerouter Series since Ubiquiti EdgeOS 2.x.x seems too unstable these days.

If you have any other questions let me know. 

[oleh_serko]

Thank you for your answers!

  1. I will probably flash the second one with Unlashed too. I thought Solo is more "lightweight" firmware for APs hardware.

  3. Pretty strange that more old\simple PPPOE is present and PPTP not. I asked my ISP and they already prepare to upgrade the network infrastructure in my area to optic   Internet via DHCP (option 82) in the next two months. So hopefully in near future, there will be no need for the PPTP option anymore.

  4. My biggest concern is Firewall and NAT. Any router as a getaway should have them both but I can't understand how to configure them and default\basic features are not enough for me.

 I was thinking of leaving Mikrotik as a getaway and use Ruckus APs only for the WiFi side, but IMHO 3 devices for my small 90 square meter house is too much 🙂 I paid 55$ for each used H510. During testing, I found that for signal strength it is pretty close to my Hap ac2. But when my Mikrotik gives up and the smartphone switches to a 4G network.... Ruckus H510 still provides a low speed but stable connection. As I see, prices for R510 are around 160-200$ 😞 is it much better?

  One more idea was to mount AP under the roof at the center of the house. One AP will probably cover all the house. But temperatures there sometimes go below -10 C in winter and more than  50 C in summer so APs hardware will probably not feels OK. Not sure what is the temperature range for Outdoor APs.

[velosol]

The H510 datasheet only claims 0-40C as operating temperature so while it would cover the house it might not last too long.

5G will always work best line of sight and you have the APs so why not use them, perhaps one on each end of your house?

And I agree with Hayward, you are going to be much happier with the MT as your router, RouterOS runs circles around Unleashed for anything more advanced than plug and play and can easily route and firewall a gigabit uplink with reasonable packet sizes (the 64 byte packet tests bottom out around 120Mbps which isn't great, but is great for what the hAP ac2 costs).

[hayward_kong]

@oleh_serko ,

the R510/R610/R710 can easily cover 232 square meters for a house that's 2 stories and built in the 1950s when mounted center of the house on the first floor ceiling.  On the Edge of the 2nd floor I can get 310mbps with a R710 with an iPad Pro 2018..  I got the R710 used for $185 US dollars for my parents that was about almost 2 years ago. My first ruckus that I ever bought was back Nov 2015 for a R710 for $700 US dollars and still working fine.  Anyway, I first got into Ruckus back in 2014 when I had to made a decision for one my clients who was a small school back then that had. a student population of classes of about 150 students and about 20 teachers and staff at one time.  I was debating about Ruckus 7372 APs and Unifi AC Square APs back then and the Ruckus was just $50 more then the Unifi.  The R500 back then was out of the schools budget so I had them pick the Ruckus 7372 and so glad that they went that direction since it would have been a mess with the failure of the Unifi AC Square AP.   Since then the school has retired the Ruckus 7372 and was able to replace them with used R610.  Anyway, since then I've been pretty much recommending and deploying Ruckus APs to my clients mostly new for my clients and then friends and family used.