Ultimate home network setting in China

#workstations #network #firewall #router

After years of evolution, my home network devices keep growing and I would like to explain all the devices I am using for the moment.

Stage 1: Simply make it online

Everything starts simple, what you need at the beginning is just I can access the internet, so you go to your local ISP and purchase the network package which provides you the internet access, since you also want to use it wirelessly, so you also bought a wireless router. Here is the illustration for you simple home network.

All you need is just a router and nothing else. Simple and it works great for a while.

Stage 2: Bypass firewall with router

Then I bought a PS4 and I want to play online games. However, it sucks because of GFW, you have very bad game experience and you can't hack the PS4 system to install a VPN there, so the only way is to bypass the GFW at the router level. I know there is a device called Soft-router , which is basically a router on linux system. Then my home network evolved to the following.

Stage 3: Improve signal

Now you have a wireless router which can bypass the GFW, it works great when you are close to the router, however you have a flat with thick walls and some rooms are far away from your router. Especially in the basement, you can hardly browse anything there. With the opportunity of flat renovate, I bought several wireless network panel powered by POE. So that I can have strong wireless signal in every corner of the home. Here is the result of the renovate.

Stage 4: Controlled network

Now you have good wireless signal, but then you have more and more lot devices, some performs good at VPN mode, some performs good at pure China network environment, some just need partial VPN ability. So you need more than one wireless signal to support those requirements.

Stage final: IPTV and NAS

Because I love watching stream videos, but sometime they are just unavailable in any streaming platform, you have no choice but to download the pirate version. So I need a place to store all those videos. And also you need a place to continuously backup my mac. Therefore a NAS local storage server is of demand. Another requirements comes from IPTV which will use a dedicated network cable in the sitting room. And I can not provide cable network to my PS4, which is bad. Here is the solution how I solved that, just buy a network splitter. Here is the final version of my home network.