New WiFi 6 w/DHCP features

[AudioHTIT]

I’m looking for a new WiFi router for my medium/large home on a large property. My current Apple AirPort Extreme works well enough, but there are a couple things I’d like to improve. Most of my network devices are wired, and I’m in a rural environment so congestion isn’t a problem; and my Internet connection isn’t very fast so WAN speed is not critical. I do move large files within my network, and while most of those will travel on my HP Gig switches, the Gig ports on the router will become the core switch so reliable throughput there is important. There are a couple requirements I’m having trouble finding.

• My first goal in upgrading is to increase my WiFi range outdoors, I’ve placed my router centrally in the home and get good coverage, but I’d like to extend a little further outside (without mesh). I’ve tried an ASUS RT-AC3100 which had great range, but didn’t meet my next requirement (and the refurbished unit I tried may have had other problems). Edit: I believe any choice I make will fulfill my range needs, this post is to help me find a router that will meet the following DHCP needs.

• I also need more than 64 static DHCP reservations. Both the Apple and ASUS have this limitation, I’m currently testing a Netgear Nighthawk RAX80-100NAS which is only limited by memory, so it solves that problem, but can’t do the next. It’s range may not be as good as the ASUS, but the placement isn’t quite the same.

• I want to have the the DHCP reservation list sorted by IP address. My current Apple router (from 2013) does this, but it seems to be a somewhat elusive feature. I wouldn’t mind if I had to export the entries and sort them externally, then clear the list and re-import, but I want them sorted by IP when I’m viewing and editing them. The Nighthawk even deletes and recreates the entry at the end if you edit it — so you couldn’t start with dummy entries in order and then edit them — another option I’m ok with.

• It seems at this point, a WiFi 6 router with AX makes sense, as I’d like the best WiFi speed and range I can get, but as I mentioned congestion and WAN speeds aren’t an issue, so if no AX router met these needs and an AC does I would consider it.

So does a router with these features exist? I’d prefer not to pay $500+ for a gaming speed router, but the two I mentioned are in the $200-$300 range, I’ll pay more if it gets what I want. I’ve searched a bit and have come up short, any suggestions or recommendations?

Thanks for your recommendations and help
—Bruce

 

[Deleted member 22229]

They all have similar range Asus in my opinion being one of the weaker ones in range. There is no magic bullet when it comes to range as power output is controlled country regulations.

 

[AudioHTIT]

They all have similar range Asus in my opinion being one of the weaker ones in range. There is no magic bullet when it comes to range as power output is controlled country regulations.

Right, Power is the same, but antennas aren’t. Modern routers have more sophisticated antenna systems, both the ASUS and the Nighthawk go further than my 6 year old Apple. Either would be fine as far as that’s concerned, but they don’t meet my DHCP needs, which is why I focused on that in the title.

 

[Salles]

I’m looking for a new WiFi router for my medium/large home on a large property. My current Apple AirPort Extreme works well enough, but there are a couple things I’d like to improve. Most of my network devices are wired, and I’m in a rural environment so congestion isn’t a problem; and my Internet connection isn’t very fast so WAN speed is not critical. I do move large files within my network, and while most of those will travel on my HP Gig switches, the Gig ports on the router will become the core switch so reliable throughput there is important. There are a couple requirements I’m having trouble finding.

• My first goal in upgrading is to increase my WiFi range outdoors, I’ve placed my router centrally in the home and get good coverage, but I’d like to extend a little further outside (without mesh). I’ve tried an ASUS RT-AC3100 which had great range, but didn’t meet my next requirement (and the refurbished unit I tried may have had other problems).

• I also need more than 64 static DHCP reservations. Both the Apple and ASUS have this limitation, I’m currently testing a Netgear Nighthawk RAX80-100NAS which is only limited by memory, so it solves that problem, but can’t do the next. It’s range may not be as good as the ASUS, but the placement isn’t quite the same.

• I want to have the the DHCP reservation list sorted by IP address. My current Apple router (from 2013) does this, but it seems to be a somewhat elusive feature. I wouldn’t mind if I had to export the entries and sort them externally, then clear the list and re-import, but I want them sorted by IP when I’m viewing and editing them. The Nighthawk even deletes and recreates the entry at the end if you edit it — so you couldn’t start with dummy entries in order and then edit them — another option I’m ok with.

• It seems at this point, a WiFi 6 router with AX makes sense, as I’d like the best WiFi speed and range I can get, but as I mentioned congestion and WAN speeds aren’t an issue, so if no AX router met these needs and an AC does I would consider it.

So does a router with these features exist? I’d prefer not to pay $500+ for a gaming speed router, but the two I mentioned are in the $200-$300 range, I’ll pay more if it gets what I want. I’ve searched a bit and have come up short, any suggestions or recommendations?

Thanks for your recommendations and help
—Bruce

You say most of your devices are wired and that you want increased wifi outdoors. Can I assume that LAN throughput for outdoor wifi does not need to be full LAN speed.
If you do not want Mesh, but would adding a repeater or AP satisfy your need?
I use a repeater for my garden and get around 70-150 Mbps of WAN quite far away.

 

[AudioHTIT]

You say most of your devices are wired and that you want increased wifi outdoors. Can I assume that LAN throughput for outdoor wifi does not need to be full LAN speed.
If you do not want Mesh, but would adding a repeater or AP satisfy your need?
I use a repeater for my garden and get around 70-150 Mbps of WAN quite far away.

Thanks for your reply, I guess my post wasn’t clear so I’ve added a sentence.

Edit: I believe any choice I make will fulfill my range needs, this post is to help me find a router that will meet the following DHCP needs.

 

[AudioHTIT]

So, anyone check out the DHCP features in their router?
Does it have more than 64 reservations?
Can it sort by IP address?
Does it reorder addresses when you edit the MAC?

 

[AudioHTIT]

So it appears DHCP isn’t a hot topic, that’s ok, here’s what I’ve found so far (which doesn’t include a router that meets my needs).

ASUS — Any model, including all the new WiFi 6 models are limited to a maximum of 64 DHCP addresses, so a non starter. They also can’t sort the reservation table by IP, but some may be able to export / sort / import. Too bad, as they have great range.

Netgear RAX80-100NAS — Very cool looking Nighthawk router — think the Emperor’s ship in Star Wars without the center stabilizer. A winner when it comes to addresses, basically limited by memory, I quit testing at 100 DHCP reservations, which meets my needs. Unfortunately you can’t sort, and you can’t make a dummy table in order, because editing causes it to resort. So close as it also has good range. Edit 2020/04/11 — the Netgear Orbi has the same limitations.

TP-Link Archer AX6000 — Another looker, reminds me of the huge alien ship from The Abyss (did I mention I like SciFi?). Also nice that it has an 8 port Gig switch built in! It has a workaround for the sorting issue, in that it doesn’t reorder the reservation table when you edit an entry, so you can make a dummy table in order. You do have to put your entries in backwards, in my case starting with 100 and working down, as the last entry becomes first, but that’s no harder than doing it forward. BUT! The most anemic Max DHCP reservations I’ve seen with a total of 32!!! (this is after their tech support said it had 250, so I bought it for a great price on Amazon Prime Day). Didn’t get to do any range testing, it wasn’t out of the box long enough and went back today.

The search continues!

 

[AudioHTIT]

Thought I’d bump this thread, still using my Apple AirPort Extreme, but still wanting a new WiFi 6 router with the DHCP requirements I list above. Thanks.

 

[Trip]

The level of DHCP control and reporting you seek will almost assuredly be more attainable via community and/or small-business grade firewall distros. I can understand wanting to K.I.S.S. and color inside the lines of something like a consumer all-in-one, but have you considered instead going with a discrete firewall, plus separate, scalable wireless? It would give you all of what you're looking for with hardly any shortcomings -- only the hardships of a new learning curve and setup. If you're open to something like that, I'm happy to get into suggestions.

 

[AudioHTIT]

The level of DHCP control and reporting you seek will almost assuredly be more attainable via community and/or small-business grade firewall distros. I can understand wanting to K.I.S.S. and color inside the lines of something like a consumer all-in-one, but have you considered instead going with a discrete firewall, plus separate, scalable wireless? It would give you all of what you're looking for with hardly any shortcomings -- only the hardships of a new learning curve and setup. If you're open to something like that, I'm happy to get into suggestions.

Thanks for your thoughts, that’s something I hadn’t considered, and sounds viable, I will keep open to that possible configuration. The fact that I’m still using my 7 year old Apple AirPort Extreme makes me think that my needs are not that ... extreme. It does 64 DHCP reservations and sorts by IP, I’m really only asking for more addresses (96 - 128), and WiFi 6 capabilities — which seems reasonable to expect these many ‘tech years’ later. My wife also manages the router when I’m away skiing, and I’ve devised and wired a location that lends itself to a single device. The units I’ve tested seem so close, someone has to get it? I’ll keep looking for now, but I do appreciate your very valid suggestion and will get in touch should I want to explore further. Thanks Trip and take care.

 

[StealthLion]

My primary question would be, why do you need so many DHCP reservations? If you know that your client devices (yes client devices to the DHCP server/router, other 'servers' in this methodology can hence be classed as client devices) are required to be static IPs then why not assign the static IP on each client and just move your DHCP assigning pool to avoid your static devices? Every time that you reboot your router/DHCP server, you should probably see your devices reconnect quicker as a result rather than having to give extended handshakes to 64+ devices.

Failing that, if you truly are wanting to centralize configuration to give you more power/control, then I'd suggest that you perhaps implement a RADIUS server. It doesn't have to be anything too major, you could throw one up on a Raspberry Pi.

 

[MichaelCG]

I also question the need/desire for more than 64 reservations? I am a fairly particular networky person and do not have anywhere that many reservations. Very curious to understand what/why you are doing things in this manner? I have my NAS, proxy, APs, and a few other devices on reservation. The majority of my clients (laptops, phones, tablets, streaming devices, etc) are all on standard DHCP pools.

As for what can do this for you? I second Trip's suggestion of moving out of consumer gear into small business'ish gear. Even a basic pfSense/OPNSense box can probably do what you are after. Then you can go off and do what ever WiFi you want to do when ever you want to do it. By splitting the routing and WiFi functions out, it will give you so much more flexibility for upgrades in the future. Even if you find an all in one WiFi router today that meets all of your requirements, what are you going to do in 3 years when you need to replace it again and can't find one that meets all requirements? When you split the function, you can upgrade/replace your router based on performance and DHCP features as needed, and then do the same for WiFi to meet range and performance requirements on a completely different schedule.

 

[AudioHTIT]

I’ve been working with DHCP for over 25 years, starting on a very large network; I’ve built my management practices over time and feel they are efficient, make administration easier, and make it easier to see when something is out of place. I don’t expect anyone else to share my concerns or practices, but those who I’ve taught continue to use my methods.

Since I’ve been able to find routers that can store more than 100 addresses, and other routers that don’t re-sort the reservation table when it’s edited, it seems likely there is a router that can do both and perform well. I can add the Netgear Orbi as another that can’t (reorders table), but with my previous Netgear experience that was to be expected. I’ll be testing a Linksys Velop next — I should add that I’ve contacted support on these models before I buy them, and they assure me they can do what I want

I continue to be open to anyone who has actually tested their WiFi 6 router for these attributes and can report either yea or nay to them.

 

[coxhaus]

I best DHCP server I have used is Microsoft DHCP server. It works well and will scale up. We had 3000+ entries with lots of scopes and reservations in a centralized DHCP server. If you want really good DHCP don't look at consumer routers.

The new Cisco GUI on their RV340 router might work OK with DHCP. I don't have it turned on because I am using my Cisco layer 3 switch. I have multiple networks at my house and I need different DHCP scopes. The switch is not the best as for as DHCP goes. It works fine. Cisco is planning a new GUI for their switches which may make it work better like the Cisco small business routers.

 

[StealthLion]

Aligning to your original question of Wifi routers, the trouble that you have is that as standards progress such as onto WPA3 and 802.11ax, processing power and memory will be dedicated more towards more processor intensive issues such as OFDMA. To that end, your use of resources for large stored DCHP reservation, potential static routes and such is sub-optimal for what you are trying to achieve, and while a /24 can typically support up to 253 clients, a lot of consumer grade wifi routers would struggle with those sorts of figures, even a lot of the ones that tout higher processor/ram configurations.

Speaking as someone who's previously worked for a UK Tier 1 Carrier grade ISP, we had to support a multitude of statically and dynamically assigned clients. (When I started there it was easily 100K connections, raised to 200K in a year, now easily multiple millions) We needed RADIUS for sure at the authentication path that then assigned IP based on credentials. Your current methodology isn't really extensible as your network needs grow, and grow they probably will. I doubt you had a need for 64 DHCP reservations 25 years ago - 25 years time from now are you or your wife or kids going to easily be able to administer 128+ DHCP reservations if need be with your current methodology if hardware is available to do what you are wanting? Also, where do your future IPv6 clients come into play in your assignments?

To get back on track, as I and others have said, you'll want to look towards more enterprise solutions and/or potentially split the load of what you're trying to achieve, and be open to learning other things to more optimize what you are trying to achieve.

 

[MichaelCG]

I wasn't even going to touch on the IPv6 madness....that blew up my entire network plan since the majority of client devices refuse to do DHCPv6 and instead use SLAAC which you have zero control over.

 

[AudioHTIT]

Just thought I’d close this thread by saying I went with a Unifi Dream Machine. It includes their ‘Controller‘ management software which is excellent. Since then I’ve replaced my switches with Unifi, and added two more of their APs (one WiFi 6), I can now cover most of my 10 acres. My original need for more than 64 DHCP reservations is also met, at about 80 so far, and the Controller let’s me sort those reservations by IP, so that’s covered too. Great solution.