You should start a new thread about this so you don’t hijack this one. There are several options for your situation to consider.
I’m more than happy to share my limited knowledge, but like @ucav117 said, it’s best you start a new thread for the benefit of the forum structure. I thought I’d do this for you, so do click here to continue this discussion.
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I have bought a Raspberry Pi, successfully loaded Rasbian and Unifi on there and all is well. Just need to switch everything over to it.
Personally, I recommend not running the Unifi controller at all times (in fact, I recommend keeping it off until you need to add new APs, change passwords, etc.). All it does is push configurations and collect logs, and occasionally bugs out and pegs your CPU at 100% until you restart the software. The APs run exactly the same with the controller turned off (and they store their configurations - they don’t need to re-contact the controller if there’s a power outage), it’s not like Ruckus where the controller actually coordinates the APs to improve the experience.
Now, if you like having a Grafana dashboard, I think the controller does need to run at all times, but unless you plan on doing something like that, it’ll be less headache in the long run to only run it when needed.
Then I found a cheap TP link AP and threw even cheaper Cat6 down to the end of the garden
I would recommend not doing this. You either need to put your normal cat6 in conduit (or it’ll degrade within a few years and you’ll have to replace it) or use flooded core cabling, which is designed to be buried and will hold up to the elements.
Another thing you should keep in mind is the need for grounding. All it takes is one lightning strike to hit the cabling or conduit and fry all the wired devices on your network. The best way to prevent this is to use fiber (since it caries no electricity, it will not be struck if lightning hits nearby), but that requires you already have electricity at the shed to convert to ethernet and have a POE injector or switch running (and then adding another UPS out there since you mentioned having one in your house).
Either way, as it currently stands, if you get thunderstorms in your area, consider this a ticking time bomb. 8 Bit Guy made a video where he talked about this happening and frying lots of his and his parents’ devices multiple times, even with an ethernet surge protector.
Other than that, enjoy the wifi. The sky is the limit if your wallet is deep enough.
Really? I only wanted to keep it running so I get notification when someone joins the network. I have had it turned off quite it a bit, and like you say, the wifi still works without issue, which is a relief! That is good to know about power outages though.
I wouldn’t either, but I was in a jam and it was a ‘temporary’ setup. With perhaps some luck, this setup worked for a few years, in fact I only just removed that cable. I’ve now got some decent cable, which will eventually go in below ground conduit.
You’re absolutely spot on, for this reason the final connection from office to house will be fibre (1x1G and 1x10G). The CAT only exists for redundancy and will be disconnected when not in use. I did waffle on about it here and get some great info from the L1 commun’:
Luckily, where I live there is a very low chance of thunderstorms, perhaps 1 a year. I watched that video a while back, also I think Craft Computing mentioned having a similar experience.
But yes, UPS all round. It is a bit disturbing that they don’t necessarily protect against hardware damage…at least they’d minimise it I guess.
My wallet is shallow, but I’m doing the best I can 
You can keep it running if you want, but you’ll need to check on it occasionally since it does lock up from time to time. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, it just happens.
It usually takes at least a few weeks before it happens (in my experience), so if you put a cron job in to restart the service once a week, you’d probably be fine.
Do your switches only have 1xSFP and 1xSFP+? Or do you mean 1 cat6a & 1 fiber?
If it’s the former, I’d recommend only using the SFP+ because good luck getting link aggregation working across interfaces with different speeds.
If the latter, I’d recommend running more fiber. The cost to install 1 vs 4 cables now is much cheaper than it will be later on after construction is finished. You can then do all the link aggregation you want to max out your network, or just label them as backups in case one fails.
For lightning, UPSs can help reduce the blast radius, but they are not the end-all-be-all. Whole-home lightning arrestors are certainly more expensive but provide far more protection. Of course, if you have DSL or cable internet and lightning strikes the coax or phone line, you’ll need to have them grounded through the lightning arrestor or you could see plenty of damage from it. (This happened at my mom’s house, though the modem survived somehow. The switch lost 4 ports and the router had to be replaced. By some miracle, nothing else was hit.)
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Thank you for that, is it more likely to lock up when installed on specific devices? Is it easy to do a restart cron job on a Pi?
I’m very much in the middle of a gradual upgrade (more discussion was here), but:
I have 3 switches in total:
2 x Netgear Prosafe GS110TP (8 x 1G Cat, 2 x 1G SFP)
1 x Microtik long name 10G (4 x 10G SFP+, 1x Cat)
The intention between home and detached office is to have:
1 x 1G SFP
1 x 10G SFP+
1-2 Cat6 (for redundancy, unplugged)
The only reason for the SFP+ connection is to give high speed connection between workstation(s) in the office and the server (in the house), as I have to shift large’ish files. Don’t worry, no interest in LAG, though I have tried it and it was quite nice.
I’ve got the 1G SFP link solely to a PoE switch, for security cameras, the 1 AP and anything else I might connect later on.
That’s good info, thank you. I am having an overhaul of the home electrics (it’s all very old) soon, I’ll certainly see if arrestors can be included. Lightning protection over here in the UK is commonly overlooked, in part because we rarely have those types of storms. Sometimes a year or two can pass between 30 minute thunder storms. Like you say though, it only has to happen once to fry stuff - because I work from my home office, when the lightning starts, I tend to unplug everything in the office and do some manual work around the house (that’s not related to electric!). That’s strange about your mom’s though, how the modem survived?
I have noticed that some of my UPS’s have anti-surge CAT ports, I wonder if they’re worth using. I did buy an anti-surge adaptor for the phone line, a Telephone Engineer said it wasn’t of that much use in the event of a direct strike. To be fair though, if I got one of those, I’d buy a lottery card straight away, as the odds are winning/being struck are probably about the same over here.
cron is a job scheduler. The easiest way to schedule something to run once a week is simply to drop a script in /etc/cron.weekly, e.g.:
$ cat /etc/cron.weekly/run-site-update
#!/bin/sh
python3 /opt/twitch-scrape/transfer.py
But when exactly does this run? It’s fairly easy to find out:
$ grep run-parts /etc/crontab
17 * * * * root cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly
25 6 * * * root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily )
47 6 * * 7 root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.weekly )
52 6 1 * * root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.monthly )
If we plug the 47 6 * * 7 into https://crontab.guru/, we can find that this will run at 06:47 on Sundays.
But if we need this to be more specific, we can instead do crontab -e and insert a line like this:
47 2 * * 6 /opt/twitch-scrape/run-site-update
To run the script at 02:47 every Saturday instead.
CRS305?
I’m jealous. Where I live, thunderstorms are practically every other day during the summer. It’s a legitimate threat with our frequencies.
It’s our theory that it hit the modem. It, the switch, router, and two computers were plugged into the same UPS (all on the battery backup side), but it was only the switch and router which sustained any (visible) damage. Nothing else in the house was hit (to our knowledge). And the cable to the modem doesn’t run to the TVs, as the TVs are fed by a $20 aerial antenna mounted inside. If TVs got destroyed and she still had Spectrum TV, it would be obvious how it happened, but none could since my mom had dropped the TV package before this occurred.
Most of the UPSs I’ve seen only do 10/100, and if they advertise 10/100/1000, there’s a good chance there will be reviews claiming it doesn’t work properly and you’ll be negotiated down to 10/100. In any case, I wouldn’t put much faith in these devices.
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Wow, thank you for all of this, really appreciated 
Yes, that’s the one. I really like the PoE powering ability.
Wow, where do you live then, in that thunderstorm belt in the US? I can understand your caution towards them, then. 
That’s fairly unlucky, but lucky at the same time.
That makes sense, I don’t have faith in it for lightning strikes, but it’s pretty good when we have a power cut (1 every 1-2 years). I do have a dedicated anti-surge for the router/modem, just in case. Though I do have 2-3 spare ones if needed - just simple ones or replacement ones that I never used.
I figured, I have one sitting in the closet that I replaced with a CRS309.
Yep, gotta love it. My apartment has surprisingly stable power compared to some of the ones just a few miles away (probably because there’s several large office parks less than a mile down the highway), but my mom’s house regularly has short power outages during thunderstorms.
Ah, you got more ports eh, noice.
Ah jeez, that’s a real shame about your mom’s, I guess when settlements occurred there many moons ago, electric hadn’t been invented so they didn’t see any problem with living there.
Hey, if she uses a computer or similar, you could make a DIY battery backup: TC Projects: Lead-Acid Battery Backup - YouTube
There are already UPSs for the computers and network equipment in the house because of the power problems. The ones I have at my apartment have seen a grand total of 1 power outage, which lasted less than a second. At first I was wondering if I was just imagining a power flicker until I realized the internet died (I forgot to plug my ONT into the UPS with the rest of the network equipment and had to wait for it to come back).
Ah, fair enough then - information delivered too late as usual!