How To Cable Manage Your Server Rack! 

Everyone knows you gotta do home networking at 3am when the family is sleeping. 🤣 Nice video. I love using keystone panels, makes things so much easier.

Don't threaten me with a good time 🤣

Your content just gets better and better. I added you to my monthly Patreon. Glad that you made the life-change. I believe in what you are doing for you and your family. Keep up good work.

"It's ok, I only needed 8 of them in there." Shows 10 keystones installed. Lol

Awesome Dude. I asked about the patch panel in the last video and you just over-delivered it! Really nice solution, way more modular than the ''regular'' patch panel. Great idea, that is an awesome setup you got there. Cheers!

I've always been curious about running a home lab and your videos have definitely convinced me to do so.

Well done and great timing. My wife and I are planning to build a new home and having a well-managed server closet is one of my priorities.

finally, a video that explains what a patch panel is and is for. Thanks for the tip about using keystone.

In it for the back side rack video 🤙🏻

I've just begun the process of building my own networking infrastructure for personal use in the home, so this video proves to be very well timed as I have myself a small "19-Inch 7U Networking Cabinet" that I got for free from the roadside a few months ago and I plan to install all of my hardware into it (Well, except from the Wireless AP, because a metal cage around a Wireless Access Point is a bad idea haha). My plan is to build a PFSense 1U Box that is low power, then hook that up to a "1U, 48-Port Gigabit Network Switch" and have my Wireless AP hook up to the network switch. I just purchased and recieved my new (and cheap) Wireless AP the other day, it is a "TP-Link Archer C7 (V5 Hardware Revision)" which set me back about £70. I have flashed OpenWRT onto it and started setting it up, so stage 1 is well under way. Next I plan to buy the hardware for the 1U system that will operate as a PFSense Router. Not sure how I am going to tackle this part yet as it seems like much of the 1U, Short Depth (250mm) Chassis on the market are either poorly built + overpriced, or, NOT sold in the UK/Suitable for UK 240V...... So if anyone reads this and has any kind of recommendations then please do post a reply as I'm really struggling with this part.

Love the opening to this video. "Can't beat freshly squeezed".

this is a perfect solution for my apartment rack, i did not want to deal with terminating cables on the back, i just want a plug and play type setup so keystone seems like a great option. this option is a tad expensive at $18.99 for the panel and if your populating all 48 ports your up to $40 for the keystone attachments roughly.

Nice. I've heard of these keystone thingies. But never seen them installed / in action like that. Thank you.

Not only did this video leave me wanting to cable manage my rack but it also left me wanting a beer.. Thumbs up... but now you owe me a beer.

You convinced me to go buy a keystone patchpanel. I just ordered it :) I already have a patchpanel, but that is one of which you said you didn't want. I've had it for 1,5 years now and I never had the motivation to do anything with it.. xD

Awesome! Love it. Thank you.

You had me a "can't beat fresh squeezed" Jeff!

I liked as soon as you said "fresh squeezed"!

Great tips and great opening skit :)

I love Deschutes IPA! It's so goooood!!

I love Keystone Jack Patch Panels.... I have actually rack mounted my main desktop, run some USB ports & such to the front and bam, it's like a front loading USB port.

Very clean cable management.

Nice simple video man. I agree this is a very useful simple way to manage the rack but, and please don't take this the wrong way I would personally feel like I was cheating if I did not terminate each cable (except for the fiber) to the patch panel. I am weird like that but, most people do not enjoy that tedious part of making cables. Anyway looks good man!

loved the opening.

I like the cable matters keystone rack as they have a bar to zip tie the cables to

I love that you're somewhat local to me. It's awesome seeing all my favorite beers on here. Have you tried any beers from De Garde? Crazy stuff they're putting out.

I like your humor :)

Thanks for sharing Sr. Do you have a video describing what all that gear does/serves?. Love how the rack came out.

For keystone ports not used I have 'blank' black keystone jacks for a pro look. Thanks Jeff!

Oh buddy, you are my whole rack ❤️❤️❤️

Thanks for the video

A beer tree. I was getting ready to book a trip to paradise. I'm just shocked that no one came running out and complaining that the internet was down. Regardless of telling them. Mine would of freaked out still...or started hyperventilating....or both.

Brush panel can be used to pass all cables through, which is nice for homelabs where you keep changing gear around.

Nice vídeo!

in our DC if we have front mounted network/switch gear we stack a maximum of 2 devices ontop of each other, seperated by a brush guard on the U's above and below the group. This allows you to run any cables you need through the brush guards and never have a cable crossing over another device. If you have a switch fail, the last thing you want to worry about is the 10-20 cables draping over it preventing you from pulling it out of the rack :)

Killer intro Jeff! Lmfao ! I will probably be looking into replacing my 48 port patch front to rear panel after seeing this video as I only need 26 cat6 ports + fiber. As Always, appreciate your vid's

Awesome intro! XD

What is your ventilation for the rack? Does heat affect how you decide where you are putting stuff?

Now I need to rack all my servers 6 4u chassis and 2 2u currently in my makeshift rack. Well 4 are on the floor in a stack. If I could fit a 42 U in my attic i would but I will just have to wait until I move. Great Video. On the cable management.

Having a patch panel with multiple different types of cables plugged into drives my OCD crazy.

Rack mount the switches in the rear. No patch panel required. Added bonus of not having to run longer cables through the middle/sides of the rack from rear to front. But, to each their own. Looks cool regardless.

Hops are my life!

In the beginning there are cables going to the ubiquity devices but at the end there are none...

Question. My house was a new build and it was wired with CAT5e cables to every room. The cables are not terminated in the box in my closet. Do I need to do this or can I just terminate the cables and plug them straight into the router?

just curious. You have plenty of open ports in your patch panel. Any reason you didn't align your ports with your switch so the connections were more direct

Nice very nice. my OCD is satiated.

For cable management I generally use Panduit products and switches I generally mount at the rear of the rack rather than facing the front as it has the effect of reducing the length of the cables i need to manage. Sure, i can't see blinkenlights at the front but I can live with that.

I have bought patch panel. Bu after your video i have changed my mind and i am going to buy blank patch panel and couple keystone modules.

Cool intro👍

I have that same MikroTik CRS328 PoE switch, and I have another MikroTik CSS610 connected to it, being powered by PoE - but the CRS328 would not send power unless I set that specific port to force-on - now I have to worry about accidentally connecting something else to that port. Is this how it should be?

What is the best way to cable manage a DAC cable? Is a brush panel the only way?

Viewing from Beijing in the morning while drinking Asahi beer ;)

Do all different brands keystone's fit in those panels? It was never really clear to me. This is why I opted for regular patch panel.

So I take it you'll be moving over the Ubuquiti gear in a future video? Since the UDM-PRO and the Switch arent in use yet?

What rack are you using. I've been looking for something similar to what you have. Thanks!

Oh that's beautiful

i really like the intro 🤣🤣🤣🤣

You and bitwit need to team up on jokey intros :-D

5:45 - I just realized you're running a Sangoma FreePBX. I had to learn to admin those systems in my last job...after never having used a PBX before in my life. I loathe that system!

I feel like the patch panel is begging you to start at port #4 or so so they all line up with the switch ports

I’m looking to implement this in my own homelab rack, but from my understanding, using a Cat6 Keystone “Coupler” like you used causes speed/connectivity issues, right? I thought the proper and best way to do it was to create a female Cat6 RJ45 by stripping one side of the Ethernet cable and punching them down into a keystone. Or is my thinking outdated/doesn’t matter anymore? I remember being told to never use couplers if you can help it. I’d rather do more work to have everything stable.

Thank you for the video. Can you link or add to the description the back of the rack video if you ever made it . Cheers.

Should've drank a Key stone beer in this one

Maybe you're explained it in previous videos, what are you using your fiber for (Storage, 10Gbps internet, etc.), and did you or will you be posting your network architect (what connects to what), I ask because I'm hoping to wire my small office similar to yours. Thx for posting.

I just got a entry job setting these up including cable management.

nice video sir, did you has another videos about cabling method among racks?

I wonder how you will have your cables clean looking for your ubiquidi equipment at the top, aren't they too close together ?

The back is symple. Power up one side and cable up the other side. Connection split out of bundles horizontally with enough slack so that you can service things without having to disconnect everything.

I find jacks much easier to terminate successfully than plugs, and having a patch panel makes this tidy.

I don't see the amazon link to the butterfly bottle opener. We use those panels at my office and they work great, if I could only get them to switch to the short patch cables to go with them. When's the rack cooling solution video coming out? I'm trying to find ways to cool my 1U blade before I get it set up in my garage.

So, this is great for devices like a server that have a connection on the back. Do you terminate all of your drops from your house with a standard RJ45 end or do you punch down the drops on a keystone jack that punches down?

Nice, but put a 1u cable manager in between you patch Panel and switch for an even cleaner look.. it will also allow you to hide the fiber patch.. then you can use 1m or .5m cat 6 patch cables and hide the excess cable within the cable manager..

So funny, so almost different to anything we do in Europe ;-)

Should of mentioned the polarity for the LC fiber, using a single patch panel like that will require you to flip the polarity on one of the cables in the run

Did you ever find server rails for that rosewill 4u chassis?

Hey Jeff............ Nice Rack!

I'm not a fan of adding additional connections, you could just use the brush panel you mentioned to hide the cables. We are using Keystone panels for all our cableruns these days but I didn't know they are so versatile with those couplers.

Now i am waiting for the re-cabling video of the back of the rack ;-)

Jeff, of course you may have realized, if you attached the fiber connectors to spots 1 & 2 (not sure why you skippepped one at the other end), you could have made it look a 'little neater :) Sorry, just being a jealous hard-as, so forgive me.

what dose the blue switch on top ?

How do I know I’m a total tech nerd? Because I enjoyed this video.

You didn't cable manage anything, you just added an unneeded extra layer. Your rack is on wheels so there is no reason to have cables at the front at all. Put the switches in the rear, that's where the server network ports are, so that's where where switches are needed. Cabling from the rest of the house goes into a patch panel, also at the rear, because that's where all the cabling is done. When you get to the actual cable management, getting things organized in the rear, you will have a hard time reaching the back of that patch panel in between those two switches. You'll need to keep track of what the reverse order of the front is, and you'll probably need a torch to see any labeling on the ports, or maybe you run the back of the patch panel unmarked for that extra bit of excitement? it's SO much easier if you just have the switches facing the rear, you can actually see what you're doing rather than having to run each cable through the depth of the rack.

How do you fix a spaghetti bowl of cables within a timeline without disconnecting the cables?

I did exactly the same with my home server lab rack

I'm trying to do the back of my rack... yeesh it's a pain in the ass... but at least I can make the front look nice!

I miss the FiberNinja, his old videos are great for super small home/office setups.

Best video for Thomas219 aka ΚΝΠ in order to tide his rack some day!

What about buying a 1 uu cable passthough organiser? right now you have a mess in the back that you do not see ;) plus you have to note what cable goes to the back of the keystone panel.

Are there any keystones for qsfp connectors? I’ve got some infiniband cards to connect.

Please can you go over the simple/starter for free pbx system. How to setup voip system

Maybe this have already been asked and answered. A dumb thing but the little guy in my head is screaming. I can see that the KVM switch under the switch don't use a full U. Couldn't you move it down one hole so the fiber patches could be tucked above the KVM switch instead of under it like now maybe it is not possible? I know dumb question but when you have an itch you must scratch it or in this case ask it.

Thanks. I need a patch panel.

I always leave at least 1/2 U free space in between switches. They heat up and placed against each other even more. Whatever air-cooling or air- distribution system you're going to put in is going to work better with air flow between the switches. Just my 0.02€

Nice! I'm wondering, what are your maintenance costs for everything regarding network? Did you check how much energy your network uses? Is electric energy expensive in your country? In germany 1kwh costs about 0.29€ which is pretty expensive. If you get yourself an vps most of the time the vps cost itself is cheaper than the energy costs of a home server alone lol.. Of course industry gets energy cheaper but still..

Have you ever had "le fin du Monde". It's one of my favs and I'd like to hear your opinion on it if you haven't had one already.

literally bought the same one and just finished installing everything and saw this video..... I put the keystones in backwards.... I was wondering why they poke out so far lol

N000 that was the greatest joke of ALL TIME xD +1+1+1+1

Shis that blade action was smooth.......

I like keystone panels as well particularly the panduit brand. I have never used pass-through jacks - I would really like to test that pass-thru jack out with a fluke certification tester. I have also lost count the number of plugs I have had to remove from solid core cable and replace with a socket (CJ688TGBL) with plenum rated box (CBX1IW-A) with fly-lead to wireless access points/bridges and IP security cameras to achieve a long-term reliable fix to equipment "spontaneously" dropping off the network. Something about the movement of the solid core against the very small insulation displacement blade on each conductor/pin held in the strongest of materials working their way loose over time. (Caveat) No techy wants a phone call from a client at 10PM "My media player in the bedroom all of a sudden stopped playing my movies and can't find anything on the network". One of the reasons why we also use HDMI cables that have plugs that lock into the socket like the display-port cables do. That being said it looks like you're using stranded-cable flyleads so not so much an issue there with the exception of how well those pass-through jacks perform at high frequency ranges in line with the category of cable/patch-leads you are using. I would use a Network Traffic Generator and Stress Testing Software to push the link to it's limits and supposing your switch is managed, check the statistics such as throughput, lost/dropped and retransmitted frames. Getting back to wire/patch management: Some 1RU blank panels with affixed black slotted duct might be the better way to go for DIY'ers on a tight budget or source them already made (WMPFSE). Note they have space in the panel to pass cables through from the back of the rack as well. I would keep patch panels for their original intended use, terminating premises cable for patching to networking equipment such as switches/routers/firewalls/Security NVRs etc...

Has one used the "Rackstuds" cage nuts? They seems pretty useful, especially in a homelab environment