Labeling and documenting network devices.

[badbass]

I am going to say its a good idea to label network cables ports and devices. Hell when I played music on the pa we would say direct box out1 or condenser mic 1, even a special input for a magnetic acoustic guitar pickup. we used masking or duct tape for this. What ever we had that was cheap.

Okay before we drift to far away go into a network room with a giant patch panel with no labels. Even label the name and ip address on your printers. If you ever set a WIFI network up for someone put the name of the network on a label on the bottom. The key would be nice too. The other thing is write down the mac addresses of your ap's printers and other devices. When you have to find a device on a switch if you have a mac address it helps you locate the device on a switch port. Invest in a good cable toner that helps a lot believe me. Plug the toner into the mystery cable touch the suspect cables and listen for beeps. Most of them will also test cable termination too. P.S If I could ship a case of beer I would to the show.

[cooper]

I have what I think is called a patch panel. It's a 19" 1U box where you plug your cable into and at the front it simply provides a nice, clean ethernet port. You can then label the port on the front of the device (bedroom L+R, officice L+R, living room L+R etc. I have a healthy distrust of Wifi so all rooms except bathroom and toilet are wired up) which only leaves the cables themselves. Haven't found a sufficient and cheap solution for that yet.

I'm not going to write on the cable as it's just too tiny. What I want is something that basically wraps around the cable and puts a plastificated (is that a word?? Encased in plastic) piece of paper in parallel with the cable, allowing me to write the piece of paper before things get tied together. If people know of something like this or a better solution, I'm all ears.

From the patch panel to the switch I have some colored ethernet cable and colored caps. The switch is located almost on top of the patch panel so this works just fine. I really hate cable clutter so years ago I invested in the tools to make your own cables and I've been making good use of that ever since. To see what goes where back when I put the patch panel in (before that it was a wire from the wall straight into the switch) I just plugged my laptop into the port of a room somewhere and I'd watch which additional light on the switch came on.

[badbass]

I had each floor has its own idf and switch "patch panel on each floor" the person before did not label any thing. There were 124 switch ports on the mdf access ports in the ceiling on every floor. As cooper said Cable crimpers punch down tools "ptouch labeiler". Some thing that saved my butt a telco lineman cable probe. Plug it in touch the line when it chirps you found your wire or pair.

[badbass]

A 1U rack would of made things easier but they used brackets to mount it to a piece of fire proof board in some places. Actually this job was not that bad. I know you guys think I am nuts you are right.

[barry99705]

P Touch labels are the way to go. I usually just label the cables with the port number of the patch panel unless it's something special, runs to other patch panels, or access points mounted to a ceiling or wall.