Ran an ethernet cord in my house the proper way

Soon you'll be running a homelab and browsing selfhosted.
- Self hosted is a dangerous community man. I swear I'm going to end up maintaining as much infra at home as I do at work.
  
  Lol for real, I made the mistake of hosting stuff a couple other people also use, so I get the on call experience too
  
  Toil away maintaining servers at work, and then toil away maintaining servers when you get back home. The bonus for doing it at home is you're not even getting paid.
  UGHHHH Imagine having to make a JIRA board at home to keep track of your projects
  
  Tell me about it. I just purchased 2 Dell R740s I had been mulling over. Figure tariffs are going to jack their price so better pull the trigger now.
- That's the goal buddy
  I installed Mint on my laptop a few months ago, then I got this used custom desktop from a friend for basically nothing, so imma use it as a gaming / home network server I think. I've been trying to learn as much as I can :)
  
  We're friends now, resistance is futile.
  I have plans for a similar project so I'll dm you later

I love this community. It's healthy.
Edit: Is there a Dull Woman's Club or can we post here too?
- Being dull is not uniquely male. You're always welcome.
  Just don't be too interesting.
  
  Too interesting, Straight to Jail!
- !Dullsters@dullsters.net
  Gender neutral community. Or you can just post here
- It's more of a stereotypical theme, not an exclusive club.
- I consider myself enby and ace so who cares ;)
  Edit to add HAHA IM ACE
  
  ACE is ACE

Well done, sir. We must always resist the tyranny of wi-fi.
- wifi is cool for things that move around. if it lives in a specific spot, hook it up!

I learned how to do this as an entry level tech for an ISP, and it's been so handy since. Ran cable into my attic, and then down to my office on the other side of the house, as well as my partner's. Just got a second switch recently that I'm going to put up there so I only need to drop cables down from now on
- Can you help me to learn? I need to do this for my place. I want to go straight up from my basement which has an unfinished/exposed area I can probably head upwards with to an attic I can access fully, and then preferably down into my office which is directly above the basement starting area.
  Any tips or guides?
  
  I can give you a couple tips!
  · Get some fish sticks if you don't have some. The stiff, fiberglass rods, not the processed seafood. You can get singles, or multiples that screw together. You use them by taping the cable to the end, and then pushing the fish stick from the back, to run cable through small spaces.
  · Run a pullstring with your cables! Taped alongside your Ethernet cable you should also always include a pullstring, so that if you ever need to pull another cable that same way, you can just tape it on and pull. This can be actual pullstring, which is usually just a thin nylon cord, or another length of Ethernet cable.
  · You can pull on it harder than you think, but not as hard as you hope. This is something that really you have to learn over time, but it helps to know beforehand. Ethernet cable is pretty strong. It's coiled in boxes because you're expected to pull it long distances, and sometimes it snags. When this happens, you don't immediately have to run and fix the snag. You can add some force, and give it a yank. But if it feels like it's really stuck, always make the walk. There's nothing worse than running an entire length of cable, only to find out it broke somewhere in the middle. On the upside though, it does become a free pullstring
  
  The other feller's advice is as good as you'll be able to get off-site.
  My process is always (once I've adequately mapped the place out) to find the most feasible path I can take with the fewest holes possible. Walls have top plates and bottom plates, if you come into a wall between the studs that's great but you still gotta get up or down.
  And that, my friend, is where the tricks of my trade begin ;)
  
  pardon the phrasing but this helps me to this day!
  "dick down, orange to brown"
  for an rj45 ethernet cable:
  with the pins facing up it is
  orange white orange green white blue blue white green brown white brown>
  for B which is usually what we see out in the field
  edit:
  can't figure out how to keep it in list format on the phone
  
  Measure carefully and drill up through the floor or down through the attic to get into/out of the walls
  You can get push poles or fishtape from a hardware store to help. I like the Klein braided fiberglass tape, it's done a great job for me.
  There are also drill bits that are long and flexible, you can use those in a pinch if you have to drill through a top/bottom plate but can't get there easily. Pricey though. Edit to add, the bit shaft usually needs such a long radius of bend that they're not really practical IMO. Right angle attachments for an impact driver with a spade bit can do a lot tho
  However you do it, plan ahead for the future. If that means adding a switch or pull string now to make future projects way easier, it's worth it

Good job, I have no training so am currently running a long ethernet cable across my landing from my living room (where the fibre cable runs in) over to my office. When I "eventually" decorate I'll pin it properly along the skirting at least
- What kind of access do you have underneath? Crawlspace?
  Drill a hole at both ends and pull it up through. Fill hole with clear silicone caulk. Be prepared to smell like vinegar.
  
  Haha! This is on the first floor, so it's a level up. Between my living room and office is the shared bathroom and second bedroom, so whilst I'm no expert at all I do think it's better to run it externally rather than drill any holes

I keep a spool in my basement in case i ever need one. Crimping sucks.
- Yeah my forever home will 100% have this planned for, imma have a whole drop elevator shaft in place of a pantry. "Oh we need to add a humpdeyclump cable all the way from the basement to the attic? Good thing Grandpa built that service shaft!"
  
  Lol, will you be doing it yourself or paying someone else to deal with the hassle of 6a

Nice. Why only one cord ?
- No future plans there. They lie elsewhere.

What did this entail? Did you have to tear down walls?
- Identify where your data access is and where you want it to be
  If there's a crawlspace directly below you, just drill a hole through the floor wherever you want, pull the wire up through it, and seal it off with silicone. If you pierced any underlying insulation (as I did) patch that with duct tape to prevent insects and moisture from getting in. Boom done. If accessing those two points is more trouble than it's worth, call someone like me.
  If it's more complicated than that, or you can't replicate a similar process using your attic, call someone like me.
  If yall have any questions I'm happy to answer to the best of my ability. Uh, this doesn't count as a legal, professional consultation and you should always seek a licensed professional when it comes to electricity in your home.
  K go nuts
  If I have to verify with mods or something I can

What does "double-wide" mean in this context?
- Like, a pre-fab home. Two halves of a house that a truck brings to the site and they put together.
  They use notoriously crappy electrical systems
  Edit to add:
  I cannot fucking express to you how bad the electrical devices - the outlets, switches, and lights in particular - are in these homes. Gimme a few and I'll put something together for yall
  Here is 12/2 Romex, my bread and butter. It has two current carrying conductors, the black and the white, and a ground, all 12AWG. Good for 20a.
  This is what it looks like going where it goes inside your walls. We put boxes like that blue thing where we need to make a splice (where our romex ends and the device begins) to protect the connections.
  This is what a normal outlet looks like more or less. If your dude can afford Wagos good for him, I use wirenuts. Doesn't matter if you know what you're doing.
  And THIS BULLSHIT is what goes in prefab homes. Is it safe? More or less. Can any future electrician do a fucking thing with it? Nope. Was it put there by someone who couldn't explain Ohms Law? Without a doubt.
  
  Words cannot express my hatred for these things but I'll try.
  My trade is regulated, in the US, by the National Electrical Code, which is written by Underwriters Laboratories, and created in accordance with the National Fire Prevention Act. The Code is a massive tome of a book that I tabbed, BY HAND, before I ever wired a device. I spent literal years in classrooms and on the job, going fetch, digging literal ditches, etc, to get here. I'm a smart guy and the test I had to pass? It took me two attempts, I won't lie to you. But I got it. Safety regulations are written in blood. And why is it this hard?
  Because electricity is an invisible death force that starts fires while your family sleeps. I know, I've had a house fire in the middle of the night, in a rental, with my young child at home. Nothing makes you respect it like that will. This was years before I got into the trade but I never forget it.
  You think the hungover dingus Clayton Homes hired to make these atrocities up cares half as much as I do?
  
  We moved into a double wide decades back, it had double gang boxes with single plugs on every wall, and At the time, a double gang plate with a single receptacle plate merged with a blank plate, was impossible to find, so the builder had left them all open. Like WTF.
  
  Ahhh, I see. Thanks!

I absolutely LOVE running new network cable for stuff - it is so satisfying to run it in a hidden way then crimp the ends and use the cable tester to determine that you jacked up the RJ45's and recrimp until it's right. I have about a 80/20 success rate crimping ethernet cable plugs - it has gotten much better since the introduction of push-through jacks.
Tomorrow I am going to punch a hole through the brick out front to run a cable from the office out to the alley side of the house to mount a POE camera...been putting this off for months because I am not only dull, but lazy (I have said this to myself for over 20 weeks of procrastination so you can safely await my dull post about actually doing it).

I just did the same! Feels good, man. Nice work 🤜 ⚡️ 🤛

Meanwhile, I just threw an Ethernet cable out my window to connect to the Starlink dish.
(Temporary until I can remove some trees for clear line of sight)
- I'd put it in some conduit if I were you. 1/2" PVC is fine for a single cable and braindead easy to run. Technically if it's exposed it should be schedule 80 but you can get by with 40. Any protection is better than none.
  Flexible conduit is an option too