Colorcoded network cables…

mikho

Worth it or not?
Got this in my social media feed today and asked myself if I ever could do that.

Not in my homelab or even at my customers sites.

But I know people who actually does it.
What about you? What colors on network cables do you use?

AnthonySmith

I honestly can't ever imagine keeping this up, whomever does this has 0 chill or WAY to much time haha.

I would appreciate it if I saw it, but never would I implement it

skorous

I use red for outside the firewall uplinks. Everything else is whatever I had at hand....

xaoc

Ahh, why is the white one not white?? 😭

SpeedBus

Technically not a bad idea when working with remote-hands from the datacenter etc, makes it super easy to identify what's what, "unplug the green cable, on server XYZ", vs "unplug the cable to the left most port", or "use the 2nd port", though with the (increasing) use of DACs for 10G+ I guess then any colour of RJ45 might be fine too.. can't exactly mix those up I guess haha

WSS

@skorous said:
I use red for outside the firewall uplinks. Everything else is whatever I had at hand....

This. I also use yellow for anything I have a passthrough/forward for specific ports. Blue for telephony because that's what I had the most of.

Jesus that adspace is becoming obnoxious.

tulipyun

It's not cool; I prefer invisible network cables—the ones that aren't even there.

mikho

@tulipyun said:
It's not cool; I prefer invisible network cables—the ones that aren't even there.

Oh, you mean the ones you trip over, cause you can't see them

km4

This looks neat to have, but pain to maintain. Maybe use one or two colors for the backbone and network equipments, and whatever available for the rest.

Jord

Nah whatever is on hand, once went to a clients who had moved into an old office block that was an IT companies, their own rank was badly cabled and colours everywhere I needed sunglasses.

vercubynal

What about color blindness?

mikho

@Jord said:
Nah whatever is on hand, once went to a clients who had moved into an old office block that was an IT companies, their own rank was badly cabled and colours everywhere I needed sunglasses.

So you are the one who uses 15m cables to patch between the patchpanel and switch, in the same rack ?

Jord

@mikho said:

@Jord said:
Nah whatever is on hand, once went to a clients who had moved into an old office block that was an IT companies, their own rank was badly cabled and colours everywhere I needed sunglasses.

So you are the one who uses 15m cables to patch between the patchpanel and switch, in the same rack ?

Hell no, I like them to be as short as possible, I hate messy cabinets 🤣

jtk

@mikho said:
Worth it or not?
Got this in my social media feed today and asked myself if I ever could do that.

Nice 24-port panel AI. It is missing some common colors (e.g., red, purple). Many just standardize on one or two colors. In a large environment I wouldn't trust the color of the cable to tell me what is what. It is also not very common to see lots of different uses in the same panel.

mikho

@jtk said:

@mikho said:
Worth it or not?

Nice 24-port panel AI. It is missing some common colors (e.g., red, purple). Many just standardize on one or two colors. In a large environment I wouldn't trust the color of the cable to tell me what is what. It is also not very common to see lots of different uses in the same panel.

I know it's AI, think I mentioned that I saw it in my social media feed .... isn't that mostly AI today anyway?

terrorgen

Just use labels ffs.

Jord

Portable brother label printers are the best

sumo

Cable markers

kf5ydu

I think for cabling it's more useful to number your drops and document what goes where in a spreadsheet. Color coding looks pretty, but it's mostly cosmetic and a pain in the ass to make a bunch of different colored cables for every purpose.

bikegremlin

@mikho said:
Worth it or not?
Got this in my social media feed today and asked myself if I ever could do that.

Not in my homelab or even at my customers sites.

But I know people who actually does it.
What about you? What colors on network cables do you use?

I used to get different coloured patch cable end caps. Those help, even though they ended up being used randomly in my company - it can still help figure out which goes where in some cases.

I have also used labels (printed recently or hand-made with some tape before). Those help definitely, when I come after a few years (and forget the exact details) or when I need to direct someone over the phone about what to do.

So, based on that experience, and my OCD-leaning mind, I think those may be a good idea if you can afford it (it is easier and cheaper to source and stock only one colour and kind of cables).