Programmers, coding boards, switches, NICs and other hardware
We are lighting a handful of channels over one metro pair with passive mux and demux at both ends, 100 GHz plan. Everything I can actually source is fixed-wavelength DWDM SFP+, a separate part number per channel, and keeping spares that way is getting silly. 10G aggregation at both ends, SFP+ cages…
I am wiring per-port optical telemetry into monitoring for a couple of Nexus 9000 fabrics. Collection runs through NAPALM, and the getter I lean on is getoptics(). Nexus 9000 leaf and spine pairs QSFP-100G-CWDM4 modules on the fabric links NAPALM with the nxosssh driver, SSH transport, no NX-API…
Joining two buildings over a Nortel pair that has been in place longer than I have. The plan was simply to light the existing house fibre between the two switches and be done with it, but port 23 will not come up on either end. Two Nortel ERS 5510-24T, software 4.0.2.02 1000SX SFP GBICs, one in…
New ESXi host going into a rack that hangs off a campus 3850. Management on copper came up without drama, the 10G uplinks did not: as soon as the server boots, the switch port drops into err-disable and the host sees nothing on that vmnic. Lenovo ThinkSystem SR650, 7X06CTO1WW, with an Emulex VFA5.2…
My fibre WAN runs into a Turris Omnia and I moved from the ISP box to an XPON stick to drop one hop. The stick is a 2.5G part, the Omnia cage does 2.5G, and everything still lands at 1G. Turris Omnia, Turris OS 7.0.2 HBS, kernel 5.15.148 Luleey LL-XS2510 XPON SFP, RTL960x based, DFP-34X-2C2 family…
Home setup, and I am trying to get rid of the ISP router on a Cosmote GPON line. The idea is to run the fibre straight into the UDM-Pro and let the stick do the ONU job, but the provider only accepts the session if the 12-character serial and the device model string of the old CPE are presented, so…
Small tower site: an RB4011 in a ventilated roadside cabinet feeding a couple of radios, with one 10GBASE-T copper hop over to the switch because there was already cable in the duct. The port drops out on warm afternoons and comes back at night, which points fairly clearly at the module rather than…
Coming from ordinary office switching, so treat this as a beginner question on the industrial side. I am replacing a long copper run between two panels with fiber on a pair of Stratix 5700 switches and I have never used the SFP slots on these. What I have: two Stratix 5700 switches, one per panel…
We had a 200 m OM4 backbone pulled between two buildings a while back and I am trying to light it with kit we already own. Both ends are 2530s, both modules are the HPE part, and the link simply will not come up. 2x Aruba 2530-48G 2x J4858C 1000SX, port 51 on each side roughly 200 m of freshly…
Our inventory tooling walks every switch and records vendor, part number and serial for each pluggable straight out of the SONiC CLI. It works everywhere except one batch of QSFP-DD modules, where the identity fields come back mangled and the asset database fills up with junk. Switch: SONiC…
On an HP 5820-24XG-SFP+ (JC102A) the ports cabled with genuine HP X240 10G SFP+ 3 m DACs (JD097C) came up but logged OPTMOD/4/FIBERSFPMODULENOWINVALID: This is not a supported transceiver for this platform, and broadcast/multicast counters on those ports grew faster than normal. The cable is lisetd…
I swapped the ISP ONU for an ODI DFP-34X-2C2 GPON stick in my Turris Omnia so the fibre terminates in the router instead of another box on the shelf. That part worked: the line is registered, traffic flows, no complaints. The problem is the rate. It never goes above 1Gbps, and 2.5G was the whole…
We run a three-node cluster with the nodes cabled directly to each other over 100G DAC, no switch in the path, and the interfaces put into a broadcast bond so replication traffic has its own fabric. Before I put real load on it I wanted a baseline, and the numbers do not agree with each other. 3x…
Field turn-up work on SDH circuits, and the tester has been fighting me on the optical side lately. Same kit that has been fine for years, so before I book a service call I want a sanity check on the order I should be working through. Viavi T-BERD/MTS-5800 with the SFP port populated, generic…
We are adding a G610 to an existing fabric and there is a box of non-Brocade 16G/32G FC SFP+ left over from another build. Before I plan any ports around them I put one into a spare port on the bench to see what the switch makes of it. Brocade G610, Gen 6 third-party 32G FC SFP+, no Brocade…
We hand over industrial cabinets with the customer's own monitoring on top, so readable DDMI on the uplink ports is part of the acceptance list. On an RGS200-12P the two ports that matter refuse to print anything at all after DDMI is enabled, even though both links are up and forwarding. Zyxel…
At home I've got Rostelecom fiber with the carrier's ONT installed, and I'd like to get the extra box out of the cabinet: plug an SFP ONU straight into the router and distribute it myself from there. I bought the stick, but I can't get past the first step. Keenetic Giga router, SFP port free Eltex…
Small office, one Firebox M470 on the perimeter, and I wanted to move the link to the core switch off copper and onto the built-in SFP+ ports. Bought a pair of generic SFP+ modules for it, one for each end. The switch side lights up straight away, the Firebox side never does. Kit: WatchGuard…
We run a handful of 80 km DWDM spans off EX4200s with third-party optics on both ends, because the vendor-branded DWDM parts were never going to fit the budget. That was fine for years. After the EX boxes were moved to Junos 12.3 the optics still sit in the same ports and the spans still exist, but…
We run a small regional network and pulled a spare 7050T out of stock to use as a DWDM aggregation box. Arista-coded DWDM optics for it quote close to the price of the switch, so we bought third-party DWDM SFP+ instead, and now the switch will not talk to them. Arista 7050T, EOS 4.10.6 generic…
Moving my home FTTH line off the operator's ONT and onto a GPON stick in my own router, so that the fibre lands straight in the rack and I keep one box instead of two. The stick is recognised, the port comes up, and then nothing comes back. MikroTik CRS328-24P-4S+, stick in sfp-sfpplus1…
The poster configured new HP 2530-48G switches (J9281B) with J9775A SFP+ direct-attach cables bought as accessories. The ports stayed down and the log said FFI: port 49 Transceiver type not supported in this port; show tech transceivers first showed nothing and, afer upgrading from YA.15.12.0007 to…
I picked up a couple of second-hand Arista switches for the lab and ran straight into the optics gate. Arista-coded modules link up, passive DAC cables link up, and anything third-party leaves the port down. The lab side: DCS-7150S-24, bought used, no support contract and no account team behind me…
A 2920-48G-PoE+ (J9729A) rejected a J9283B 3 m SFP+ DAC with 00536 FFI: port 45 Transceiver type not supported in this port even though HP lists the cable as compatible; the same cable worked in a 2530 with SFP+ slots. Firmware had been updated without effect. A later reader noticed an old J9283B…
We push traffic from a lab server into a CRS518-16XS-2XQ over a 100G QSFP28 uplink, and it leaves the switch through a MikroTik S+RJ10 copper SFP+ into a plain 1G RJ45 host. The receiving side is missing a large share of the packets and I cannot pin it on anything obvious. Setup: MikroTik…
Running a CWDM ring at the access layer, Catalyst 3750 at aggregation. I got plain modules with no vendor encoding, case marking TTG965D1, 1470-1610 nm grid. The link comes up, traffic flows, but the switch treats them as SX modules: in both inventory and monitoring it shows SX instead of CWDM, so…
Homelab, nothing exotic. An Odroid H2 does routing duty on its 2.5GbE ports, and I wanted to hang it off one of the 10GbE SFP+ cages of the switch through an RJ45 copper module instead of pulling fibre across the room. QNAP QSW-M408S, copper module in one of the 10GbE SFP+ cages Odroid H2 router…
Small office, two buildings, and all I want is a plaain 1000M fibre link between the racks. Both ends are configured for 1000M, both stay dark, and this has been dragging on for weeks now. TP-Link TL-SG3452P, hardware V3, firmware 3.20.4, link taken from one of its SFP cages PLANET IGS-6329-8UP2S4…
We are collapsing two aggregation rows onto FortiSwitch, and the last piece is a 25G interconnect between an FS2048 and an FS648 in adjacent racks. Everything else in the design came up on the first attempt; this one link refuses to. FortiSwitch 2048, 25G front-panel port FortiSwitch 648, 25G…
Joining two campus buildings into one network. In building A there's an Avaya VSP 4400, and only 1G SFP ports are free there: the dedicated uplinks have long been taken for other purposes. In building B there's an Extreme Summit X690-48x-2q-4c, and there only 10G SFP+ ports are free, no other…
Small vSphere cluster, two 10G uplinks per host into a pair of top-of-rack switches. After the ToR was rebooted for a firmware update, part of the VMs on one host went silent and vMotion failed on both uplinks - yet ESXi never marked anything down and the adapter LEDs stayed lit the whole time…
Four HP A5500-HI switches in an IRF stack logged unsupported transceiver messages for six rear-module (JD368B) ports that were cabled with HP J9281B SFP+ DACs to ProLiant Gen8 servers with 530SFP+ NICs. display transceiver interface shwed Transceiver Type STACKSFPPLUS, Connector COPPER, Vendor Name…
A link between two of our sites: about 27 km of single-mode fiber, MES3324F on both ends. Installed a pair of 1550 nm FANG HANG SFPs sold as 40-km modules. The link comes up, lives for a few dozen seconds, and drops, over and over, until the port gets blocked. 2 x Eltex MES3324F, firmware 4.0.7 SFP…
We keep a couple of ONIE boxes in the lab rack for testing, and one of them is an Edgecore AS5114-48X-O-AC-F-EC running dentOS. Port 18 is supposed to carry a 10G link to a neighbouring switch and it simply refuses to cmoe up, even though the platform clearly sees the module. Switch: Edgecore…
We are reusing a pile of 10G optics on a whitebox switch running SONiC, so a few QSFP28 cages are fitted with QSA-style adapters (10GTek QSA-100A) carrying plain 10G SFP+ modules. Mechanically and electrically this is fine. The management side is where it falls apart. switch: 1U whitebox, SONiC…
Small home rack, one server and one switch. I replaced an XGS1250-12 with an XS1930-10 and the only thing that did not survive the swap is the server uplink. Zyxel XS1930-10, SFP+ port with media type set to DAC10G Asus XG-C100F in the server 10Gtek CAB-10GSFP-P5M, 5 m passive twinax, AWG26 a…
We are bringing up a pair of AS9716-32D as a 400G spine in the lab, on a community SONiC image with the PDDF platform layer. The optics are not the problem, the peer links fine, but everything the switch says about them is wrong. Edgecore AS9716-32D (x8664-acctonas971632d-r0) community SONiC build…
Setting up 10G between a server and a TP-Link switch, nothing exotic. The card shows up in the system, driver loads normally, but there's no link on the port at all - no errors, no negotiation attempts. server: Intel X710, four 10GbE SFP+ ports, firmware 9.140.76856 TP-Link switch, SFP+ port cable…
We pulled a pair of G8124E out of a decommissioned rack and I am rebuilding them as the aggregation layer for an internal test environment. Budget for branded optics is zero, so everything goes in with generic 10G SR modules of the type we already run elsewhere. Lenovo RackSwitch G8124E, ex-IBM…
My firewall is a Supermicro E300-9A running pfSense Plus 22.05, and both 10G SFP+ ports refuse to come up. Neither ix2 nor ix3 ever shows carrier, whatever I put in the cage. Hardware: Supermicro E300-9A, pfSense Plus 22.05 Ubiquiti DAC-SFP10-0.5M and a 10Gtek passive twinax cable Supermicro…
Trying to replace the ISP terminal in my home rack with a GPON stick straight in the router, so the fibre lands in one box instead of two. The stick is recognised, and that is where the good news ends. Turris Omnia on Turris OS 5.0.3, stock kernel Huawei MA5671A GPON stick with unlocked firmware…
We have a dark fibre span of roughly 80 km where the owner will lease us exactly one strand - a second core is either not there or priced like a small building. Both ends terminate on chassis with XFP cages, and the service on top of it has to be 10 GbE. So what I need is a single-fibre BiDi XFP…
I keep a shelf of pulled SFPs at home and I would like to be able to read their EEPROM, repair a module whose checksum got mangled, and occasionally recode one for a switch that is picky about vendor strings. Buying a commercial programmer for a handful of modules a year makes no sense here, so I…
We are refreshing a pair of aggregation closets and the optics line is the part management keeps poking at. The switches are EXOS boxes and the plan was to fill the 40G uplinks with generic QSFP+ DACs, the same way we already do on the access ports. Then someone on the team dug up a note about a…
I finally moved my VDSL2 line off the ISP box and terminated it on the Turris Omnia itself, mostly so that PPPoE runs on the router instead of on a second device in bridge mode. The setup part was pleasant: seat the stick in the cage and the WAN interface simply moves onto the module, leaving the…
The poster wanted to connetc Aruba 2540 switches (JL357A, firmware YC.16.09.0001) to Cisco Catalyst 9300 switches using Cisco SFP-H10GB-CU3M DACs. After enabling allow-unsupported-transceiver the cables were still not recognised: show tech transceivers listed the port as unsupported, the LED…
I inherited a Sun Network 10GbE Switch 72p with a couple of legacy boxes hanging off it that will never do more than a gigabit. The plan was to drop a 1G capable module into one of the SFP+ cages and be done with it. Sun Network 10GbE Switch 72p, SEFOS CLI over the serial console x2129a dual-rate…
We are standing up four DGX Spark nodes for disttributed training and hung them off a MikroTik CRS812-8DS-2DQ-2DDQ. The plan was one 400G QSFP-DD port on the switch feeding two nodes at 200G each, so a couple of breakout cables cover the whole cluster. MikroTik CRS812-8DS-2DQ-2DDQ, QSFP-DD ports…
Two Flex System enclosures, each with an EN4093R 10Gb Scalable Switch (option 49Y4270) as the network module. Ports come back error-disabled after a chassis power event, and less often drop into the same state while everything is running. It is not always the same ports, which is what makes this so…
Rebuilding aggregation at one of our sites: a CRS326-24S+2Q+RM takes the custmer SFP+ ports and uplinks over 40G into a Huawei S6720. Short run inside the same rack, so a passive DAC rather than optics. MikroTik CRS326-24S+2Q+RM, QSFP+ port qsfpplus1-1 Huawei S6720-54C-EI-48S-AC, plain 40GE port…
