Brocade ICX Series (cheap & powerful 10gbE/40gbE switching)

[Wolfstar]

Does anyone have a 10gig Ethernet transceiver that they recommend for the 6450?

I would go with just dac cables but my board already has dual 10g Ethenet.

Fiberstore has some that can be coded any which way and are relatively cheap. Just remember that you're talking a much shorter run than normal for Cat6/6a with those.

 

[fohdeesha]

either of these work fine

https://www.amazon.com/Mikrotik-S-RJ10-MikroTik/dp/B078SNK1MY

Brocade 10G-SFPP-T Compatible 10GBASE-T SFP+ Copper RJ-45 30m Transceiver Module

 

[infoMatt]

well, he's asking about using the breakout ports for a MIXED stack (eg to a ICX6450) and I'm about 99% sure it won't let you do that. There's some mixed stacking port commands that I'm pretty sure won't even let you use the breakout port numbers as an argument

My bad, sorry... I was thinking that the command used to bring up the stack would have been the same...

 

[fohdeesha]

My bad, sorry... I was thinking that the command used to bring up the stack would have been the same...

I would absolutely kill for the full sourcecode to the fastiron binary, because I know changes like that would be one or two lines of changes max. Not to mention the fan control logic and everything else requested in this thread

If there's any ruckus employees reading this: I will pay, REALLY well

 

[daniel67887]

Hi, new member of the Brocade users here.
I just got two ICX6450-24P off eBay. I am planning to stack them using two DAC-cables and use the remaining 10G ports for servers and NAS.
There exists both passive and active DAC's, where a passive DAC is significantly cheaper. Is there a reason to choose an active DAC when the length of the cable will be ~1.5m?

 

[fohdeesha]

Hi, new member of the Brocade users here.
I just got two ICX6450-24P off eBay. I am planning to stack them using two DAC-cables and use the remaining 10G ports for servers and NAS.
There exists both passive and active DAC's, where a passive DAC is significantly cheaper. Is there a reason to choose an active DAC when the length of the cable will be ~1.5m?

Nope

 

[daniel67887]

Nope

Ok, thanks! Now I can order some cables as well.

There is really a wealth of information in this thread. Will definitely take me some nights to go through. Thank you @fohdeesha for all your work getting this ball rolling!

 

[groove]

the most important question here: once it fully boots and drops down to the switch prompt, can you type stuff and see it show up? eg can you run "show version"? If not (and I suspect not), the switch is defective with broken/burnt out serial input, and I would return it. I would say it could potentially be the cable but you state it works fine elsewhere so it's almost certainly a bad serial input on the switch

The switch goes past the swtich prompt and then complain a few times with TFTP timeout errors. I have not been able to ever type anything through the console.

Looks like a broken switch (at least the serial input). Going to start the return process with the seller.

Thanks for everyone's help.

 

[tojoski]

Has anyone configured a vlan for a a guest wireless network from a unifi AP? I am a bit lost as the implementation is of course way different than the Zyxel that it is replacing..

This is how I acomplished it on the Zyxel.. vlan2 is what I am using for the guest network

EDIT: I figured it out:

ICX6450-24P#config t
ICX6450-24P(config)#vlan 2
ICX6450-24P(config-vlan-2)#tag e 1/1/1
ICX6450-24P(config-vlan-2)#tag e 1/1/2
ICX6450-24P(config-vlan-2)#exit
ICX6450-24P(config)#int ethernet 1/1/1
ICX6450-24P(config-if-e1000-1/1/1)#dual-mode
ICX6450-24P(config)#int ethernet 1/1/2
ICX6450-24P(config-if-e1000-1/1/2)#dual-mode

I have my pfsense router in 1/1/1 and my AP in 1/1/2.

 

[Thorzeen]

This is a limitation that I've encountered in many switches, as they tend to not implement a DNS client, or using it sparingly...
Basicly, you can insert many servers, or if you have a raspberry pi or a virtualization server, install a NTP server on these and use it for your network devices.
But as far as I know, the clock is used "only" for the timestamp of the messages, if the clock is wrong nothing serious happens... it would continue to switch and route packets just fine.

Thanks for the reply! I will set up a local time server. I thought that might be the case. I was hopeful for some sort of magic secret hack i hadn't heard about. I am glad you confirmed the only role really affected is logs, that was my take away from the admin guide too! Have a great week

 

[fohdeesha]

Added a bunch of stuff to the update docs: Hidden Dev Stuff - Fohdeesha Docs

- updated the ICX7xxx guides to the latest 8080 release, 8080e
8080e actually includes a new PoE firmware for the ICX7150, 7250 and 7450 versus 8080d - they rarely upgrade this

- Added an ICX7450 guide, and integrated it into the existing ICX7250 guide as they run the same everything
- Changed the color theme for halloween to maximize spooks
- Clarified some things in the LB6M JTAG recovery section
- Added an ICX6610 JTAG recovery section

- Added a "Hidden Dev Stuff" section
- Added an "Accessing Linux" section
- Added an "Extracting Firmware" section
- Added an "Extracting Licenses" section
- Added an "ICX6610 Stack Ports" section
- Added an "EEPROM Unlocks" section

I still have an insane amount of unreleased goodies I wish I could add but I think that's as much as I can make public for now without getting in too much trouble

 

[neb50]

Added a bunch of stuff to the update docs: Hidden Dev Stuff - Fohdeesha Docs

- updated the ICX7xxx guides to the latest 8080 release, 8080e
8080e actually includes a new PoE firmware for the ICX7150, 7250 and 7450 versus 8080d - they rarely upgrade this

- Added an ICX7450 guide, and integrated it into the existing ICX7250 guide as they run the same everything
- Changed the color theme for halloween to maximize spooks
- Clarified some things in the LB6M JTAG recovery section
- Added an ICX6610 JTAG recovery section

- Added a "Hidden Dev Stuff" section
- Added an "Accessing Linux" section
- Added an "Extracting Firmware" section
- Added an "Extracting Licenses" section
- Added an "ICX6610 Stack Ports" section
- Added an "EEPROM Unlocks" section

I still have an insane amount of unreleased goodies I wish I could add but I think that's as much as I can make public for now without getting in too much trouble

Can you do the update from 8080d to 8080e on the ICX7250 without having to re-configure it after the update?

 

[fohdeesha]

Yes, infact I don't think I've ever had to reconfigure anything even jumping between major codetrains. In cases of major changes like the removal of dual-mode between 8030 and 8070 it just automatically updates your config to the new syntax

 

[capn13]

nice timing, just came to that obvious conclusion finally as well after my chili coma wore off

Thank-you to both @fohdeesha and @sean for this - indeed, my old Thinkpad did have a /dev/sdb device attached. I was troubleshooting a flash drive which I suspected to be failing and it was attached!

Thanks guys. You've got to love IT

 

[tommybackeast]

when the 45 days is up ruckus employees show up at your house, be ready

Will they bring pretzels or potato chips ?

 

[JoshDi]

just purchased a BROCADE ICX6450 48Port Managed Switch w/2x 10GB Enable Ports from eBay for $80 bucks shipped to replace my old Dell PowerConnect 2716 switch.

To enable the other 2 10GB ports, I need a license key? I think I need the ICX6450-2X10G-LIC-POD key. Does anyone have one to share? What other license keys does this switch support?

I also have a Qnap QSW-804-4C 8-Port Unmanaged 10GbE Switch #QSW-804-4C that I currently use on a different subnet. Would this DAC cable support the Brocade? Are there better options that offer more features with the Brocade switch?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TBGWQ7T/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Last question - currently I keep my 10G network and 1G network separate. The QNAP 10g switch is on an isolated network from the 1G network, and mainly used for transferring large files between my machines. Are there any benefits, other than having a single IP address for each machine, to merge these networks? The 1G LAN network has access to my 1G WAN connection via my pfSense router. I have always kept them separate so that the 10G network does not effect the speeds across the 1G network. Would love to hear anyone's opinions. Thanks

 

[infoMatt]

80 bucks is a steal!
For the Brocade, any transceiver or DAC would work, it doesn't matter -- you'll need a Brocade SFP/SFP+ if you want to see optics temperature and power rx/tx, but the link would come up with any brand...

Other than the port license, there is an advanced routing license code; more info on the first couple of pages of this same thread

As for the separation of networks... in large datacenters or group of servers, there are advantages in keeping separated the data/production network from the storage one as you said, but in a house, not so much in my opinion... Keep in mind that the 6450 can route at linespeed between networks, where a pfsense box would struggle a lot in managing 10G of bandwidth.

 

[JoshDi]

thank you, Matt. I agree, 80 bucks shipped is a steal!

I already purchased 3 MB40201VX-0000-G99 fans to do a fan mod (I know I have to adjust the pin layout of the fans before installing).

I will look at the first few pages regarding the licenses - thank you.

Since my LAN is 10G and my pfSense router is only routing to my 1G WAN speed, I think I am fine to move to a single LAN setup. The pfSense box only needs to route information to WAN at 1G. I wish I had the ability to have a 10G WAN network

 

[vangoose]

thank you, Matt. I agree, 80 bucks shipped is a steal!

I already purchased 3 MB40201VX-0000-G99 fans to do a fan mod (I know I have to adjust the pin layout of the fans before installing).

I will look at the first few pages regarding the licenses - thank you.

Since my LAN is 10G and my pfSense router is only routing to my 1G WAN speed, I think I am fine to move to a single LAN setup. The pfSense box only needs to route information to WAN at 1G. I wish I had the ability to have a 10G WAN network

You can still do inter-vlan routing at 10Gb speed, only internet or cross security zone traffic goes to firewall.

 

[BobTB]

I finally put my ICX 6610-48 to "production" with four Mikrotik 10G RJ45 transceivers. When connected to Intel X550 link goes up, seems to work - the port shows as 1/3/1 - Up - Forward Full 10G When I type show media in the console of the switch, it does show the ports 1/3/1 to as EMPTY. Is it expected to do it this way, or do I have to set something?