I thought I'd introduce myself. I got intoxicated by this thread, and after reading the first 50 pages of it, I drunk-purchased a new sealed ICX 7250-24 through ebay. I cannot express how much I do not need this switch! Nevertheless it is super cool and I could use some advice, request below.
It came with software
08.0.30eT211 and bootloader
10.1.05T215 (Mar 19 2015 - 16:39:20). There is a
post a few pages back in which
@fohdeesha explains that this bootloader is too old to flash the 8090 firmware recommended in the guide. That post contains instructions to flash a newer bootloader first. I believe there is a small error in those commands. It should be
setenv uboot instead of
setenv image_name, so in total:
Code:
setenv ipaddr 192.168.1.50
setenv netmask 255.255.255.0
#tell the switch the IP of your tftp server:
setenv serverip 192.168.1.8
setenv uboot ICX7xxx/spz10118.bin
update_uboot
reset
#smash b to get back into new bootloader
That got me going and I am now running
08.0.95dT213.
Between ordering and receiving the switch, I have read (but not memorized) the entire thread. After my item shipped (of course), I learned that it lacks two capabilities that I imagined it would have, and that made the idea of owning this switch so appealing to me:
- I dreamt that this could be my sole piece of networking equipment aside from my cable modem and wireless access points. But I learned that it does not do NAT. I now understand that this is absent from most Layer-3 switches. My bad.
- I believed I would be able to interface to my ISP's dreadful router on the router's 2.5gbe port, via the Mikrotik S+RJ10 SFP+ module. That question has been thoroughly explored in the thread and now I see that the whole idea is a no-go. (I purchased a couple of S+RJ10 modules and I can't get them to work at all on the ICX 7250. Through show media the vendor is shown, but they are recognized as SFP rather than SFP+. I could not get a link even when connected to a 1GB device on the other end, and having configured
speed-duplex on the interface. Oh well, something for the parts bin. I might use them somewhere someday.)
This leaves me needing some method to connect to my ISP's router at 2.5gbe. I am open to using a suitable router for that task, but at the risk of having to hand over my nerd card, I confess that at the moment I am letting the ISP's router handle NAT (which it seems good at) and even DHCP and DNS (at which it is very poor in the feature and UI departments). I had been using a small Protectli device running pfSense until my WAN speed outstripped the ability of my pfSense box to keep up.
I basically need nothing more than a media converter to go between 10gbe SFP+ and 2.5gbe RJ45. This is where I would like your collective opinions. Some choices:
- Netgear MS510TX switch for US$270. It has a long track record and good user reports for this exact purpose, passing traffic between 10gbe and 2.5gbe without getting all knotted up. It is rack-mountable, has an internal power supply, and is quiet enough. But it pains me to spend new money on a device that is four years old.
- Qnap QSW-2104-2S-US switch for US$140. This is a consumer desktop switch with 2 SFP+ ports and 4 2.5G RJ45 ports. It is so new that I have not seen a single substantial review of it. No telling if it can reliably do the job I would ask of it. Other disadvantages for me are that it is not rack mountable, and that it is passively cooled. My equipment is in my garage, and it does get extremely hot in there in summer.
- Mikrotik RB5009UG+S+IN for about US$200. Another brand new product. This is a router so I could use it in ways more flexible than the above switches, so it's not apples–apples comparison. Based on reading threads like this I'm also wary of introducing Mikrotik into my critical path.
I wonder what y'all think about interfacing 10gbe to 2.5gbe.
