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

[megaben300]

If anyone is interested in some $60 1U sliding rails on bearings, I'm using these on a 6610 and it works great.
Amazon.com: Rackmount Sliding Rails - Kit for 1U-4U Chassis (Adjustable 26" to 40" Depth) 2 or 4 Post Mount Sliders for Server Case (Compatible with Any Standard Rack, Cabinet, Computer Enclosure) Tupavco TP1812 : Electronics

It is universal and can be a little fidgety to get set up exactly right, but the quality is at least on par with my supermicro bearing rails for another 1U server I have. I did remove my rack ears to make this work, but my fingers get enough traction on the front outside edges of the chassis to slide the switch out. I used the screws from the ears to attach the rails to the switch (all the tapped holes in the sides of the switch are the same thread).

Sliding rails on a switch are kinda silly since you usually have to disconnect everything plugged into the front to slide it out, but these rails do slide out with enough clearance to completely remove the power supplies if your unit is buried in a way that would make ps swaps more difficult.

 

[GregH]

G'day denizens of STH Forums.

After over 3 years lurking here.

Finally got the 7150-24P I was hankering after.

@fohdeesha - my shout if we ever cross paths mate.

Seeing the firmware referred to 'fastiron' gave some flashbacks.
This time 24 years ago, I spent 4 months of weekends setting up OG Foundary ServerIrons, FastIrons and BigIrons in a datacentre beside Schipol airport.

YOLO'ing SPR10010f

Currently stable, chassis fanless, ready for a house move where it will have 2 x R610s and a H510 powered by it.

 

[EngineerNate]

No guide for this one, is it safe to assume the steps are about the same if I grab the firmware etc from the ruckus support site?

 

[titoum]

Currently stable, chassis fanless, ready for a house move where it will have 2 x R610s and a H510 powered by it.

will it be ok temp wise?
i will mod my 6450-24 as i plan to put 3x sfp copper + sfp fiber. The fan is already crying out loud to keep it at 40.5c at ambient 19 with only 16 ports used.

 

[fohdeesha]

No guide for this one, is it safe to assume the steps are about the same if I grab the firmware etc from the ruckus support site?

identical just with different files

 

[nintendoeats]

Hiya,

I just bought a second 6450P. I'm moving soon, and my plan is to set up the networking at the new house before moving day. Thus, I want this switch to be configured....exactly the same as the old switch. Is there anything wrong with just dumping the image from my existing switch and applying it to the new one?

 

[titoum]

did someone already put that kind of stuff in place: Dynamic VLAN and ACL Assignment with MAC Authentication ?

unfortunately my AP cant do vlan tagging so i was thinking to use that functionnality to split my data from each other based on mac.
is it reliable or more experimental ?

 

[kpfleming]

Hiya,

I just bought a second 6450P. I'm moving soon, and my plan is to set up the networking at the new house before moving day. Thus, I want this switch to be configured....exactly the same as the old switch. Is there anything wrong with just dumping the image from my existing switch and applying it to the new one?

If it's the same unit, then yes, installing the same firmware release and copying the configuration should work.

 

[nintendoeats]

If it's the same unit, then yes, installing the same firmware release and copying the configuration should work.

Thanks, but that's not exactly what I meant. I meant dumping the image from the existing switch's web interface over tftp, then doing the reverse on the other side. In particular, I'm interested to know if that single image is sufficient to serve as a backup for the entire machine configuration.

 

[kpfleming]

Thanks, but that's not exactly what I meant. I meant dumping the image from the existing switch's web interface over tftp, then doing the reverse on the other side. In particular, I'm interested to know if that single image is sufficient to serve as a backup for the entire machine configuration.

If you are using 'image' to mean the 'flash image', 'boot image', or the combination of them, then no... that's just the software for the switch, it does not include the configuration. The configuration has to be backed up separately.

I'm also not sure what you mean by "dumping the image from the existing switch's web interface over tftp"... Either method can be used to obtain backups of the switch's configuration, whether that configuration was created using the web interface, the CLI, or any combination.

 

[titoum]

I'm also not sure what you mean by "dumping the image from the existing switch's web interface over tftp"... Either method can be used to obtain backups of the switch's configuration, whether that configuration was created using the web interface, the CLI, or any combination.

is it normal that i made some modification to the name of my sfp port and they were lost after a shutdown? is it link to a dead cr2032 battery ?

 

[itronin]

is it normal that i made some modification to the name of my sfp port and they were lost after a shutdown? is it link to a dead cr2032 battery ?

only if you forgot to "write mem"

 

[titoum]

only if you forgot to "write mem"

it is not automatic through web?
is there a write memory option as well?

 

[itronin]

it is not automatic through web?
is there a write memory option as well?

uhmmm no idea. I'm CLI only. You thanked @fohdeesha for the docs so I guessed you had followed those instructions and were using/learning the cli to configure. I did a quick "search" and the ai generated answer came back that there is no auto-save for changes in the web interface. I cannot confirm with first hand experience though.

The Brocade ICX 6450 web configuration does not have an automatic save feature. To save the configuration, you need to manually perform a backup using the web interface or CLI. Specifically, you can save the running configuration to a TFTP server or other location for backup.

edit - looking at the auto answer - its talking about taking a backup of the config. the 6450 is a pretty old switch so I would not be surprised though if there a manual save that you need to click. Based on your description of what happened it "sounds" like your changes were only in the run-time configuration not the saved configuration.

 

[kapone]

it is not automatic through web?
is there a write memory option as well?

Almost no enterprisey switch saves config changes "automatically", web or CLI. That's just not how they work.

The intent is that you can make a config change (or many config changes at the same time...)...p.s. most switches apply changes in real-time, so the change is visible right then and there...

and you haven't hit the save button or "write mem"...if things go south, you can simply reboot the switch to the last known "good" configuration.

Guardrails...

 

[titoum]

You thanked @fohdeesha for the docs so I guessed you had followed those instructions and were using/learning the cli to configure.

yes i followed through the clear instructions but didn't had a chance to go further in advanced configuration by lack of time and fight with openwrt.

i also fan mod the beef because i couldn't stand the sound and coil whine of the tiny useless fan. i will definitely go deeper in that when looking for radius

i hesitated to change the cr2032 as it should be quite old already but didn't manage to pop it out. so i was wondering, if like bios...it was able to keep config in memory because of it

 

[fohdeesha]

yes i followed through the clear instructions but didn't had a chance to go further in advanced configuration by lack of time and fight with openwrt.

i also fan mod the beef because i couldn't stand the sound and coil whine of the tiny useless fan. i will definitely go deeper in that when looking for radius

i hesitated to change the cr2032 as it should be quite old already but didn't manage to pop it out. so i was wondering, if like bios...it was able to keep config in memory because of it

the config is stored in onboard flash, same place as the firmware. it's not going anywhere. the watch battery is for the RTC so it can maintain accurate time if power is lost (and it's not set to use ntp for some reason). a lot of newer icx7xxx models don't even have an RTC/watch battery

 

[clcorbin]

only if you forgot to "write mem"

I've never done that... ... ... And I DEFINITELY didn't spend a WEEK trying to figure out why it was not longer working correctly! Definitely not!

 

[panterateama]

Hey all, I'm trying to replace the fans on an ICX7250-48P with a set that was recommended on this forum topic but they don't turn on. The originals work fine but they have a real high pitched whine that was driving me bonkers... I tried checking to find the fan header pinout polarity on here but cant find them. I'm wondering if they use their own weird polarity pinouts on their headers. Most fans I find are usually black gnd, red +12 and "other" tach, but on the original Foxcon fans, its black, yellow, green. Any help is appreciated!

 

[RoachedCoach]

Hey all, I'm trying to replace the fans on an ICX7250-48P with a set that was recommended on this forum topic but they don't turn on. The originals work fine but they have a real high pitched whine that was driving me bonkers... I tried checking to find the fan header pinout polarity on here but cant find them. I'm wondering if they use their own weird polarity pinouts on their headers. Most fans I find are usually black gnd, red +12 and "other" tach, but on the original Foxcon fans, its black, yellow, green. Any help is appreciated!

my fans were Nidec, but they were also black, yellow, green. I posted the pinouts. (note: the fans in that post aren't what I settled on).

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/brocade-icx-series-cheap-powerful-10gbe-40gbe-switching.21107/page-156#post-254785