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

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daniel67887

New Member
Oct 27, 2019
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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

Kaini Industries
Nov 20, 2016
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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
 
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groove

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Sep 21, 2011
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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

New Member
Sep 22, 2019
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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.
 

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Thorzeen

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Jun 15, 2018
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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

Kaini Industries
Nov 20, 2016
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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

Member
Aug 28, 2018
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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

Kaini Industries
Nov 20, 2016
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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

New Member
Mar 25, 2019
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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 ;)
 
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JoshDi

Active Member
Jun 13, 2019
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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
 
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infoMatt

Active Member
Apr 16, 2019
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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

Active Member
Jun 13, 2019
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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

Active Member
May 21, 2019
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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

Member
Jul 19, 2019
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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?
 

fohdeesha

Kaini Industries
Nov 20, 2016
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that's expected, "show media" doesn't pull any info about the link, it just tries to read the vendor EEPROM of the optic for info like model and serial number, and the EEPROM layout of the 10gbase-t transceiver probably confuses it
 

Eru0194

New Member
Jun 13, 2019
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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?
I think the older revisions of S+RJ10 will appear this way in all ICX switches.

Revision 2 and newer S+RJ10 (you can identify by a /r2 at the end of the serial number) will show some basic info in the "show media" output.
 
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umass1966

New Member
Nov 2, 2019
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Just joined the forums at STH. Based on the advise in this thread which i found extremely useful i took the first step in enterprise grade equipment by getting a Brocade ICX7150-C12P