Here's a $1.3k switch for you: 18x 40Gig QSFP and 40x 10gig SFP+

[Diavuno]

Got packets?

 

[Entz]

@PigLover Thanks! Might easily be tamed then.

 

[Cipher]

I have a GS0018 waiting for pickup today, and cards and cables are due early next week. My big worry: does anyone have a manual for these things? I can find datasheets, but no pointers to the CLI docs. It's probably not a huge deal, but I'd be nice to have.

Hi Scott, count me in as one who is also looking for a manual. Hopefully, one of us can find a copy. As for the CLI, I attached it in this post as the seller was able to send me a copy.

 

[Scott Laird]

Ah, thanks. I'd missed that. I fired my GS0018 up this morning but wasn't able to connect to it in the 15 minutes that I had to test. No DHCP, and I'm not able to ping 192.168.1.1. I'll hit reset later, listen for entertaining traffic on the network, and then try to build a 3.5mm serial cable if that doesn't work.

 

[Joe Manifold (KC)]

Hey Guys,
and Thanks for the plug, PigLover =)

I have a GS0018 waiting for pickup today, and cards and cables are due early next week. My big worry: does anyone have a manual for these things? I can find datasheets, but no pointers to the CLI docs. It's probably not a huge deal, but I'd be nice to have.

Here's a little Gem I came across - you're right, this stuff is hard to find!
Gnodal Installation Guide:
DOC-90002-00_A Installation Guide 1U Switch.pdf - DocDroid

Hopefully you get it sorted out, Scott. I can tell you that 192.168.1.1 has worked for all the switches so far.

You guys are welcome to contact me directly if you need anything, we do have some limited experience with these switches and are happy to help =)
jmanifold@knowledgecomputers.net

Cheers,

 

[sergeant72]

Hey Guys,

Here's a little Gem I came across - you're right, this stuff is hard to find!
Gnodal Installation Guide:
DOC-90002-00_A Installation Guide 1U Switch.pdf - DocDroid
...
Cheers,

Thank you for this Joe!

I played around with the switch today and here are my discoveries so far. (Keep in mind I have zero experience with enterprise level switches)
I only have mellanox cards , MHQH19B-XTR and CX354A and 3 different types of QSFP cable.
The good news is that both cards were able to link up - MHQH19B-XTR at 10Gbps (I had to configure qsfp port on a switch to 10Gbps) and MCX354A-XCBT at 40Gbps.
The bad news is that out of 3 cables it worked only with mellanox copper 3Ft one.
Here is the transceiver info for that cable - Mellanox MC2206130-001
Second copper 3Ft one was giving a red light on a switch and was marked as invalid in the console - Tyco Electronics 2-2053306-1
Third one was the fiber 100Ft one (a while back a deal was posted on a forum, many people here got it for around ~40$-45$) - for that one switch wasn't giving a red light , but the "line protocol" stayed down - IBM-TEC 2123272-2

Unfortunately, I don't have any sfp+ cable to try (but do have the MCX312A-XCBT card ).
I'm willing to try different configuration settings if somebody can advise.

Regards

 

[Scott Laird]

FWIW, mine is now working. I don't know why it wasn't responding on 192.168.1.1 before. Now I'm stuck waiting for my cards to arrive.

 

[Cipher]

Hi sergeant72,

I don't know if this helps, but I pulled the following from the manual that Joe posted:

Each SFP+ and QSFP port accepts direct attach passive and active copper cables. The SFP+ ports accept class I 10GBASE-SR and 10GBASE-LR optical transceivers up to 1W per port and the QSFP ports accept Class 1, 2 and 3 modules up to 2.5W per port.

Could your non-working cables be of a different class and/or watt rating than above?

 

[sergeant72]

Hi sergeant72,

I don't know if this helps, but I pulled the following from the manual that Joe posted:

Each SFP+ and QSFP port accepts direct attach passive and active copper cables. The SFP+ ports accept class I 10GBASE-SR and 10GBASE-LR optical transceivers up to 1W per port and the QSFP ports accept Class 1, 2 and 3 modules up to 2.5W per port.

Could your non-working cables be of a different class and/or watt rating than above?

The non-working one was received a while back from China through ebay, no markings on it.
The fiber one has the following "850nm LASER PROD, 21CFR(J) CLASS 1M"

I guess my expectations were that if those cables were working in direct connect between cards, they should be working with the switch.
Anyway, continue poking in the CLI, here is more info regarding the transceivers:

GNOS# show interfaces Ethernet 0/41 transceiver
Eth0/41 is present
name is Mellanox
part number is MC2206130-001
revision is A1
serial number is TG011201727
type is passive copper
length is 1
temperature is not available
lane Rx power is not available

GNOS# show interfaces Ethernet 0/13 transceiver
Eth0/13 is invalid
name is Tyco Electronics
part number is 2-2053306-1
revision is J
serial number is TCP05113540781
reason is could not be determined to be suitable

GNOS# show interfaces Ethernet 0/49 transceiver
Eth0/49 is present
name is IBM-TEC
part number is 2123272-2
revision is A
serial number is YK502018N009
type is optical
length is 0
temperature is 23.01
lane Rx power is 0.0uW 0.0uW 0.0uW 0.0uW

Regards

 

[Cipher]

I'm trying to connect to the CLI on the switch and I'm having some trouble. Can anyone spot any issues with what I'm doing:

1) Turned on GNODAL switch and connected a patch cable from the 1G management port to my home switch
2) After installing OPENSSH for Windows on my laptop, I opened a command prompt and typed in the following: ssh root@192.168.1.1
3) I get the following message: ssh: connect to host 192.168.1.1 port 22: Connection timed out

I also tried pinging 192.168.1.1 from my laptop and it times out.

 

[sergeant72]

It takes about 2 minutes for a switch to start properly before it is able to respond - in my case I can actually hear the fans slow down when it is started completely and the blue led is on. I'm using putty to connect to it. Also, make sure that you don't have other devices on a network with 192.168.1.1 assigned.

 

[Cipher]

Thanks Sergeant. I did let it get past "airplane startup" mode before trying to connect when I got those message above. It had actually been running for about 10 minutes. I also just tried a factory reset and after letting it run for 5 minutes I still can't connect. Also tried connecting from my workstation, rather than the laptop, as it has a hardwired connection to the home switch and also won't connect.

My network is running on 192.168.0.x addresses so there shouldn't be any devices with a 192.168.1.1 address. Also, when I check the devices list on my router webui, I don't see any device with an IP of 192.168.1.1.

Not being able to ping the default IP address seems like a red flag unless I'm missing something.

 

[sergeant72]

Cipher, you can try the following - assign static ip 192.168.1.10 on your laptop with subnet mask 255.255.255.0. Connect your laptop directly to management port on the switch with the cable and try to ssh/ping. (Sorry if I suggest something obvious which you've tried already)

Regards

 

[Cipher]

Thanks. I'll give this shot tomorrow when the wife and baby aren't asleep.

Quick question, do I need to enter a value for Default Gateway and do I leave the DNS setting at "Obtain DNS server address automatically"?

 

[Cipher]

Also, I pulled out the three fans earlier today and they were all Sunon PMD1204PPBX-A 40×40×56mm fans attached to a metal enclosure.

Here are some specs:

Rating voltage - 12V
Power current - 1.09A
Power consumption - 13.1W
Speed - 17600/13500RPM
Air Flow - 26.7CFM
Static Pressure - 2.33 inch-H2O
Noise - 66.6dBA

When I get some time, I'll be taking a look at options to quiet this switch down.

 

[Cipher]

Sergeant72, thanks again for recommending the static IP and direct connection as I was able to connect using that approach. I'm not sure why I couldn't connect without having to do this, but maybe there is something in my network setup that was causing that issue yesterday.

I was able to check the firmware and various other settings in the CLI. At this point, I'm pretty much waiting to pick up my NIC cards to test this further, but I do have some questions after going through the CLI today:

1) The datasheet for the switch has the following under Management & Administration section: WebUI HTTP, HTTPS, SSL with predefined pages. I tried connecting from my browser using http:192.168.1.1 and https:192.168.1.1 and neither were successful. Any idea if there are web based management pages available and how we would access them?

2) When setting the IP address settings on the switch, would a manual (static IP) or dynamic (DHCP) IP address setting be preferred?

3) What is the difference between the mgmt port/cpu0 interface and why do each have their own IP address? When would I change one vs. both? For exmaple, in the CLI reference it says to change the IP address for mgmt port / cpu0 interface you do the following:
configure terminal
default ip address 10.1.1.2 subnet-mask 255.0.0.0
interface cpu0
ip address 10.1.1.2 255.0.0.0

4) It looks like the only way to start up the switch is by connecting the power cables and similarly the only way to shut it down is by pulling them out. Is this normal for rack based switches to not have a dedicated power button or software based approach to startup/shutdown?

 

[pyro_]

It is possible that you might have to turn on the web based management. As for the power button ya it is fairly normal not to have a physical power button on them though there is normally a command that you can give it through the cli/web interface to turn them off

 

[Aluminum]

Holy crap I want this thing, I could ditch my peer2peer + separate networks setup, add even more 40 cards and just go with 1 fat LAN! Being able to find a 10Gbit card that works with FreeBSD and mix it together with 40 is bonus, because exactly zero 40Gbit chips currently work on dated distros like pfsense.

Time to fire off some low ball offers and hope one sticks...

And yeah, no powerswitch or very tiny recessed buttons etc are very common in rack gear when 1 accidental button push on the right unit can mean a dozen very grumpy admins. Most seem to prefer remote admin firmware or networked PDUs if they need to cycle. Fire supression switches tend to be as protected as a missile launcher too.

 

[Cipher]

Thanks Pyro/Aluminum, that makes sense on the physical power switch. I'd replace admins/users with my wife/kid and this could be a good thing for the home!

I looked again at the CLI and Install guides and didn't see any reference to a web based gui. Hopefully, we can figure this out at some point.

As for my static vs dynamic question, I'm definitely now going static IP, with DHCP reservation, based on the points made in the following thread - Network switches -- DHCP or static? - Spiceworks.

Still not sure what is the difference between the mgmt port & cpu0 interface and why each have their own IP address.

 

[Scott Laird]

Is it possible to access the management IP over the 10/40G fabric without using the management port? I'm having some weird issues, and I'm not sure if they're cable-related or config-related.