Problem:
I have a work area far from my 10Gbs switch. I have a single 10Gb LC cable strung there. I wanted to temporarily work on a few 10Gb clients in that location.
Possible Solutions
1) Buy a cheap 10Gb unmanaged switches that are coming out
2) Build a switch with parts lying around
The motherboard draws 110 watts. I used it because i had it and it had the desired number of PCIe ports.
There are probably simpler solutions but I used TrueNAS and created a bridge through the web interface.
Steps:
Initial performance tests show similar peak performance but has more variability than a real switch.
Resolution:
Two problems encountered: One of my Solarflare cards is really dead, dragging down the supply solo. It's the junk heap for that. The 650-watt supply i was trying to use just plain bad and could not maintain the load. I used the 550watt supply and it appears to be fine.
I hope this helps anyone else that want to create a switch. Why TrueNAS. I am already familiar with it. I might put a lightweight task on it in a jail. I want to experiment with TrueCommand for the other servers I have and it might be useful to see it there.
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I have a work area far from my 10Gbs switch. I have a single 10Gb LC cable strung there. I wanted to temporarily work on a few 10Gb clients in that location.
Possible Solutions
1) Buy a cheap 10Gb unmanaged switches that are coming out
2) Build a switch with parts lying around
- I have 4 Solarflare dual port 10Gb cards and an HP z400 MB with 4 PCIe slots lying around. I thought I would build a switch with them.
The motherboard draws 110 watts. I used it because i had it and it had the desired number of PCIe ports.
There are probably simpler solutions but I used TrueNAS and created a bridge through the web interface.
Steps:
- Set the 1Gb interface up as a management port as 192.168.1.X/24 (where X is the address you want, the first part of the address in arbitrary use what is compatible with your network)
- Go to another machine that is on the 192.168.1.x+1 subnet, log into 192.168.1.X
- Log in and using the web interface create a bridge with all the 10Gbs ports
- add the command "up"
- set the IP address of the bridge to 192.168.0.X/24 as not two interfaces can be on the same
- This will initiate a test of the config. Acknowlege that and save the configurtion
- Go to each 10Gbs port listed in the interfaces section and add the "up" command - I used 3 dual port cards so a 6 port switch
- this will initiatet a test of the config. acknowledge that and save the configuration
Initial performance tests show similar peak performance but has more variability than a real switch.
Resolution:
Two problems encountered: One of my Solarflare cards is really dead, dragging down the supply solo. It's the junk heap for that. The 650-watt supply i was trying to use just plain bad and could not maintain the load. I used the 550watt supply and it appears to be fine.
I hope this helps anyone else that want to create a switch. Why TrueNAS. I am already familiar with it. I might put a lightweight task on it in a jail. I want to experiment with TrueCommand for the other servers I have and it might be useful to see it there.
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