Woven Brocade LB4 and CX4 Network cards for pfsense?
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Hi!
I just bought a Woven Brocade LB4 (48 port switch with 4 CX4 10GbE intefaces) from Ebay, but i have some troubles with it. I can see that it gets an IP-adress from pfsense, but i cannot contact it in any way. I have tried telnet, ssh, web access and ping, but with no answers. I have also tried to open it up and removed the small CR2032 battery for a while, but with no results. I have a USB > Serial adapter which i tried with a Cisco (the lightblue) Serial > RJ45 cable on the console port of the switch, but with no access at all through Putty. Any tip to access the switches interface?
And second question, i guess there are people that uses CX4 with pfsense, but which cards do you use? I have ordered a SuperMicro card but i'm also checking other vendors. Any specific card that is recommended for pfsense?
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User Adrian has that same switch and also had trouble accessing it:
http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,50903.0.htmlMaybe you could ask him. Sounds like it didn't reset correctly.
http://docs.fortinet.com/fswitch/fortiswitch-100-admin-40-mr2.pdf (same switch)
Steve
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It seems realistic to me that your CIsco rollover cable won't work due to differing pinout of the Woven switch.
The fortiswitch-100 manual mentions a layout of one side of the cable and DCE, maybe that helps you to get
the right cable. - Not all vendors have silently agreed on Cisco's pinout.Cards:
Generally speaking the Intel server NICs are quite OK and reasonably priced - although you might want to watch the
discussion on the X520 thread since 2.1-RELEASE has some problems with its backported ixgbe driver from later releases.If you don't have a bleeding edge chip it is likely recognized by ixgbe even back to FreeBSD 8.3 base kernel module if the in-kernel driver causes problems for you.
For example SuperMicro also makes Intel-based cards - it's very likely to work if it has the same chip as the intel card that is listed in the manpages of 8.3-RELEASE
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ixgbe&apropos=0&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+8.3-RELEASE&arch=default&format=html. -
@MatSim:
It seems realistic to me that your CIsco rollover cable won't work due to differing pinout of the Woven switch.
The fortiswitch-100 manual mentions a layout of one side of the cable and DCE, maybe that helps you to get
the right cable. - Not all vendors have silently agreed on Cisco's pinout.Cards:
Generally speaking the Intel server NICs are quite OK and reasonably priced - although you might want to watch the
discussion on the X520 thread since 2.1-RELEASE has some problems with its backported ixgbe driver from later releases.If you don't have a bleeding edge chip it is likely recognized by ixgbe even back to FreeBSD 8.3 base kernel module if the in-kernel driver causes problems for you.
For example SuperMicro also makes Intel-based cards - it's very likely to work if it has the same chip as the intel card that is listed in the manpages of 8.3-RELEASE
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ixgbe&apropos=0&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+8.3-RELEASE&arch=default&format=html.Thanks for a very informative answer. About the Cisco-cable, i saw today that Unix Surplus uses the light blue Cisco cable in their video on YouTube. I'm not 100% sure that it is a Cisco-cable, but it certainly looks like it.
I got my hands on a special cable that allows me to set the pinout, i have not yet found the layout Woven Brocade uses, i will probably try just a standard pinout first. Hopefully i will get this cable today:
I only bought one CX4 card this far (SuperMicro), and it seems it is based on Intel 82598EB which should be supported - nice!
User Adrian has that same switch and also had trouble accessing it:
http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,50903.0.htmlYep i saw that thread, about the only thread of this switch that i could find. I have sent a PM to Adrian, hopefully he is still active :-)
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Hey guys…
I'm still alive LOLhttp://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Cisco-Console-Rollover-Flat-Cable-RJ45-DB9-1-pc-6Ft-/261289286087?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cd60e19c7
The cable above worked for me and was able to setup the networking on the switch.
The GUI is dissabled by default and has to be enabled.
I managed to confirm that even ran the 10GBe connection from a Myricom card worked flawlessly and was able to over run the drives on large file transfersWhats a good place to upload files for sharing ?
I still have them somewhere, but i have to dig them up… -
Hey guys…
I'm still alive LOLhttp://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Cisco-Console-Rollover-Flat-Cable-RJ45-DB9-1-pc-6Ft-/261289286087?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cd60e19c7
The cable above worked for me and was able to setup the networking on the switch.
The GUI is dissabled by default and has to be enabled.
I managed to confirm that even ran the 10GBe connection from a Myricom card worked flawlessly and was able to over run the drives on large file transfersWhats a good place to upload files for sharing ?
I still have them somewhere, but i have to dig them up…Hi! :)
It's one of those cables i got, so it should work. I haven't got the time this weekend but i will try this evening. Do you use Putty or HyperTerminal, or another program?
What Myricom card are you using?
What files is it you got? www.sprend.com is a pretty good site for sending files. Thanks for the reply!
Edit:
Got it working when i connected the USB > Serial adapter to a USB 2.0 port. The problem is that the switch is only giving me strange letters (see attachment). I've checked the settings (115200 baud rate, data width 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit and no flow control) and they are correct. The switch is not responding to any commands through the serial connection. Any hints?
Edit2: Tried with HyperTerminal, did not give me strange letters but just a bunch of dashes and then it stopped.
Edit3: After some advice on another forum (SweClockers) i found out that i used the wrong baud rate. Either there's something special about my switch, or the manual is wrong. I got it working with the following setttings:
Baud rate: 9600
Data width: 8 bits
Parity: none
Stoppbits: 1
Flow Control: NoThe next problem that occured was that the standard password is not working. If anyone got a LB4 / TRX100 switch and has set it up through the console, did you use the standard password or something else?
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Everything is up and running. This is a short guide for those who gets stuck with the user/admin for Woven Brocade LB4:
1. Login through serial
2. Enter boot mode
3. Clear the config and enter operational mode
4. Use the standard password to get config rights
5. Use "show running-config" to figure out the IP-adress of the unit
6. Access the web interface and set ipNone of the syntax that was in the Fortiswitch 100 manual worked in serial mode, and every setting that are available is on the web interface.
Now it's just a matter of finding a good NIC for the pfsense box..
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I would start with the Myricom 10G cards as they have a driver stack in FreeBSD
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User Adrian has that same switch and also had trouble accessing it:
http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,50903.0.htmlMaybe you could ask him. Sounds like it didn't reset correctly.
http://docs.fortinet.com/fswitch/fortiswitch-100-admin-40-mr2.pdf (same switch)
Steve
Apologies to being VERY late to this thread, but here are two tips for configuring the Woven LB4.
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The Sun Netra cp3140 is the same switch. The complete manual can be found by searching for "sun netra cp3140 hardware reference manual". The link is a string of goop, but this string returns the PDF right on top.
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The GUI interface is somewhat helpful as a way to glance at things. Never, no NEVER use the GUI to configure things as it will corrupt the configuration and render the switch in need of a full factory reset (at the very least, the VLAN participation GUI killed it but good). You can use the console or enable SSH (you can generate the keys from the GUI - that did work).
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A Sabrent FTDI USB/db9 cable, a blue Cisco rollover cable, minicom on a junky, ducktaped Turion laptop is a stable console for me.
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