# Switches for cumulus linux also recommended for freebsd?



## Deever (Apr 28, 2018)

Hi folks!

There's an upcoming trend to bring linux also onto network hardware and support of switch manufacturers (like SuperMicro with their SSE-X3648S) to provide bare metal switches.
Anyone around here using such boxes and able to recommend one? My idea is to have a switch configurable with tools like Ansible and threat them like I do my VM switches.

Greetings,
/dev


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## Oko (Apr 28, 2018)

Deever said:


> Hi folks!
> 
> There's an upcoming trend to bring linux also onto network hardware and support of switch manufacturers (like SuperMicro with their SSE-X3648S) to provide bare metal switches.
> Anyone around here using such boxes and able to recommend one? My idea is to have a switch configurable with tools like Ansible and threat them like I do my VM switches.
> ...


The main purpose of a network switch is passing packets as quickly as possible. You are mentioning 10-40 Gigabit which until recently was in tens of thousands of dollars. The one you mentioned can be bought for as "little" as $5500. 
That is still lot of money as you can get 10Gigabit switch with copper network links (for backword compatibility) for under $2000. Due to the inherited limitation of filtering packets through the kernel of an OS such speeds are not possible on the vanilla FreeBSD (OpenBSD not possible for sure anything above 6-7 Gigabit as I have 10 Gigabit servers running OpenBSD and I can see the speed)  nor on Linux. Moving things into the userland will definitely help some but that switch must use backplane to to move frames between ports with speeds in excess of 10 gigabit. Hopefully one of the networking guys who are lurking here is going to correct me if I am wrong but I don't even think you need fully blown OS to control layer 3 switch like the one from your link. You can use SNMP and serial port to configure full manged switch like this. Sure enough a custom FreeBSD (JunoOS) is used for proprietary Juniper switches but not vanilla version.

I fail to see relationship between orchestration tool like Ansible and fully managed switch.


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## Deever (Apr 28, 2018)

Well, maybe the link to the SM switch was misleading. I'm only looking for a FreeBSD-capable hardware with more than only 4 ports.
1 gigabit per port would be totally sufficient.


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## Oko (Apr 28, 2018)

Deever said:


> Well, maybe the link to the SM switch was misleading. I'm only looking for a FreeBSD-capable hardware with more than only 4 ports.
> 1 gigabit per port would be totally sufficient.


You either need switch or you don't. If you need a switch buy a switch. If you need a good network server I have two of these running OpenBSD

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro...Gb-512G-M-2-/132145612083?hash=item1ec47e0533

I can easily push 6-7 Gigabit per second. I am would guess that on FreeBSD if you use IPFW you will be able to saturate the network to the full 10 Gigabit speed. I bought lot of  hardware from good folks at MITXPC over the years and I am super happy with them.


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## ShelLuser (Apr 28, 2018)

Instead on focusing on the OS I strongly suggest to focus on the switch. If a switch runs Linux, who cares? As long as it actually does a good job.


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## BSDAppentic3 (Apr 28, 2018)

Deever There's something that I don't have very clear yet...do you want to have a speed > than 1GB?
Do you have that speed? Do you know that it is too much speed? Which processor, how much RAM, which OS and architecture you're using now? Do you want to mount a server station, like in a office, or do you want it in a residential network? Be more explicit.


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## PacketMan (May 18, 2018)

Oko said:


> Hopefully one of the networking guys who are lurking here is going to correct me if I am wrong but I don't even think you need fully blown OS to control layer 3 switch like the one from your link. You can use SNMP and serial port to configure full manged switch like this. Sure enough a custom FreeBSD (JunoOS) is used for proprietary Juniper switches but not vanilla version.



I'm guessing I'm one of those networking guys.   I'll chime in below.



Oko said:


> You either need switch or you don't. If you need a switch buy a switch. If you need a good network server I have two of these running OpenBSD





ShelLuser said:


> Instead on focusing on the OS I strongly suggest to focus on the switch. If a switch runs Linux, who cares? As long as it actually does a good job.



Deever, these guys are nailing it.  First of all what is the problem you are trying to fix? How do you manage a dozen switches or so, or hundreds/thousands of switches; is that the problem?  If you have only a few switches then stick to ssh, and/or snmp, and/or gui tools.  Got a couple dozen then fine try using a nice management platform via snmp.  And if you require a heavy duty rock solid switching platform then consider Juniper. I believe you will not be disappointed. These 'big iron' switches have specially made ASICs for the purpose of forwarding ethernet frames; it gets pricey for a kernal/cpu/motherboard to compete with that.

Back to finding switches running a Linux kernel, please keep in mind this is early days, and keep in mind that the 'initial market purpose' is not just for management, but for Software Defined Networking (SDN) purposes. That is where a really large diverse enterprise company, or a service provider company will deploy a SDN based network so that they can provision network services (including billing) over a freaken large/big network (often comprised of different vendors, different platforms with different CLI formats) in a matter of minutes, not days or weeks. The problem they are fixing is their "time to service delivery".  Just to be clear you do not need a switch running a linux kernal to achieve that. Any big iron manufacture worth their salt is working to support SDN. Last but not least the CLI on the good quality switches (like Juniper) has been optimized for the user doing the CLI. I don't know if the 'Linux switches' have a well thought out CLI.

All of the above remains for the same regardless if your switch is a 'layer 2 switching' only device, or if it also does 'layer 3 routing' implemented in switching ASICs.

But to correct Oko, if you need a good network server use FreeBSD.


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## Deever (May 18, 2018)

Thank you for the naming the term! What I'd like to do is SDN, but there's probably no efficient way (compared to HW networking) with a standard FreeBSD box.


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## PacketMan (May 18, 2018)

Deever said:


> What I'd like to do is SDN,.....



I'm suspicious you still don't understand what SDN is, what it really does, the size of network its meant for, etc.  I believe it actually has the potential to make a lot of guys like me (routing & switching internetworking) obsolete. Which is one of the reasons why I just made a career move.

How big is your network?


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