Force10 S50
FnordNet has a pair of Force10 S50 48 port Gbit Ethernet switches. Thanks, Bryan!
console cable
While there are a bunch of Cisco console cables on hand, Force10 uses a different connector pinout. The console port on the S50 is a female 8P8C modular connector (a normal twisted pair Ethernet connector, often called an RJ45).
The connections on the the console port are as follows. Numbering goes from left to right, looking into the console port connector.
| Pin number | connection | Wire color |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | no connection | white/orange |
| 2 | no connection | orange |
| 3 | RXD - received data | white/green |
| 4 | no connection | blue |
| 5 | no connection | white/blue |
| 6 | TXD - transmitted data | green |
| 7 | no connection | white/brown |
| 8 | no connection | brown |
The other end of the console cable is a DB-9 (or, more correctly, a DE-9 <ref name="Wikipedia page on D-subminitature connectors">Wikipedia page on D-subminitature connectors</ref>) female connector as commonly found on PC serial ports. There are two rows of pins on this connector, the "top" row having 5 connections, the "bottom" row having 4. Facing the connector pins are numbered 5 through 1, left to right, on the top row. Pins 9 through 6 are on the bottom row, from left to right. Here's the connection from the other end of the cable:
| pin | signal | wire color | connected to |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | DCD - data carrier detect | any color jumper | pins 6 and 4 on the same connector |
| 2 | RXD - received data | green | pin 6 of opposite end of cable |
| 3 | TXD - transmitted data | white green | pin 3 of opposite end of cable |
| 4 | DTR - data terminal ready | any color jumper | pins 1 and 6 on the same connector |
| 5 | SGD - signal ground | no connect | no connect |
| 6 | DSR - data set ready | any color jumper | pins 1 and 4 on the same connector |
| 7 | RTS - ready to send | any color jumper | pins 8 on the same connector |
| 8 | CTS - clear to send | any color jumper | pin 7 on the same connector |
| 9 | RI - ring indicator | no connect | no connect |
Clearing configuration
These switches arrived used, with unknown configuration applied and with unknown usernames and passwords required to manage them. [SFTOS] is the operating system these switches run, and clearing the switch configuration is accomplished fairly easily:
- Attach the console cable
- Configure terminal program to communicate at 9600bps, 8 data bits, no parity bits, and 1 stop bit.
- Power on switch
- At the prompt
CPU Card ID: 0x508245 Boot Menu Version: 01 Jan 2007 Version 02.01.45 02/07/2007 Select an option. If no selection in 2 seconds then operational code will start. 1 - Start operational code. 2 - Start Boot Menu. Select (1, 2):
- quickly press 2 then Enter.
- At the next menu, select the
Restore configuration to factory defaults (delete config files)option. - Select the
Reset the systemoption from the menu.
Give the switch an IP address
Log in to the switch. Elevate privileges using the enable command. Run the following to tell the switch use DHCP to get an IP address for management:
configure interface managementethernet protocol dhcp ^Z
Enable SSH logins
ip ssh server enable ip ssh protocol 2 ip ssh maxsessions 2 ip ssh timeout 30
Enable web based configuration
ip http secure-server enable ip http secure-protocol TLS1 ip http server enable
Showing MACs attached to the switch
Force10-S50#show mac-addr-table
Mac Address Interface IfIndex Status
----------------------- --------- ------- ------------
00:01:00:01:E8:D5:C1:AE 0/3/1 401 Management
00:01:00:06:25:FE:9F:1F 1/0/2 2 Learned
00:01:00:0C:CE:91:C7:97 1/0/25 25 Learned
00:01:00:10:75:1A:0E:A6 1/0/14 14 Learned
00:01:00:10:75:1A:0E:A9 1/0/27 27 Learned
00:01:00:10:75:1A:1B:80 1/0/39 39 Learned
00:01:00:1A:A0:25:FC:F3 1/0/3 3 Learned
00:01:00:1D:09:69:88:20 1/0/28 28 Learned
00:01:00:1D:09:69:88:53 1/0/1 1 Learned
00:01:00:25:84:6E:2B:02 1/0/16 16 Learned
00:01:00:30:6E:39:5E:5D 1/0/13 13 Learned
00:01:78:E7:D1:ED:CD:64 1/0/37 37 Learned
Force10-S50#
NTP client setup
It might be nice for the switch to know what time it is.
Force10-S50#configure Force10-S50(Config)#sntp client mode unicast Force10-S50(Config)#sntp unicast client poll-timeout 8 Force10-S50(Config)#sntp server 172.16.0.1 Force10-S50(Config)#^Z
Enable aggregated links
Because 1Gbit/second just isn't enough!
Pretty simple, really:
interface port-channel 1 no shutdown channel-member 1/0/45 channel-member 1/0/46 channel-member 1/0/47 channel-member 1/0/48 description "Aggregated connection to other switch" mtu 9216 exit
LACP is enabled by default on port channels on SFTOS switches. (At least with the version I'm running.)
create some VLANs
Force10-S50#configure Force10-S50(Config)#interface vlan 200 Force10-S50(Conf-if-vl-200)#description "VLAN 200 -- just playing around here, tagged VLAN interface on a couple of the Dockstars. Tagged on all interfaces." Force10-S50(Conf-if-vl-200)#ip address 172.31.255.193 255.255.255.192 Force10-S50(Conf-if-vl-200)#tagged 1/0/1-1/0/48 Force10-S50(Conf-if-vl-200)#name "FnordVLAN200" Force10-S50(Conf-if-vl-200)#exit Force10-S50(Config)# Force10-S50(Config)#interface vlan 300 Force10-S50(Conf-if-vl-300)#ip address 172.31.254.193 255.255.255.192 Force10-S50(Conf-if-vl-300)#description "VLAN 300 -- just playing around here. Tagged VLAN interface on the Dockstars. Tagged output on all interfaces. Tagged input only. No interfaces with this as a native VLAN." Force10-S50(Conf-if-vl-300)#tagged 1/0/1-1/0/48 Force10-S50(Conf-if-vl-300)#name "FnordVLAN300" Force10-S50(Conf-if-vl-300)#exit Force10-S50(Config)#exit Force10-S50#
It's aggravating that the VLAN interfaces seem to require IP addresses. Presumably the switch is willing to route IP across them as if it were an IPv4 router. But I don't really need that. It turns out that, after creating the VLAN interfaces, the IP addresses can be removed with no ip address ....
Getting new firmware
Good luck with that. Sign up for a support contract. Force10 doesn't distribute firmware unless you pay them money. (Go Procurve!)
Maybe Dell will decide that Force10 firmware should be free (as in beer) in the future. I'm not counting on it.
FWIW, after finding the name of the firmware image files for these switches, a google search for "SFTOS-SA-2.5.3.7.bin" (or something similar) did turn up someone's archive of firmware images. Which have turned out to work pretty well. AFAICT, 2.5.3.7 is the last version of SFTOS released.
References
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