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Ubiquiti SFP Wizard

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Re: Ubiquiti SFP Wizard

#181

Post by dfex »

raaxe wrote: post #90

The technical information for this thing seems to be light on the ground. What kind of diagnostic stats are provided? How is it figuring out true Rx/Tx power without a light meter? Also, reading "Just insert any brand’s SFP or QSFP module, select Copy, and insert any UI module to write the profile." suggests that this only works to reprogram UI optics

> The technical information for this thing seems to be light on the ground. What kind of diagnostic stats are provided? How is it figuring out true Rx/Tx power without a light meter?

The programming boxes (Ubiquiti's and others) get the Rx/Tx power from the DDM (Digital Diagnostics Module) built into most SFPs - it exposes the power levels from the receiver and transmitter inside the SFP and dumps it onto an SPI bus in a standardised way which is read by the box.

> Just insert any brand’s SFP or QSFP module, select Copy, and insert any UI module to write the profile.

It's pretty common for SFP rewrite boxes to only allow writing to that particular brand's SFP modules. It's partly a sales tactic, but also often vendor "genuine" optics will ship with a write-protected EEPROM (requiring a passcode) that stops them from being written to.

If you're after something a little more "open", Reveltronics[1] make a barebones version along with software for brute-forcing EEPROM keys.

[1] https://www.reveltronics.com/en/products/sfp-qsfp-xfp

Re: Ubiquiti SFP Wizard

#182

Post by daveidol »

xoa wrote: post #77
daveidol wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it'd be worth upgrading over TP Link Omada hardware?

Based on having migrated multiple clients from UniFi to Omada but still has UniFi deployed across a few sites too, I'll give you a different take from the replies you've gotten so far. TP-Link's Omada is a newer, direct competitor to UniFi, and when it came out Ubiquiti was an absolute fucking dumpster fire in terms of, well, everything. Their software, hardware, and even the forums (which they killed in favor of the…

Thanks for your perspective! I’m all-in on Omada now with WiFi 6 APs and a few managed switches. Been working pretty well overall, but my network config is pretty basic.

I was more just curious if I was missing out on something great (or if I ever decide to upgrade to WiFi 7+)

Re: Ubiquiti SFP Wizard

#183

Post by v108 »

carlgreene wrote: post #3

This is not for me as I'm not a professional network engineer, but I do want to say that Ubiquiti has made home networking SO fun for me. Everything truly "Just Works." My setup is definitely more on the prosumer side, but it's been so build out and inspect my network with their tools.

Same experience for me.

I am eyeballing the new NAS to play with soon.

Re: Ubiquiti SFP Wizard

#184

Post by MisterTea »

LtdJorge wrote: post #114
jabart wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had great luck with 10gtek modules both with Mikrotik gear, with DACs, and one that is connected to an upstream juniper switch. I'm curious what modules were the most troublesom. * I will note that the 10gb sfp+ modules from 10gtek on a Mikrotik just don't work.

I have a few SFP+ doing 10GbE over UTP from 10Gtek in a Mikrotik. They work perfectly, although hot (to be expected).

I have found that a fiber patch cable paired with two SFPs is cheaper and more power efficient than an equivalent UTP setup. This lead me to move to all fiber/DAC for 10Gb save for the 10Gb UTP link to my router that lacks SFP.

I have the 8 port 10Gb + 1 Gb from mikrotik and the UTP SFP's run stupid hot because they have to drive a cable at GHz speeds. The fiber and DAC (direct attach cable) SFPs are cool to the touch by comparison.

Re: Ubiquiti SFP Wizard

#185

Post by MisterTea »

veegee wrote: post #155
locusm wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whats the best solution for short runs (rack) between Mikrotik switches and Dell servers. Will a DAC still work between different vendors or is it always best to buy individual transceivers?

DAC is always the best option for short runs in terms of cost and compatibility.

Agreed. I have a 10 Gb DAC connecting my workstation and a small server to a Mikrotik. They are way cheaper, use less electric, and run cooler compared to a UTP SFP. I don't like UTP for 10Gb as its both costly and less efficient though that is going to get better with time.

Re: Ubiquiti SFP Wizard

#186

Post by pshirshov »

pshirshov wrote: post #180
carlgreene wrote: post #3

This is not for me as I'm not a professional network engineer, but I do want to say that Ubiquiti has made home networking SO fun for me. Everything truly "Just Works." My setup is definitely more on the prosumer side, but it's been so build out and inspect my network with their tools.

> Everything truly "Just Works." Right. Just like 5Gbit PPPoE uplinks over VLAN. In fact there is no Ubiquiti router which can handle 1.5Gbit+ PPPoE for some reason. So, I have a mikrotik in front of UDMPM just to termiate PPPoE and I had to buy a IPv4 /29 subnet to avoid double not. Everything just works, sure.

* double NAT.

Re: Ubiquiti SFP Wizard

#187

Post by radlad »

fullstop wrote: post #91
radlad wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could say that Unifi has just worked for me, but any time I add a new Unifi device to the network (say a new switch, or just recently a U6 range extender), my network gets incredibly unstable until I manually restart every UniFi device on the network, sometimes multiple times. (i.e. Some devices won't connect to WiFi due to DHCP IP configuration errors.) And that's after getting the device adopted, which gen…

I just wanted to chime in and say that this hasn't been my experience. It sounds like you have some other sort of problem if it takes multiple attempts to adopt.

I appreciate the data point. It has truly been every single switch and now the extender as well. I'll open up a separate case for this.

The primary case I have open currently is in regards to the port forwarding / routing breaking on some restarts.

Re: Ubiquiti SFP Wizard

#188

Post by timeinput »

c-hendricks wrote: post #157
timeinput wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely in prosumer territory, and it's totally achievable with equipment that isn't Ubiquiti (they're not magic, the mediums RF + ethernet + fiber are all the same), but the amount of fiddling I found to get things to 'work right' with ubiquiti was plug it all in, set up the WiFi password, and update the DNS / DHCP server to my pihole, and then I didn't have to do much else, and there was a really nice UI with ni…

Hey, really appreciate the response though. I would say I'm in the "more time than money" category. It's hard to not notice the ... ubiquity of praise for their gear over the years, but I haven't seen much clarifying what sets them apart. Maybe I should look at them like peak Apple but for networking gear?

Yes. That is how I view them, and a fair description I think.

When I was willing to spend time on this (home networking + cameras) I would have never touched this equipment. It was all open source / cheap stuff with BSD or Linux routers, random switches, home assistant raspberry pi's connected to USB cameras. It would take some time maybe not a lot, but enough, and it would break frequently enough due to some update somewhere or something.

Re: Ubiquiti SFP Wizard

#189

Post by aetherspawn »

locusm wrote: post #165
aetherspawn wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Broadcom in nearly all cases (default Dell option, I think). Elsewhere, Intel.

You're not using DAC's ?

No we buy our OM4 fiber cables for pennies on FS, so we stock a box of virtually every length in 1ft increments.

DACs would be way more expensive to stock in every length.

Re: Ubiquiti SFP Wizard

#190

Post by protocolture »

simoncion wrote: post #171
protocolture wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest issue is threat surface. You can design around it, but Mikrotik WAP's do everything a Mikrotik router can do. If they get compromised they can run scripts, create blind proxies etc, and mikrotik has a habit of resurfacing CVEs from memory. My experience is very binary. I had some Mikrotik RF installs that Just Worked, and never needed attention. And some that were just problem children constantly demanding…

> If they get compromised they can run scripts, create blind proxies etc... How's that different from a Unifi AP? Unless they changed something in the past five, eight years, the software running on the AP is pretty much OpenWRT with the serial numbers hastily filed off. [0] Get a shell, and you get to download whatever to do whatever you need. [0] Me coming to this realization is what lead me to switch over to OpenW…

Mikrotik will let you do a lot of this without downloading new code, but you are correct. In my experience people find a simple vuln, log in, enable the blind proxy feature, and then use your network to evade netflix region blocking until you realise.

Cambiums shell from memory is much further locked down. IIRC you need a possibly predictable password form cambo to do get full root shell on a lot of devices.

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