[HN Gopher] Ubiquiti SFP Wizard
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       Ubiquiti SFP Wizard
        
       Author : eXpl0it3r
       Score  : 181 points
       Date   : 2025-10-28 13:48 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (blog.ui.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (blog.ui.com)
        
       | bedhead wrote:
       | Most innovative and disruptive (and generally just profoundly
       | interesting) company that hardly anyone knows about in the grand
       | scheme of things.
        
       | carlgreene wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | xyst wrote:
         | I don't know about it "just works." Still have to perform a
         | monthly reboot of equipment otherwise performance kind of drops
         | off.
         | 
         | Still 100X better than the competition though. My UDM has
         | worked wonderfully with support for dual IPs and seamless
         | failover
        
         | petepete wrote:
         | This is exactly how it is for me too. Everything truly "just
         | worked" - except Sonos, but that's not a Unifi problem - they
         | even have a dedicated page in their docs on how to set up Sonos
         | systems, which I followed exactly, and it now works a treat.
        
           | johnmaguire wrote:
           | 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
           | generally takes multiple retries.
           | 
           | I've also had three instances where upon rebooting due to a
           | power outage or a system update, my inbound firewall / port
           | forwarding was just broken. UniFi simply did not pass packets
           | to my server. Once again, a full reboot of every UniFi device
           | on the network resolved it.
           | 
           | I really want to like UniFi, and I appreciate how much access
           | I have to SSH in and figure out what's going on (and I did
           | take tcpdumps and have a support case open), but it has
           | definitely not been plug-and-play for me.
           | 
           | I'm using a UDR7, U7 Lite, a number of managed UniFi
           | switches, and just recently added the U6 extender.
        
             | fullstop wrote:
             | 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.
        
               | newsclues wrote:
               | Sounds strange to me as well, ubnt has been the apple
               | networking experience
        
               | sz4kerto wrote:
               | The 7 series has many problems. They'll eventually work
               | it out, but it seems to be a bit more problematic than
               | usual.
        
               | fullstop wrote:
               | I do not have any of the 7 series yet, and perhaps that
               | is the difference.
        
         | daveidol wrote:
         | Do you think it'd be worth upgrading over TP Link Omada
         | hardware?
        
           | jakeydus wrote:
           | I made the switch to Ubiquiti from TP Link last year. 1000%
           | worth it. The "Just Works (tm)" thing is true, but the
           | ceiling of what you can do with it is so much higher. I'll
           | also say that the Unifi nerds out there are legion and you
           | can find support and comment threads all over the place for
           | pretty much any project you want to do.
        
           | beala wrote:
           | All the complaints about Ubiquiti in this thread from a few
           | months ago dissuaded me from investing in their gear:
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44746603
           | 
           | I ended up going with TP-Link Omada and have been happy so
           | far (a managed switch and wifi 6 WAPs). I am a bit concerned
           | about their security track record given how bad their soho
           | products are, so I ended up sticking with my opnsense router
           | at the perimeter as the first line of defense.
           | 
           | I'm curious to hear what you think you're missing out on with
           | Omada.
        
             | WillPostForFood wrote:
             | The two biggest complaints in that thread (Edgerouter
             | support abandoned, and VLAN issue unacknowledged and
             | unfixed) were both wrong. Overall, it is a great, easy,
             | inexpensive set of products.
        
             | mastax wrote:
             | I made the same conclusions but got burned with Omada.
             | Cheaper, yes, but fewer features and buggier than Unifi
             | (and that's a pretty low bar). I migrated back to Unifi.
        
               | beala wrote:
               | I don't think I've run into any bugs, but there are also
               | entire sections of the controller I haven't explored yet.
               | I have a pretty typical homelab style setup with multiple
               | wifi SSIDs for trusted devices and untrusted devices, and
               | several VLANs to isolate them. I guess it's good to know
               | rumors of Ubiquiti's death have been greatly exaggerated
               | in case my Omada hardware starts acting up.
        
             | xoa wrote:
             | > _I am a bit concerned about their security track record
             | given how bad their soho products are, so I ended up
             | sticking with my opnsense router at the perimeter as the
             | first line of defense._
             | 
             | Ubiquiti has had plenty of bad security issues as well I'm
             | afraid, but fundamentally one of the advantages of both is
             | that with a self-hostable controller and VLAN isolation you
             | should be able to minimize your attack area pretty well
             | from both the LAN and WAN. No remote dependencies at all.
             | But like you I run OPNsense at the edge, you do at least
             | have to trust their firewall and such if you want to go
             | full single-pane.
        
           | mbesto wrote:
           | I've used both and was super interested to use Omada because
           | of its price and performance. Honestly, Ubiquiti is just so
           | much easier. The whole controller model for Omada tries to be
           | way more "enterprisey" at the cost of a SOHO ease of use.
        
           | xoa wrote:
           | 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 current mess). Their gateway/routing/network service
           | story sucked, they were missing key features, their firmware
           | was rotting in basic ways (like ssh being so old it literally
           | included only insecure ciphers and you couldn't even connect
           | to it anymore without + options), and finally were also
           | starting to make more and more concerning and ugly choices
           | that pointed towards serious organization issues (constant UI
           | bike shedding churn in favor of ancient features and bugs
           | they'd agreed were important) and enshitification (tying
           | software applications to required hardware). However, they
           | were also the only player doing that sort of fully self-
           | hostable unified configuration networking. I migrated all the
           | gateway/routing/simple service stuff to OPNsense, but then
           | was stuck.
           | 
           | TP-Link stepped in and have been working hard on Omada being
           | a direct competitor. It's clearly inspired liberally from
           | UniFi but that's A-OK by me, it's healthy for both to be
           | going head to head. In my experience it had somewhat fewer
           | features, particularly initially, and they definitely don't
           | cover the full breadth of cool and useful niches that
           | Ubiquiti does either. But what there is has worked well and
           | been more reliable for me, particularly in a mixed
           | environment. For example Omada worked perfected day 1 with
           | automatic L3 controller discovery using a simple DHCP Option
           | 138 set on my OPNsense unit pointing right at my controller
           | FQDN. It was easy and built-in to supply a proper certificate
           | for the Web GUI. I never got either of those to work with the
           | UniFi controller. The switching has been rock solid reliable
           | and the WiFi more performant, better coverage, and features
           | like PPSK were added way before Ubiquiti did and have a much
           | better interface.
           | 
           | However, Ubiquiti does seem to perhaps be turning things
           | around a bit. Their router hardware is no longer garbage,
           | even if it is of course far less then you can do yourself.
           | From what I can see in simple ongoing tests they do a better
           | job on the software side for router features now as well, so
           | if you're all-in on both systems for the total single-pane
           | experience UniFi might once again be better. Their
           | announcement of the "UniFi OS Server" 3 months ago (in Early
           | Access) and publicly last month was both a surprise and
           | heartening. Rarely does one see companies that start down the
           | path of lock-in reverse course at all. If they make it
           | possible to run all their various controller applications on
           | your own hardware I'd definitely start to add more back into
           | my mix.
           | 
           | So if you've got decently modern Omada hardware (and you
           | probably do because not like it's been around that long, in
           | terms of networks anyway) I'd be in no massive rush to switch
           | to UniFi unless you see some key specific things you'd like.
           | If you think you ever might want to roll your own other infra
           | same thing even harder. But if you're thinking about a bunch
           | of upgrades anyway then worth keeping an eye on and looking
           | carefully at the various feature mixes each have.
           | 
           | And that's a really statement that makes me super happy to
           | say, because I think each is now driving the other, which is
           | really healthy for this ecosystem!
        
           | baq wrote:
           | Not omoda, but TP-Link - recently built a deco setup - 3x
           | be65, 2x be25, one WiFi mesh node, the rest is wired 2.5gbe
           | backhaul and performance is excellent, though I'm not a fan
           | of only being able to configure stuff from the app, and there
           | isn't that much to configure anyway. It just works, but if it
           | wouldn't, I'd probably have to return the whole set.
        
         | c-hendricks wrote:
         | Can someone explain what "just works" when compared to other
         | networking gear? IE I use ASUS and their mesh, and it all "just
         | works". Have a mix of routers over 10 years and they all mesh
         | together.
        
           | samhh wrote:
           | For a start I wouldn't trust brands that by default market
           | mesh over wired backhaul.
        
             | c-hendricks wrote:
             | Because ... ? Reminder my comment was looking for
             | explanations. Is your issue that mesh + Ethernet backhaul
             | is actually WAP + roaming and not mesh?
        
           | timeinput wrote:
           | I started with TPLink gear in a mesh mode, and it kinda sorta
           | maybe worked? I had an access point on the ground floor, a
           | range extender + option to connect RJ45 (for devices with out
           | WiFi), on the middle floor, and an additional meshed AP /
           | range extender on the top floor. The top floor meshed thing
           | basically didn't work, the RJ45 thing got me like 50 Mbps
           | while wireless was getting me 200 Mbps. It 'just worked', but
           | it didn't work well.
           | 
           | In that same house switching over to Ubiquiti just worked,
           | and worked well. I had the same setup (mesh nodes on every
           | floor), but performance was substantially better (2-4x).
           | 
           | I've moved house, and now have wired APs on every floor, and
           | get phenomenal performance. The management UI to see what is
           | where / how its connected, and when something doesn't work is
           | very good. It also enables things that were hard / difficult
           | with other non-'prosumer' gear. Like I can have multiple WAN
           | ports, and plug in a cellular modem, so that when my internet
           | doesn't just work (which happens way too often) it auto-fails
           | over to the cellular modem, and continues just working.
           | 
           | The reason I went with Ubiquiti in the first place was their
           | Unifi Protect line of cameras, and again those 'just work'
           | from the wireless small ones to domes / etc plugged into
           | wired connections they all just seamlessly connect to my
           | dream machine, and provides a great UI, and the data is on
           | prem which I want.
           | 
           | The only thing Ubiquiti doesn't do the way I want is DHCP +
           | DNS, so I have a seperate raspberry pi doing that.
           | 
           | After years of fussing around with either linux / pfsense /
           | ... routing + firewall solutions, and different AP / meshing
           | configurations the ubiquiti stuff is very hands off.
        
             | c-hendricks wrote:
             | Ah, so based on your last paragraph I guess you're in
             | "prosumer" territory? My router has dual WAN, SFP, can do
             | cellular over USB, tells DHCP clients to use the pihole for
             | DNS, and I don't have speed issues in or around the house
             | with the mesh nodes, but maybe it falls short if I was
             | looking to do more advanced routing/firewalls.
        
               | timeinput wrote:
               | 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 nice metrics, and a nice UI for
               | cameras all built in, and a few other niceties like some
               | VPN options. There's also sufficient logging that when
               | something doesn't work I can maybe figure out why.
               | 
               | I don't really do more 'advanced' routing (other than
               | maybe the unifi protect aka camera stuff it sounds like
               | we're describing similar configurations), it's just that
               | when I tried to achieve the configuration you're
               | describing with Asus it was impossible, with TPLink it
               | took a lot of fiddling / configuration and never 'worked
               | right' (right meaning as well as I thought it should,
               | though I've not tried TPLink in a primarily wired
               | configuration) where as the ubiquiti stuff was plug and
               | play and just 'worked right' (close to the speeds and
               | reliability I expected both in a mesh mode and in wired).
               | 
               | The whole camera thing -- which is what really got me to
               | pay the ubiquiti tax -- is another story entirely, I'm
               | sure there are lots of other good options for self hosted
               | IP camera solutions, but I couldn't find any ones I
               | wanted to use, and again with ubiquiti it was super plug
               | and play, and once I'd bought the UDM to do camera stuff
               | and saw how well that worked I wanted to try the ubiquiti
               | networking stuff, and it worked better with less
               | configuration that the other alternatives I'd tried.
               | 
               | With infinite time and finite budget ubiquiti is not the
               | right choice for home networks, with a sizable budget for
               | home networking equipment minimal time investment and a
               | preference for performance ubiquiti has worked out better
               | for me than alternatives out of the box, and better for
               | me after spending time tweaking and trying to optimize
               | TPlink (meaning ubiquiti out of the box was better after
               | trying to optimize TPlink).
               | 
               | If "not ubiquiti" works for you out of the box, or in the
               | configuration you're already in then you're all set, and
               | you're definitely not missing out on anything. If things
               | aren't working out of the box and you're tired of
               | fiddling with it, or your other goals aren't possible,
               | and they are with ubiquiti maybe it's worth the
               | investigation.
               | 
               | I also _hate_ how much I sound like an ad for ubiquiti.
               | I'm really not, but I think I've spent more time writing
               | these two comments than I've spent having to fuss around
               | with my network equipment in years.
        
           | sedatk wrote:
           | Adding a new Unifi device to the network is just a matter of
           | powering it up, responding to "adopt this new device?" prompt
           | on your phone, and that's it. It's literally Plug'n'Play in
           | 2025. Even if other brands let you do that with similar
           | number of steps, the UX is so behind that it's impossible for
           | you to discover the steps that easily. Ubiquiti uses UX quite
           | intelligently to make complicated things feel simple. My
           | experience hasn't been close to Ubiquiti's with any other
           | brand I've tried.
        
         | mongol wrote:
         | Tangentially related: is Mikrotik as bad for wireless as some
         | say? I want to like them, even though their equipment seems
         | complex, I root for a company from the Baltics that have carved
         | out a respectable niche. But they appear to struggle with
         | wireless?
        
           | nubinetwork wrote:
           | I haven't tried their CAP or HAP lines, but I'm happy with my
           | RB4011. /shrug
        
           | cyberax wrote:
           | I've been using Mikrotik in various capacities since 2008, I
           | even made IoT devices using RB450 boards before the word
           | "IoT" was coined. I also love supporting a small company that
           | is successfully competing with the giants.
           | 
           | Their long-distance wireless and outdoor wireless are great,
           | but their regular WiFI access points and software are at most
           | adequate. They are not keeping up with the state of the art.
        
             | simoncion wrote:
             | > They are not keeping up with the state of the art.
             | 
             | Does that mean that the performance is middling (making
             | them -IME- equal to UBNT's APs), that they never have APs
             | that use the very latest and greatest WiFi version, or
             | both?
        
         | encom wrote:
         | I got some decommissioned Ubiquiti gear (a switch, some ap's)
         | from work, but it requires UniFi to do anything. I looked into
         | that briefly and it appears to be some eldritch horror of an
         | application. Anything I can't use from a terminal is worthless,
         | so all of it is going in the trash where it belongs.
        
           | simoncion wrote:
           | Depending on the model of AP, you might be able to run
           | OpenWRT on it without too much hassle.
        
       | joelccr wrote:
       | I love this. However, I'm very interested to see the maths on
       | "offering up to 1000% savings compared to industry standards"
        
         | BonoboIO wrote:
         | The more you buy the more you save
        
         | mystifyingpoi wrote:
         | infinite money glitch
        
         | wrs wrote:
         | It's simple, they pay you 9X the standard industry price for
         | each one you take...?
        
         | OliverGuy wrote:
         | Cisco etc have truly insane pricing on optics, like $1000 for
         | something generic that cost $20-50 from fs.com etc. The only
         | difference is how it presents itself to the switch (ie, says
         | its a Cisco optic), not actual difference in performance.
         | 
         | Often Cisco/etc will refuse support cases if you aren't using
         | their optics, if the switches/routers even work with them in
         | the first case, which isn't a given as often they'll refuse to
         | work with non branded optics.
         | 
         | Really just a money grab by the big network vendors.
         | 
         | This box allows you to flash the firmware on the optic to say
         | its from whatever brand you want (Cisco, Dell, Aruba, Juniper
         | etc) so that you can get it to work in that companies
         | switch/router.
         | 
         | For most SMEs, the brand of optics makes no difference. Maybe
         | keep a few legit branded ones around for debugging and when you
         | need to raise a support case. But otherwise, the generic ones
         | flashed to look like branded ones work just fine.
        
           | cturner wrote:
           | "The only difference is how it presents itself to the switch
           | (ie, says its a Cisco optic), not actual difference in
           | performance."
           | 
           | That's not the only difference. I have had situations where I
           | ran equivalent optics side-by-side, and then touched one and
           | it was hot, and touched the other and it was not hot. They do
           | contain different components. In the case of that test - the
           | atgbics SFP was cool, and the other clone unit was hot. My
           | dealer was able to get me in contact with someone technical
           | at atgbics (the cool-running unit) who explained the
           | difference, "The DSP might be say 13nm where more modern more
           | expensive ones are 5nm."
           | 
           | But you definitely do not need to pay for "genuine" optics to
           | get high-reliability optics. You just need to shop around the
           | clones - atgbics is a clone.
        
           | Sesse__ wrote:
           | > Often Cisco/etc will refuse support cases if you aren't
           | using their optics, if the switches/routers even work with
           | them in the first case, which isn't a given as often they'll
           | refuse to work with non branded optics.
           | 
           | As others here have pointed out, Cisco reserves the right to
           | do this but doesn't do it in practice. They don't even have a
           | realistic chance to _detect_ a Cisco-programmed FS SFP, since
           | it simply identifies the same as a genuine Cisco module.
           | 
           | If your case was directly related to the SFP ("I can't get a
           | link on this fiber port"), then yes, they could probably
           | refuse it. But if your case is about basically anything else
           | on the switch, they won't care.
        
             | bnjms wrote:
             | > If your case was directly related to the SFP ("I can't
             | get a link on this fiber port"), then yes, they could
             | probably refuse it.
             | 
             | I have zero doubt they will. But also you prove nothing and
             | are doing yourself and the vendor a disservice if you fake
             | it. There's no telling what your 3rd party transceiver is
             | doing incorrectly. Better to get one single supported sfp
             | and get that fixed which will probably fix your other issue
             | too.
             | 
             | FS is so big they're probably fine. Another option is to
             | get one supported sfp, find if it's encoded to an oem part,
             | then buy and install the oem part directly. Easy to twist
             | the arm of your var to do this.
        
               | Sesse__ wrote:
               | > But also you prove nothing and are doing yourself and
               | the vendor a disservice if you fake it. There's no
               | telling what your 3rd party transceiver is doing
               | incorrectly.
               | 
               | If I report an IS-IS problem and the root cause is an OEM
               | SFP on a completely unrelated port, then the design of
               | the switch is pretty awful. :-)
        
       | bananapub wrote:
       | some context that's perhaps not obvious to non-networking people:
       | essentially all networking hardware above 1G doesn't have rj45 or
       | fibre ports in it, it has holes that you put modules in, "SFP+"
       | modules for 10G, "SFP28" for 28gig networking, etc.
       | 
       | most manufacturers of devices - the things with the holes, NICs,
       | switches, routers - make their devices only officially work with
       | modules that _claim_ to be manufactured by that same
       | manufacturer. so, you can either buy modules from that
       | manufacturer, or buy modules from some other company (e.g.
       | fs.com, 10gtek) who programs the modules to claim that they are
       | from that manufacturer.  "officially" can mean anything from "we
       | won't help you if you open a support case" to "the device will
       | make a whiney log message on boot if it's not one of our modules"
       | to "it simply doesn't work unless you hack an EEPROM on the
       | device".
       | 
       | this is somewhat annoying, since it means you need to buy
       | specific modules for specific devices, you can't just keep a pile
       | of SFP+ 10G-LR modules around, you need some "Intel SFP+ 10G-LR"
       | and some "Cisco SFP+ 10G-LR", etc.
       | 
       | so, these third party manufacturers of the modules, like fs.com
       | and 10gtek, will also sell you _programmers_ for the modules,
       | which lets you change what manufacturer the module claims made
       | it. these programmers have been, historically and hilariously,
       | tied to the actual manufacturer of the modules! so you can buy
       | some 10G-LR SFP+ modules from fs.com and a fs.com programmer to
       | set make some  "Intel" and some "Cisco", but if you buy some
       | 10gtek 10G-LR modules, you would need to buy a 10gtek programmer.
       | 
       | ~so, this device that Ubiquiti has made is the meta-programmer -
       | it can apparently program any module, from any actual
       | manufacturer, to claim to be made by any manufacturer.~
       | 
       | edit: the post seems deliberately confusing - what they are
       | actually selling is a device that can re-program Ubiquiti SFP+
       | modules by copying the manufacturer code from another SFP+ module
       | that you insert into the programmer. so it's the same as what
       | fs.com and all the other sell, but Ubiquiti's is ~1/10th the
       | price (e.g. https://www.fs.com/uk/c/fs-box-3389).
        
         | superice wrote:
         | Minor pedantic correction: 2.5gbit, 5gbit and 10gbit RJ45 is
         | getting more affordable and more common, and for short runs
         | should run over CAT 6 and CAT 6a fine, and plenty of reports it
         | does ok on short runs even on CAT 5e. With devices like the USW
         | Flex Mini 2.5 at ~50-60 EUR / USD, you can affordably outfit
         | your home for higher than gigabit speeds without rewiring
         | everything with new CAT cable or fiber.
         | 
         | Over here in NL we now get more and more access to >1gbps
         | speeds, the office of my small business for instance has a
         | 4gbps connection, and the ISP offers up to 8gbps on a standard
         | consumer / small business package. We're in the process of
         | upgrading our gear to take advantage of that. With WiFi 7 we've
         | seen some real world throughput speeds of 1800-2000mbps going
         | through a Ubiquiti U7 Pro straight to the ISP supplied router.
         | 
         | I wasn't really keeping up with networking gear, so I was
         | pleasantly surprised when I looked into this stuff recently and
         | figured out the gear has just magically gotten better and
         | running 2.5gbit everywhere is surprisingly easy.
        
           | tuetuopay wrote:
           | > 2.5gbit, 5gbit and 10gbit RJ45 is getting more affordable
           | and more common
           | 
           | Still, compared to the SFP+ gear it's ridiculously
           | overpriced. NICs are <$20 on ebay and an 8x10G port managed
           | switch is $120 on aliexpress.
           | 
           | > Over here in NL we now get more and more access to >1gbps
           | speeds
           | 
           | Same in France, yet the main "geek" ISP (free) has an 8Gbps
           | symmetric ISP router with a 10G SFP+ cage for full bandwidth
           | to the LAN. RJ45 ports are 2.5G.
           | 
           | And it's hard to fault them, as customers that are likely to
           | even hardwire stuff to the router and moreso at 10Gbps are
           | usually enthusiasts that do prefer SFP+ due to the abundance
           | of hardware on the used market. Oh, and their team designing
           | the router are a bunch of nerds that most likely all have a
           | 10Gbps network.
        
             | LtdJorge wrote:
             | There's an ISP in Switzerland offering 25Gbps, they provide
             | a Mikrotik. They're called init7.
        
               | tuetuopay wrote:
               | Yup, that's pretty nice. I sold a couple of XXV710s to a
               | friend that moved over there.
        
           | ericd wrote:
           | Something nonobvious to consider, 10G copper/RJ45 SFP modules
           | run _hot_ , to the point where our Mikrotik switch's manual
           | mentioned that we could use them, but they strongly
           | recommended only populating every other port, if we did. Heat
           | wasn't a problem at all with the fiber ones.
        
         | tripdout wrote:
         | The FS-Box lets you pick from a list of manufacturers and
         | serial numbers. Does this only do cloning from another
         | physically inserted SFP?
        
       | LostSoulUniFi wrote:
       | This will make the life soo easy for many
        
       | jeffcox wrote:
       | For those outside the IT/networking realms, SFP use uniform
       | connectors for both the networking device and the fiber cable,
       | but the major vendors (Cisco and friends) have used firmware
       | flags and settings to provide vendor lock-in for at least the
       | last 15 years.
       | 
       | It used to be that in the event of a major outage or hardware
       | failure you would need to issue additional debug commands to the
       | effect of "I know this isn't your approved SFP but please just
       | try it," if you were trying to replace a first party SFP with a
       | third party one. TAC would more or less laugh at you and hang up
       | if you sought support.
       | 
       | I'm not sure if this product will _actually_ change any of that,
       | but here's hoping.
        
         | runjake wrote:
         | _> TAC would more or less laugh at you and hang up if you
         | sought support._
         | 
         | This is common belief and even a dire warning when filing TAC
         | tickets. However, unless the third-party SFP is the prime
         | suspect, I have never experienced a TAC from any major
         | networking vendor[1] refuse support, let alone "laugh and hang
         | up," even metaphorically.
         | 
         | It's good SOP to keep at least a couple SFPs for each
         | networking manufacturer on the shelf, but third-party SFPs are
         | normally in the ballpark of 10% of the cost of OEM _and_ tend
         | to be manufactured better[2].
         | 
         | 1. Mostly Cisco, Juniper, HPE, Fortinet
         | 
         | 2. I've had a far greater failure rate on OEM SFPs than SFPs
         | from third-parties like Fs.com and USCritical. That and they
         | feel much less flimsy than OEM.
        
           | cturner wrote:
           | Before I comment, a disclaimer about my small scale. I am
           | running probably three hundred SFP+s running and less than
           | five years of experience with optics. I don't have stock
           | tracking for the individual manufacturers, and the failure
           | rate comments here are based on gut-feel only. (there will be
           | other people here used to far larger scales)
           | 
           | I bucket it into there being three options: genuine, clone,
           | and good-clone.
           | 
           | We had a bad run with fs.com QSFP+s. Their SFP+s have been
           | better to me, but reckon I have had a couple fail.
           | 
           | Atgbics SFP+s have been a reliable clone supplier for us. I
           | don't think I have had any of those fail, and they have been
           | my main vendor for a while now. You can order them programmed
           | with personalities for Cisco, etc.
           | 
           | Part of the edge of fs.com is that it is so easy to place an
           | order and get fast delivery. My main site is in another
           | country to where I live, and I do a few trips a year. Several
           | times they have made low-notice projects possible.
        
             | simoncion wrote:
             | > Atgbics SFP+s have been a reliable clone supplier for us.
             | 
             | With the caveat that I'm a USian and my scale is even lower
             | than yours (10 10gbit SFP+ modules in my apartment
             | combination home, office, and lab, running trouble-free for
             | the past three years) I've found 10Gtek to be a reliable
             | supplier. You can order 10gbit SFP+ modules straight from
             | them for 14USD per per module. Though, shipping costs
             | straight from them is currently pretty terrible: $35 if
             | you're spending less than $800.
             | 
             | Stores like Newegg will often meet or beat that per-module
             | price and offer free shipping if you buy a bundle of four
             | or more... but modules with the personality you want may
             | not be in stock.
        
           | Hikikomori wrote:
           | Don't think I ever had a case there TAC said anything about
           | my sfps. Most of the time if it's the SFP you replace it,
           | code it correctly with a device like the one linked, or it's
           | the wrong kind of SFP anyway.
        
         | tw04 wrote:
         | >I'm not sure if this product will _actually_ change any of
         | that, but here's hoping.
         | 
         | SFP programmers have been around forever and work great. This
         | will solve the issue. The only really unique thing here is the
         | form factor and price. I think the last time I looked at a
         | programmer 8 years ago I seem to recall it was about 10x this
         | price. I'm guessing cheaper ones have popped up out of China
         | since then.
        
         | bongodongobob wrote:
         | I have installed 100s of SFP connections and I've never had an
         | issue with compatibility. I've never even heard of this. Is it
         | just for some ultra high end products or something?
        
           | tuetuopay wrote:
           | It's more for enterprise gear than anything. For example,
           | enterprise Cisco gear will absolutely reject non-cisco
           | optics, but datacenter gear won't. As an example, the Nexus
           | 9000 line accepts non-cisco optics by default. Granted, those
           | are 10k+ boxes so somewhat high-end but nowhere near the ASR
           | line.
           | 
           | The nexus line being more modern in spirit also helps.
           | Catalysts still reject non-cisco optics without a
           | configuration line afaik.
           | 
           | A good rule of thumb is whether the equipment tries to
           | vendor-lock you in.
           | 
           | Another example that comes to mind is at least one generation
           | of Intel NICs (don't remember if it's the 5xx or the 7xx),
           | where even the open-source mainline (!) driver will reject
           | the optic without a driver argument passed to it when
           | modprobe'ing it.
        
           | bri3d wrote:
           | It's more common the more expensive the SFP host equipment,
           | yes. This "compatibility" stuff is generally euphemism for
           | "ridiculously primitive DRM" - lots of higher end network
           | equipment checks the SFP Vendor ID and Serial Number and will
           | reject it if it doesn't match an allow-list of "qualified"
           | hardware. Programmers like these let you clone the VID/Serial
           | from a "qualified" SFP onto a random SFP.
        
           | booi wrote:
           | I'm surprised you've never run into this. Even the "cheap"
           | cisco/juniper switches will warn you when you plug in a
           | generic or different branded one.
        
           | simoncion wrote:
           | Have you never worked with Intel NICs?
           | 
           | The two X520s that I have will refuse to work with non-Intel
           | transceivers unless either you're running Linux and have set
           | the 'allow_unsupported_sfp' option, or have edited the card's
           | EEPROM to unset the "shut down unless the transceiver is a
           | Genuine Intel part" bit. It's my understanding that very many
           | Intel NICs are like this.
           | 
           | I remember [0] the Juniper switches that I used to have
           | (before I switched to Mikrotik) refusing to work with
           | anything other than Official Juniper transceivers.
           | 
           | [0] ...and may MISremember...
        
         | erinnh wrote:
         | I like the pricing of this and especially the health check
         | part. But the programming an SFP module part has been a thing
         | forever. In Europe at least. Flexoptics for example have their
         | own boxes to program optics.
        
         | lflux wrote:
         | Longer than that - in 2005 I was at a network hardware startup
         | and we had vendor-locked (ahem, _qualified_) SFPs back then.
         | Probably started back in 2001 when they were introduced.
        
         | dheera wrote:
         | Is there anything here from Ubiquiti that can allow me to plug
         | an AT&T Fiber directly into my Unifi switch and get rid of the
         | BGW620 crap? One would think AT&T Fiber is so common in
         | Ubiquiti's target market that they should make an official SFP
         | module for this already.
         | 
         | I know there are these XPS-GROUPON with "8311 firmware" SFP
         | modules or something to bypass it but they cost $130+ and just
         | wondering if there's something for <$50 before I pull the
         | trigger.
         | 
         | Also
         | 
         | > 1000% lower pricing
         | 
         | What the hell does that mean? If some other vendor sells it for
         | $1000, you sell it for -$9000?
        
           | oakwhiz wrote:
           | If it's a PON then it's not Ethernet media. You would then be
           | looking for an ONT SFP but those are far from ordinary SFPs.
           | They are not just dumb devices, there is a lot going on
           | inside them since they crammed a whole ONT into the SFP, and
           | it communicates SFI back to the host equipment as if it would
           | have been Ethernet.
           | 
           | https://hack-gpon.org/ont-wo-mac/
           | 
           | You would need the ISP to "adopt" your ONT into their network
           | similar to what is observed with cable modems.
        
       | zdw wrote:
       | Way more affordable than other solutions, like the $370 FS BOX
       | from fs.com:
       | 
       | https://www.fs.com/products/96657.html
       | 
       | Which, while it works, is the poster child for how NOT to develop
       | desktop software as it's a really shitty .NET GUI app they
       | shoehorned onto non-Windows platforms.
        
       | cillian64 wrote:
       | Isn't this exactly the same as flexoptix and FS have been doing
       | for years?
        
         | wmf wrote:
         | Ubiquiti doesn't invent anything; they make it cheap with a
         | better UI.
        
           | phoronixrly wrote:
           | Better UI is stretching it a bit... Maybe for the
           | amateur/enthusiast (homelab) market...
           | 
           | I certainly don't need or want their rack augmented
           | reality... 'feature'? fad? And their clunky web UI is both
           | limiting and slowing me down. Thanks, I'm perfectly fine with
           | a console and simple LEDs.
        
             | theshrike79 wrote:
             | That's their exact niche.
        
               | einsteinx2 wrote:
               | That and SMB's. I've seen a lot of Ubiquity gear in small
               | hotels, random small businesses, etc. Especially hotels,
               | they seem to be super common (not big chains like Hilton
               | or whatever but smaller boutique hotels).
        
             | aaronax wrote:
             | The UI for the fs.com programmer is merely "not bad". This
             | could easily be great in comparison.
        
             | Sesse__ wrote:
             | > I certainly don't need or want their rack augmented
             | reality... 'feature'? fad?
             | 
             | I find it mind-boggling that you can hardly buy _RAM_
             | anymore without programmable RGB LEDs, but that managed
             | switches do not come with a per-port RGB LED to let me mark
             | VLANs or cables that need replacements or whatever. Come
             | on! A nice little square all around the port, please.
             | Instead, we get the QR code plus an app that needs to talk
             | with the cloud.
        
               | wmf wrote:
               | Some of their switches have Etherlighting(tm).
        
               | Sesse__ wrote:
               | Yes, if you have special Ubnt-brand cables. And still, I
               | want this to be standard everywhere, not a niche thing
               | from one manufacturer :-) (I know Facebook has some on
               | their 100G switches, too.)
        
               | simoncion wrote:
               | I'm _pretty sure_ that the only thing special about the
               | cables is the boot that transmits the light from the port
               | 's LED array fairly well.
        
       | efitz wrote:
       | Ubiquiti is awesome, but their IPv6 support leaves something to
       | be desired.
       | 
       | I have two ISPs, one with IPv6 (Starlink) and one without
       | (Frontier).
       | 
       | I want to use Frontier for all IPv4, with IPv4 failover to
       | Starlink, and I want to use Starlink only for IPv6.
       | 
       | UniFi networking won't let you configure this, and I'm not going
       | to SSH in to my UDM to manually set routes, that will be lost at
       | next boot.
        
         | ectospheno wrote:
         | This is why my router isn't ubiquiti. I like the switches and
         | access points but my router will stay an OpenBSD box.
        
           | beala wrote:
           | I've only been using it for a couple months, but OPNsense
           | (FreeBSD based) is such a solid piece of software. I
           | installed it on a cheap Beelink mini PC with dual 2.5 gb NICs
           | and an N150 processor (model EQ14), and it's been reliable
           | and a pleasure to use as my router. I have a TP-Link Omada
           | setup which I've been pleased with, but I feel no need to
           | purchase one of their gateways.
        
           | elevation wrote:
           | What do you use for OpenBSD hardware? Is it power hungry? Is
           | it performant?
           | 
           | I had a great stint with OpenBSD on an older Pentium 4 Dell
           | tower a few years back. For basic firewall rules, I had line-
           | rate performance on my NICs. But for a home network I'd love
           | to have something more energy efficient.
        
             | ectospheno wrote:
             | My current router at home is a dell vostro 3020 with a quad
             | port intel nic. I usually get dell for the firmware updates
             | they provide well after warranty.
        
             | aaronax wrote:
             | Search Amazon for "pfsense mini pc". (smile as you think
             | about how this triggers that one pfsense guy!) Intel N100
             | or N150 processor, passive cooling, typically 5 1000GBASE-T
             | or better ports, RAM and SSD included. Should be able to
             | get one for ~$200.
        
               | kube-system wrote:
               | There are good options there, but those white label mini
               | PCs can be hardware quality roulette.
               | 
               | As much as I like opnsense, I choose Ubiquiti still when
               | I need something cheap that I need to rely on.
        
             | beala wrote:
             | I posted this in a sibling comment, but I can confirm
             | Beelink's EQ14 [1] works well with OPNsense (FreeBSD based
             | instead of OpenBSD). The dual NIC model uses the Intel
             | KTI226-V chipset which has rock solid FreeBSD drivers.
             | 
             | [1] https://www.bee-link.com/products/beelink-
             | eq14-n150?variant=...
        
         | xyst wrote:
         | Should put in feature request, I would happily upvote/support
         | something like this on their community forum.
        
         | strbean wrote:
         | Not ideal, but can you add an init.d to do that?
        
         | tuetuopay wrote:
         | I've recently had a laugh on a UDM trying to setup IPv6
         | routing. Somehow, it did not install the default route in the
         | FIB, but the OS was aware of it, so the router was reachable
         | from the outside but did not route packets. I tried adding a
         | route to `::0/0` and it spat at me that a multicast destination
         | was not valid as a route destination. I gave it a route to
         | `::0/1` and it's happily chugging along now. /shrug
        
         | LeoPanthera wrote:
         | I use Unifi for everything _except_ my router, for which I use
         | a Supermicro server running OPNsense. The Unifi gateways are
         | just too limited.
        
           | gonesilent wrote:
           | Same setup for me. Unifi just has to many limits to advanced
           | networking. Trying to force tunnels to just do basic routing.
        
       | whalesalad wrote:
       | The same excitement I used to feel in the late '00s/early '10s
       | for Apple is what I now feel for Unifi. I must have it all. They
       | are capitalizing on autism better than anyone else in the history
       | of the world, except for maybe Lego.
        
       | xyst wrote:
       | Anybody go through the trouble of outfitting their entire
       | home/condo with fiber? Probably overkill for residential but I am
       | also thinking it might need to be shrouded in EMT conduit
        
         | elevation wrote:
         | I ran conduit for fiber to a couple rooms.
         | 
         | Because pre-terminated cable assemblies [0] can be 10% of the
         | cost of a more modular link, I used conduit large enough to
         | pass QSFP28 with ease. May not be possible in every home but
         | I'm happy with the result.
         | 
         | [0]: https://www.ebay.com/itm/116804914246
        
         | bobmcnamara wrote:
         | I did a 10 gig backbone between my three switches, and it's
         | awesome. I didn't bother placing conduit - just tacked up
         | preterminated lengths using coax clips and ordered a spare in
         | case one of them ever goes down. I also have Wi-Fi mesh routers
         | on each switch, which provides low speed redundancy until I
         | have time to replace a fiber. I considered doing conduit -
         | mostly I didn't because I don't expect to be in this house for
         | too many more years. I don't know that I would run fiber to
         | many more places - I did place a jumper through the wall for my
         | wife's desktop if we wanted that in the future. But most
         | consumer devices still seem to have rj45s, so I wouldn't want
         | to put down a media converter for each. If this were a new
         | build I might consider placing fiber and only lighting it as
         | needed.
         | 
         | This is the SFP DAS and fiber links in the current place:
         | 
         | workstation - switchUpStairs - switchMainFloor - switchBasement
         | - nas
         | 
         | Edge devices are a mix between 100meg, 1gig, 2.5gig, so
         | anything wired is limited mostly by its own nic or the ISP.
        
         | toast0 wrote:
         | Sounds like a lot of work (unless you've got easy access... my
         | last house had a basement with access to wall cavities, you
         | could just shove cables up and reach in from a wall plate to
         | grab it or shove down from the room).
         | 
         | I've got some 10g at my current house, but it's over cat5e
         | cause that was already in the walls. Also adding a few 2.5g
         | with a 4x2.5g + 2xsfp+ 10g switch that goes into a 10g capable
         | switch.
        
         | madaxe_again wrote:
         | Yeah, but it's a km from one end to the other, and a WiFi relay
         | wasn't cutting it, and Ethernet couldn't stretch the distance -
         | so fibre it was.
         | 
         | Utter pain in the ass, broke one fibre pulling it through
         | conduit with way too much force (like, 2000+N), another got
         | eaten by a fox before I'd put it in a conduit, and terminating
         | fibre is a royal pain if you have to do it.
         | 
         | But yeah, totally worth it.
        
         | ericd wrote:
         | I did a few rooms with fiber and copper for 10G, you don't need
         | EMT, I found the blue flexible smurf tube perfect for this.
        
         | simoncion wrote:
         | I've run fiber in my apartment, but it's running along
         | baseboards in no-traffic areas and draped high up along wall
         | and window moldings in nonzero-traffic ones.
         | 
         | > I am also thinking it might need to be shrouded in EMT
         | conduit
         | 
         | Why would you need to run your fiber in metal pipe? EMI isn't a
         | problem with fiber.
        
       | FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
       | FiberStore (fs.com) have offered vendor neutral and
       | reprogrammable SFPs and other modules for years (they're also
       | dramatically less expensive).
        
         | Someone1234 wrote:
         | They're dramatically less expensive than original OEM, but UB
         | clearly is targeting them with this release/aggressive pricing.
         | 
         | It remains to be seen if UB's pricing (particularly $50 on the
         | "Wizard") is just temp to get their foot in the door. I suspect
         | it is; and we'll see the price increase later.
        
           | xienze wrote:
           | > I suspect it is; and we'll see the price increase later.
           | 
           | I used to use Ubiquiti gear a number of years ago, but left
           | when they started moving into an Apple-esque "prosumer"
           | direction with corresponding price increases. That, and the
           | constant bugs.
        
             | Someone1234 wrote:
             | Just to add context:
             | 
             | Ubiquiti's G3 Instant entry level camera was launched at
             | $30 in 2021; which is $55 adjusted for inflation, but
             | they're _actually_ selling it for $80. The G4 Instant is
             | $99 and G6 Instant is $180(!). Keep in mind this is their
             | cheapest, entry level, offering in the camera space.
             | 
             | Whereas if you contrast these prices with a Reolink E1 Pro
             | which is $55 (with free shipping) and superior to the G4
             | Instant in every metric (lens quality, pixel count, PTZ,
             | ONVIF support, et al). This essentially makes this a space
             | that Ubiquiti is no longer interested in competing in.
        
               | xienze wrote:
               | One of the more egregious examples in my opinion is their
               | rack mounted cable modem. I would love to get it but --
               | $279? No thanks.
        
               | tguvot wrote:
               | on thingverse and some other sites there are adapters for
               | different cable modems to make them rack mounted
        
         | zamadatix wrote:
         | > (they're also dramatically less expensive)
         | 
         | It depends, but for typical networking I'd say Ubiquti is
         | actually offering better pricing here (outside of 10G LR) - and
         | I'm saying that as someone who has sold 10s of thousands of FS
         | modules to customers.                            |  FS  |
         | Ubiquiti       -----------+------+-----------       Programmer
         | | $369 | $49       10G SR     | $25  | $12 ($20)       10G LR
         | | $34  | $59 ($85)       25G SR     | $49  | $29 ($49)
         | 25G LR     | $74  | $69 ($119)       100G SR4   | $99  | $39
         | ($69)
         | 
         | Note: Prices in () are the costs outside of the limited time
         | mark-down period.
         | 
         | Side note for the HN crowd: For ridiculous homelab 100G
         | shenanigans look for Intel 100G-CWDM4 on sites like Ebay. They
         | go for $4 and work with SM LC fiber from 0-2000 meter runs,
         | making great DAC replacements (cheaper+thinner replaceable
         | cabling). They run great, I've had 8 going for a year. Even if
         | all 8 failed tomorrow and I bought 8 more that's still cheaper
         | than a single 100G SR4 from FS. You can pair these with used
         | 100G NICs for ~$100, making a 100G direct connection between 2
         | machines ~$250 after shipping+tax.
        
           | aaronax wrote:
           | Fun fact: each one also consumes approximately $4 in
           | electricity per year.
           | 
           | Assuming 2.5W typical consumption, $0.18/kWh rate. More like
           | $8/year if you are in a high rate area!
        
           | FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
           | For high speed home stuff, I usually pick up some old
           | Mellanox infiniband cards and cables. They're usually dirt
           | cheap and insanely quick. Difficult to work with if you do
           | not know what your are doing.
        
             | subscribed wrote:
             | OMG, mlx fw upgrades.
             | 
             | I'm so happy my current employer chose sfc :)
        
               | FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
               | Lol.. yeah. Was fun having a 32Gb (QDR) storage network
               | at home for next to nothing for a while (except the huge
               | electric bill).
        
           | kllrnohj wrote:
           | > Ubiquti is actually offering better pricing here (outside
           | of 10G LR)
           | 
           | Ubiquiti's 10GB LR of $59 is for a 2-pack, not per-module. So
           | that still comes out cheaper than FS for the sale duration at
           | least. Not by a lot, granted, but still cheaper.
        
           | Hikikomori wrote:
           | Nice prices from Ubiquiti. I think fs mostly competes against
           | Cisco which have much higher prices. IIRC we hade like a 95%
           | discount off Ciscos list price for optics.
        
         | kotaKat wrote:
         | And if you shove the wrong (i.e. non-FS) optic in an FS Box you
         | accidentally softlock your account for a week at a time as a
         | punishment :)
        
           | gonesilent wrote:
           | That app also sends ser# and other info to FS forcing you to
           | help them build out the DB.
        
         | muppetman wrote:
         | As does Flexoptixs (much better quality than fs.com in my
         | experience)
         | 
         | https://www.flexoptix.net/en/fo-fb-5.html?option875=1
         | 
         | If you're buying at scale you can get a Flexoptixs box for
         | free, long as you promise to write a review. At least, you used
         | to be able to.
        
         | eiginn wrote:
         | Now if only the fiberstore SFP programmer didn't require an app
         | that is basically malware as far as I'm concerned.
        
           | FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
           | It is pretty bad...I use a crap laptop to run it (same thing
           | I do for all my PLC software that is just horrible)
        
       | dawnerd wrote:
       | Looks cool but their text on that page is very clearly written by
       | LLM and pretty exhausting to read.
        
       | donatj wrote:
       | Early this year I started redoing the backbone of my home network
       | with 10 gb. Some of it's fiber, some of it's 10 gb copper
       | Ethernet. It's been genuinely frustrating the weird
       | incompatibilities between switches and SFP+ modules.
       | 
       | All my switches are MikroTik. My SFP+ modules are MikroTik,
       | Ubiquiti, and some 3rd party ones from before I knew better.
       | 
       | I've had modules that will only run at gigabit in one switch but
       | will give me the full 10 gb in another. I've had modules that
       | refuse to work in one MikroTik switch but will happily work in a
       | different MikroTik switch. I've just had a world of pain.
       | 
       | I've got everything basically working after months of fiddling
       | and I'm inclined to just not... touch... anything.
        
         | jabart wrote:
         | 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.
        
           | donatj wrote:
           | Funnily enough, this 10gtek worked on _one_ of my 3 switches,
           | but I could only establish a gigabit connection. I returned
           | it [1]
           | 
           | These 10gtek fiber modules on the other hand have worked
           | flawlessly so far. [2]
           | 
           | This Mikrotik module would not establish a 10 gb link with my
           | Thunderbolt dock no matter what I tried. Works fine with my
           | servers though so I swapped it out.
           | 
           | I've pretty much resigned myself to just buying the full
           | brand Ubiqitui SFP+ adapters [4] for converting to copper.
           | 
           | I recently purchased [5] to run to my living room, but I have
           | not found the time/energy to do the run.
           | 
           | 1. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KFBFL16
           | 
           | 2. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08BP4M8LV
           | 
           | 3. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078SNK1MY
           | 
           | 4. https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/accessories-modules-
           | fibe...
           | 
           | 5. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CYC6P6KF
        
             | tguvot wrote:
             | did you try to disable autonegotiation and force speed ? i
             | think i had to do it a couple of times with copper
        
               | donatj wrote:
               | Yep. I actually had to do that to get the Ubiqiti one to
               | work. It just did not work when I tried that with the
               | Mikrotik adapter.
        
               | tguvot wrote:
               | btw, if you are using 10gbe copper modules, take a look
               | at their temperature. some of mine were getting to 92C i
               | think. had to put a bunch of heatsinks on them
        
               | LtdJorge wrote:
               | I put a couple of Noctua NF-14 over the top ventilation
               | holes in my rack, with the silicone mounting thingies and
               | the NA-FC1 PWM controller. They are almost silent in
               | winter. The switch with 10Gb copper is under the fans.
        
               | tguvot wrote:
               | i opened switch and put noctua inside to cool sfp cage
               | that i added heatsink to, in addition to heatsinks on
               | sfp+ module itself. it dropped temperature from 92c to
               | 75c. year later i replaced it with fiber run.
        
               | chopsuei3 wrote:
               | Make sure you also pay attention to the distance rating
               | of the SFP. I had a very similar experience with modules
               | not working at the right speed sometimes. Turned out I
               | was running 50 meters of cable over a 30 meter SFP. Got
               | the correct one, and as low wattage rating as possible
               | and it's been rock solid ever since.
        
             | booi wrote:
             | I tried converting everything to copper as well but the
             | copper DACs use a lot of power and ended up not working out
             | due to the greatly increased power usage (mostly because
             | the networking "closet" wasn't really designed for it). So
             | beware if you're moving it to copper
        
           | LtdJorge wrote:
           | I have a few SFP+ doing 10GbE over UTP from 10Gtek in a
           | Mikrotik. They work perfectly, although hot (to be expected).
        
           | simoncion wrote:
           | > * I will note that the 10gb sfp+ modules from 10gtek on a
           | Mikrotik just don't work.
           | 
           | Weird. For the past three years, I've had 10Gtek 10gbit SFP+
           | optical modules in all of my Mikrotik switches [0] and they
           | Just Work.
           | 
           | My switches are the CRS326-24G-2S+, and the SFPs were the
           | "generic" versions. I wonder why yours were so troublesome.
           | 
           | [0] ...and (after fixing their eeproms) my Intel x520 NICs...
        
         | tracker1 wrote:
         | Similar... I only bought a single 8-port 10gb ethernet switch
         | though... I have a couple devices with 10g nics including my
         | NAS, the rest are 2.5g. I'm hoping that sooner than later, 10g
         | ethernet gear pricing comes down closer to where 2.5g is today.
        
       | karotte wrote:
       | Interesting, that's pretty much the same thing I developed 6
       | years ago, though with a nicer display and QSFP slot:
       | https://github.com/carrotIndustries/hubble/
        
       | tripdout wrote:
       | Does it only clone the EEPROM from one SFP module to another (so
       | you need to physically posess both), or can you write arbitrary
       | data?
       | 
       | And does it only write to SFP modules from Ubiquiti (looking at
       | you FS BOX)?
       | 
       | Another tool you can use for this (without a nice UI) is the SFP
       | Buddy: https://oopselectronics.com/product/SFPB
        
       | qwertyuiop_ wrote:
       | Just bought an SFP+ module that works with Cisco, Dell, Juniper
       | but won't work with Unifi. Is this supposed to test all generic
       | modules even the cheap Chinese brands ?
        
       | gojomo wrote:
       | WTF is 'SFP'?
        
         | tuetuopay wrote:
         | Small Form-factor Pluggable, a common optics format for 1 to
         | 25Gbps networks. See the wikipedia page:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Form-factor_Pluggable
        
       | raaxe wrote:
       | 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
        
       | encom wrote:
       | >updates via the UniFi mobile app
       | 
       | Oh come on!
        
       | sedatk wrote:
       | Sold out already.
        
       | aetherspawn wrote:
       | UniFi SFP modules work fine in Dell and Synology servers, so
       | contrary to most of the anecdotes in this thread I've always just
       | bought the 20 packs and had no issues.
       | 
       | Didn't need reprogramming.
       | 
       | The quality is fine, oldest modules more than 5 years old and
       | only 1 failure in 100.
        
       | weinzierl wrote:
       | "The SFP Wizard is a pocket-sized powerhouse that checks the
       | health of any SFP or QSFP module and programs them in just
       | seconds."
       | 
       | I never knew you could program them. How smart are they? Are
       | there ones capable of running Linux?
        
         | Maxious wrote:
         | Yes, eg. This one runs a ssh server
         | https://www.glbb.jp/en/hardware/gs3/
        
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