Having a hard time finding any BiDi SFP’s at the moment and had to use these to try and finish a project.Had to give these a go otherwise I’m stuck waiting 2 months for BiDi SFP’s coming into the country.
Just a heads up to anyone out there trying to use these BiDi modules with CNMatrix switches.
SFP’s will not light up by default.
Requires setting speed 1000 setting on extreme-ethernet interface
Cambium if you guys ever think about creating certified BiDi 3KM and BiDi 20KM modules I’d really appreciate it to avoid hacks and turkeyshoots like this.It appears the Transceiver type is not getting picked up correctly from what I can tell.
Hardware Version : 01
Firmware Version : Diag-1.00.15
CNS Software Version : 3.2.1-r5
+1 for that, i tried few months ago, with same modules, one side mikrotik, other side cnmatrix.
Link was up, but on cnmatrix there was no tx traffic, only rx from mikrotik
Have you tried the Mikrotik BiDi SFP/SFP+ competing versions of these modules ? Unfortunately my suppliers have no stock so pretty much forced to use these.Importing stuff through FS at this stage is a no go for me as well due to delays.
Mikrotik codes are [S+2332LC10D ] and [S-3553LC20D ]
Well I don’t have great news.Logged a call with support and according to them “There is no transceiver type coded in this module, so the switch keeps the current port speed”. Kinda weird because I’ve plugged them into other SFP+ switches and they worked right of the bat so it looks like we’re SOL with this.
Hoping to have better luck with the Mikrotiks if I can get my hands on them.
Currently we do not offer a Cambium branded BiDi transceiver. As you are probably aware, we do offer the following suite of 1G/10G fiber and copper transceivers:
However, we have tested 3rd party BiDi transceivers with compatibility in cnMatrix with no issues… both 1G and 10G BiDi variants.
Compliant optical transceiver vendors follow the protocol outlined in SFF-8472. This multi-source protocol defines a “standardization” so that products from optical module manufacturers and networks equipment manufacturers can be seamlessly interoperable.
That being the case, cnMatrix uses the Transceiver Type field coded within the SFP/SFP+ module to automatically configure the port speed on the switch. So for 1G SFP transceivers, this field lets cnMatrix know to configure the port to 1G, and likewise, a 10G SFP+ transceiver will let the switch know to configure the port to 10G.
Since most EX2K cnMatrix switches have 10G SFP+ ports (except the EX1010/EX2010 SKUs), these ports are default configured to operate at 10G.
When a properly coded transceiver 1G transceivers is installed, cnMatrix would read this Transceiver Type field, and automatically re-configure the port to run at 1G.
You will notice that the 1G Ubiquiti BiDi transceivers (UF-SM-1G-S) do not properly code this Transceiver Type field.
The second transceiver of the Ubiquiti matched pair is also incorrectly coded:
TX Status: Enabled
Transceiver type: N/A
Transceiver wavelength: 110Nm
Vendor name: UBNT
Vendor SN: FT19022617373
Vendor OUI: 000000
Vendor PN: UF-SM-1G-S
Revision:
Without the correctly indicating that the Transciever Type is a 1G transceiver, cnMatrix will not know to configure the port to 1G, and remains at the 10G speed. Thus the reason the the Ubiquiti part “does not work” in cnMatrix.
As you noted, the workaround is to manually configure the port to 1G speed in order for these Ubiquiti BiDi transceivers to work in cnMatrix.
However, in testing other Ubiquiti SFP/SFP+ transceivers, they do code in the correct transceiver types.
For example, their 1G SFP is coded as:
TX Status: Enabled
Transceiver type: 1000BASE-SX
Transceiver wavelength: 850Nm
Vendor name: UBNT
Vendor SN: FT18112301914
Vendor OUI: 000000
Vendor PN: UF-MM-1G
Revision:
On other 3rd party vendor BiDi transceivers we’ve tested, they do follow the SFF-8472 standard. Thus, cnMatrix will correctly configure the port accordingly.
Yes, it is a hassle to manually configure the port to 1G speed via the CLI, as you mentioned above.
However, there is an alternate workaround to pre-configure the fiber port to 1G without using the CLI.
The port retains the configuration of the port speed, even after the transceiver is removed. Only when a new transceiver is inserted will cnMatrix read the Transceiver Type, and re-configure the port speed… if necessary.
So if you insert a properly coded 1G transceiver, say a Cambium SFP-1G-SX, the port will be auto configured to 1G, based on this Transceiver Type.
TX Status: Enabled
Transceiver type: 1000BASE-SX
Transceiver wavelength: 850Nm
Vendor name: Cambium Networks
Vendor SN: M2003233146
Vendor OUI: 58c17a
Vendor PN: SFP-1G-SX
Revision: A
Date: 05/26/2020
You can then remove this transceiver, and then install the Ubiquiti 1G BiDi transceiver into the same port. Since this Transceiver Type is “N/A”, cnMatrix will not change the port speed… and remain at 1G.
This Ubiquiti part now be functional at 1G, without having to manual typing in the commands via CLI to change the port speed.
Hope this help explains why the Ubiquiti BiDi transceiver aren’t “automatically” configured in cnMatrix.
Let me know if you need any further clarification or have any additional questions.
Marius,
One reason why the Ubnt BiDi may work in other switches, is instead of setting the SFP/SFP+ port speed based on the Transceiver Type (which is the standardized method to “auto-configure”), these switch vendors may have hard-coded their SW to specifically look for the Vendor PN… specifically the UBNT “SF-SM-1G-S”. Thus, if this transceiver is installed into their switch, they could use this field to configure their port speed.
At this time, we did not decide to hard code our SW to look specifically for the Ubnt BiDi transceiver p/n. As we have no control of what Ubnt does to their p/n’s in the future, having to check when/if Ubnt changes their p/n would be a logisitical issue since it would then require a cnMatrix SW update to change the hard code for their “new” p/n.
Yeah I sorta figured that some switches/routers are probably doing some sort of hack to detect module speeds.Bizarro that the SFP vendors don’t just follow set standards to make interoperability easier between equipment.
Well just an update on this.Some SFP+ layer 3 switches from Dell/Netgear don’t support hard setting speed to 1000 and require some form of autoneg on the port.What we’ve found is you have to set the “negotiation inband” setting on the port otherwise the link won’t fire when cold starting or rebooting the cambium switches which of course breaks your sync to cnMaestro.
Soo yeah this is a dead end.I’d recommend not buying these modules.
Busy trying to get a hold of Finisar modules but it’s tough going due to Covid.Will report if we get any joy out of Finisar or FS BiDi.
cnMatrix release 4.0 supports CLI Overrides which you can use to push CLI commands required to set the “negotiation inband” during config sync. Using CLI Overrides prevents out-of-sync condition between cnmatrix and cnmaestro. Release 4.0 will be available in early March.
Marius,
I have tested with Finisar BiDi transceivers in cnMatrix, and have had no issues.
They follow the SFF-8472 standard, and properly code in the Transceiver Type.
Note that these Finisar BiDi are their 10G data-rate parts, not the 1G.
(these matched pair frequencies are 1270nm / 1330nm)
Ok I got some good news and I got some bad news with FS BiDi SFP’s.One type of SFP’s linked up (1310/1490) and another type (1310/1550) gave the same issues as the Ubnt’s.The other Dell/Netgear gear also don’t seem to like the 1310nm/1550 sfp’s . Required a whole host of manual settings per port to just make them work.
Have pushed a couple of terabytes of data through working pair and has survived many reboots, patch cable insert/removals and module removal/reinsertion so I’d wager its pretty stable.Working pair required no manual settings per port on either the Cambium or L3 switch side.
show interfaces transceivers
Unsupported transceiver inserted in interface Ex0/1
show fiber-ports optics-info 1/0/6
1/0/6 FS 0 0 - G2008141996 SFP-GE-BX 1300 A Unknown No 1G
