Representing breakout interfaces/cable #11917
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HI, I have 40 GbE port that can be broken out into 4x10 with a breakout cable. But at rest it is simply a 40GbE port. So I must define the port as 40GbE when creating the device type. However it's not "known" how this port will be treated in future so, to me, it seems defining the physical port as its "as-built" speed and then using virtual interfaces to define the 4x10 [or similar] when needed is the best approach? It seems "ok" but it also doesn't seem right. Is the alternative to approach the cable as the source of the "breakout" and define it this way? I see chatter that this is the incorrect thing to do :) Do I have this right, or is this more meant for VLAN interfaces and the like? |
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Replies: 4 comments 9 replies
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Check the list for similar questions, Brian Candler wrote about this recently, but once you plug in the breakout cable, you now have added 4 new 10G physical interfaces to the device and the 40G interface can be marked as occupied by the breakout (either the mark connected flag or a custom_field that your templates respect). The physical relationships between the cables/fiber strands, the breakout interfaces and the QSFP might not be perfectly modeled but I think for Interfaces the main focus is not the physical modeling but the logical model needed to template interface configs.
Interfaces are strongly associated with VLANs, IPs, FHRP, custom_fields, etc. that allow you to template their config, and the physical details of how specific breakout interfaces are related to the QSFP or which fiber strands are in use don't affect config templating all that much. Eg. if you need a config statement to breakout the port, templating a boolean custom field to enable that statement doesn't require the template to know which specific ports are created by the breakout, unless that's part of the config, right?
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Mark Tinberg ***@***.***>
Division of Information Technology-Network Services
University of Wisconsin-Madison
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From: ronniefalcon ***@***.***>
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Subject: [netbox-community/netbox] Representing breakout interfaces/cable (Discussion #11917)
HI,
I want to be sure I am following the "best practice" when representing the following:
I have 40 GbE port that can be broken out into 4x10 with a breakout cable. But at rest it is simply a 40GbE port. So I must define the port as 40GbE when creating the device type.
However it's not "known" how this port will be treated in future so, to me, it seems defining the physical port as its "as-built" speed and then using virtual interfaces to define the 4x10 [or similar] when needed is the best approach?
It seems "ok" but it also doesn't seem right. Is the alternative to approach the cable as the source of the "breakout" and define it this way? I see chatter that this is the incorrect thing to do :)
Do I have this right, or is this more meant for VLAN interfaces and the like?
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Certainly you're right to start with the single 40G port in the Device Type as you have done. When you want to break it out to 4x10G, then there are a couple of options:
Option (1) is better for modelling the physical (cabling) reality: the breakout cable really does have a single connector, going into a single port. But option (2) works better for cable tracing and for finding interface neighbors. |
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I have the same problem as @ronniefalcon, a QSFP+ interface on one side and four servers with an interface on the other side. The connection between them is a QSFP+ breakout cable. To me it looks like the suggested solutions to model this in netbox are not working. When creating four new additional virtual interfaces with the 40G port as a parent, it is not possible to connect a cable between the virtual interface and the server interfaces. Only physical interfaces may be connected via cable. What is the best way to represent the relation between the 40G parent port (for example xe-0/0/1) and the virtual ports (xe-0/0/1:0 to xe-0/0/1:4) in netbox? |
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As hardware port capacity grows larger and density stays the same, it becomes more common to use breakout cables. |
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Certainly you're right to start with the single 40G port in the Device Type as you have done. When you want to break it out to 4x10G, then there are a couple of options:
Option (1) is better for modelling the physical (cabling) reality: the breakout cable really does have a single co…