Netonix Forums

The other day I took a trip to see Chris and the new Netonix assembly plant. I'll say that I'm very happy with the potential I see from this company. Netonix is on the right track developing products the WISP industry has desperately needed (easy to drive, robust switches; CPE APs with PoE power supplies, etc).

Being that the WISP SWITCH is really the first product from Netonix I wasn't sure how it would drive or how well it would work, but knowing Chris I had no doubts he had put countless hours of thought into the process as well as engineered it with communication with folks who are in the industry every day. While Chris was upstairs working with the software team I managed to grab two of the Netonix 24 port switches and put them in my vehicle, to test when I returned home.

I was not let down. And just to prove I haven't been paid off... here is the good, the bad and the ugly (actually I'm not sure there is any ugly).

When you initially log into the switch you are presented with a pop-up box, instead of a web based login form... personally I'd prefer a webbased login form... but this is hardly a show stopper: (note the default username is "netonix" not "admin")


The main status tab is nicely laid out, giving me a quick view of what's going on and the status of all of my ports:

This includes the "Christmas Tree" layout of the switch at the top. I'll admit, at first glance this can be very confusing, but take 10 minutes to familiarize yourself with the colors and it's a quick glance to know what's going on on your ports. One other nice feature of this switch is historical data retention. Assuming the switch has not been power cycled, you can click the 30sec/5min/1hour history buttons at the bottom right of the status page to see what's been going on in your network! COOL!

I can quickly see the description of the port, it's status, voltage (WITH CURRENT WATTS DRAWN!!!) and total TX/RX stats. There is also an errors counter, which can be clicked to bring up more details on any errors that may be accumulating on a switch port.


There's nothing super special under the "Ports" tab. Just an easy to configure interface for each port. Checking more than one port reveals a new line item at the very top which can be used to mass configure similar changes on all checked ports. Unchecking a port from the "stats" column will either include or exclude that port from the global TX/RX stats (useful if you only care about seeing a backhaul, or a group of APs):


And because this forum is a bear for attaching images *cough*, Chris... continuing this in the next post.

VLANs follow the familiar ToughSwitch style VLAN setup with T, E, and U being the port designators.


Although I didn't have any application where I could play with it, the switch support LACP/LAG to uplink through two connections which are of similar capacity. Note that it is not recommended to use this on wireless links which may have varying throughput capacities due to RF conditions.


The STP tab is also very straightforward, allowing the end user to configure priorities by port and switch, as well as the type of STP to use:


The tools drop down is very straightforward, offering functions such as:
* Ping Watchdog by port
* Port Bounce (Which can be configured to power cycle port(s) based on a schedule
* Ping, Traceroute, and Port Mirroring

The Device Configuration screen is extremely straightforward, placing everything you need to configure the switch on one simple to use screen:


The status screen shows a wide range of information about the switch, including memory and CPU, voltages, temperatures, and fan speeds (which can all be graphed via SNMP I might add!)


The MAC TABLE interface does something kind of interesting.... while many switches will show you the MAC address of connected devices, the WISP SWITCH tells you who the manufacturer of that device is. (NOTE: Last IP does not work currently, but is being fixed):

amishgenius wrote:Awesome!!!

I thought there was a power cycle button for each port....I don't see that

There is, look in the first picture next to the "BH" - port 6, there is a little "recycle icon". Pressing that will power cycle the port.

The switch also features a feature rich console, which can be accessed through SSH or the "console" option of the web interface.

Ahhh...kool

Finally,
A few pictures of the first switch in service. I'll have some more "action shots" of the other switch and an unboxing video later this week.

Initially, there does not appear to be a way to reset counters (such as errors/transmit packets/etc) without bouncing the port. This would be nice to be able to do when troubleshooting issues.

Awesome, me so jealous :)

mhoppes wrote:Initially, there does not appear to be a way to reset counters (such as errors/transmit packets/etc) without bouncing the port. This would be nice to be able to do when troubleshooting issues.

There is a little gear top right corner on status screen above the ports.

Ahhh! Thanks, Chris. Then I have a feature request to be able to reset counters on a port by port basis (e.g. I click the "Errors" and up pops the display for that port... I'd like to be able to reset only those counters rather than the entire switch).