The Basics and Examples - USER MANUAL

[sirhc]

I made an hour and a half tutorial, click HERE to view the movie.
The firmware is not finished and we hope with support from the forum community we will get there soon and add some features that you request.

Some Basics:
Default IP address: 192.168.1.20
Default username: admin
Default password: admin
Serial Console: 8, N, 1, None, 115,200

If you serial console into the switch for now you are at the Linux shell, however if you type “switch” and press enter you will get into our command line interface (CLI).

We plan to make this the default landing pad eventually where you would type in "CMD" to drop to the linux shell and type "Exit" to return to the CLI.

PLEASE DO NOT COLD DEAD SHORT TEST THE POE.
ESPECIALLY AT 48V OR 48VH AS YOU WILL DAMAGE YOUR SWITCH.

I can not stress the importance of making sure your cabling is correct before you apply 48V and 48VH. The best thing to do is before you apply power do a cable diagnostics from the web UI and make sure there is no cross pair shorts.

100/1000 Mbps 48VH devices like AF24 and AF5 will show all pairs OK or OPEN.
10/100 Mbps links like the SAF 106 will show pairs 1 & 2 as OK or OPEN and pairs 3 & 4 as short but NOT cross shorted.
10/100 Mbps airMAX 24V devices will also show pairs 1 & 2 as OK or OPEN and pairs 3 & 4 as short but also NOT cross short.

You might also consider initially powering the device with a brick to make sure your cabling is correct then after you verify all is OK then plug the cable into the switch PoE port and then turn the PoE on to that port in the UI.

Remember if you are powering your entire tower with one switch and you damage it then you're in trouble!

It is also advised that you turn PoE on and off in the switch and NOT unplug and plug cables in to energized ports, especially 48VH ports because the MOSFET circuits increase current slower than plunging the cable into a switch port that already has PoE turned on reducing the in-rush current load.

This is more important with the 48VH devices than the 24V lower current draw devices like airMAX radios.

If you plug in an RJ45 connector incorrectly it can cause a momentary short across pins or under the right circumstances an arc across pins which could cause damage to the switch.

Experiment with the WISP Switch UI's cable diagnostics tool in your shop to get a feel of what different devices will look like so you can test the cable to PoE devices when they are plugged in before you apply power to the port.

Maybe have a meeting with your installers and discuss procedures to check new cable runs or jumper to a PoE device with the cable diagnostic tool before you turn the PoE up on that port. You could even run the cable diagnostic tool on some shorted test cables WITH PoE OFF OF COURSE. It is a great tool why not use it!

We plan to add some software features to HELP prevent a “cold” dead short but we ran out of time and wanted to get these out into your hands. A “cold” dead cable short is far more dangerous to the switch than a "warm" short as poly-fuses work on heat and if they are already passing current and warm when a short occurs it is far less likely to damage the switch as a warm poly-fuse will trip much faster than a cold poly-fuse.

However it is always possible to damage the switch from any Ethernet cable short, primarily the Ethernet Transformers get damaged first. We got the highest current rated transformers we could find which are 720mA per pair. Passive POE and higher current draws were/are not in mind when they design Ethernet transformers but we will keep looking for higher rated ones. Remember that is 720mA per pair which means the 48VH which uses all four pair should be good up to around 1.2 to 1.4 Amps or 60 Watts +/- at 48-50V. I have been seeing our AF24 on average pulling about 47 Watts with 200' +/- of Ethernet cable in front of it.

If using the console in the web UI we are aware that it is a little sluggish and we plan to speed this up as well as improve the CLI with all your suggestions.

There is a small unmarked hole on the front of this switch which is the reset / factory default button where you can use a small object like a paperclip to press it.

To simply reset/reboot the switch
Press and hold the button in for 5 seconds until all the green lights on the front of switch loop around then release the button and the switch will reset.

To factory default the switch
Continue to press and hold the button in for another 5 seconds until all the red lights on the front of switch loop around then release the button and the switch will be factory defaulted.

I will make posts here to show example configurations to explain some things in the switch UI.

Thanks,
Chris Sisler
a.k.a. sirhc

[sirhc]

Here is a screencap of one of the switches at one of my WISP's towers, we have different configurations on several towers testing different possible configurations.

In the screencap below we are testing the switch as a mid-span POE injector for 2 airFIBER 24 links and several private high end customer links using NanoBridges as well as servicing 9 AP's.

You will notice that the mid-span port segregations is achieved as follows:
VLAN 99 - HC2BV - Ports 1 & 25 - The airFIBER 24 is powered by 48VH on port 1 and port 25 using an SFP module goes to the router.
VLAN 100 - HC2QR - Ports 2 & 26 - The airFIBER 24 is powered by 48VH on port 2 and port 26 using an SFP module goes to the router.

We used U or Untagged on both ports as they will pass untagged data and just function as a mid-span POE.
We also did this for VLANs 10, 60, 70, & 71 which feed private NanoBridge links to high end customers.

All of our AP's and one PTP link (VLAN 11) are Trunked or Tagged to port 24 which is connected to our router.

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[sirhc]

In the screencap below you can see 2 examples of Link Aggregation as configured in one of the switches in our rack at our office/NOC.

Ports 1 & 2 are aggregated using Static Aggregation to our Cisco 2951 router, remember that Cisco does not support LACP in a lot of routers.

Ports 25 & 26 are aggregated to another WISP Switch in our rack using LACP-A which stands for LACP Active.

The difference between LACP-A (Active) and LACP-P (Passive) is that Active advertises it's presence and willingness to aggregate the links to whatever is connected on the other side of those ports where as Passive will wait and listen for the device connected to those ports to advertise it's intention to aggregate the links then try to negotiate the aggregation. You must have at least one side set to Active but I set both sides to Active.

Time out:
FAST and or SLOW is the time that the links will determine that the aggregation is up or down.....not sure why anyone would ever want SLOW?

Priority:
Well this is pretty simple.

I know these are basic explanations and we will put more into them as time goes on.

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[sirhc]

OK here is a quick rundown of the PoE options with each model.

PoE options by models

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You will notice in the screencap below ports 1 & 2 are powering airFIBER/SAF/EXALT units with the 48VH (notice they are RED) which injects power on all 4 pairs for increased current. Your device MUST support this or you could damage your device. Pretty much any device that support 802.3af/at will work with this PoE option.

Ports 3 & 4 are selected as just regular 48V (notice they are ORANGE) which only uses pins 4,5(+) and 7,8(-) which you can use for cameras, phones, Titanium radios that consume less than .5A

Ports that have 24V PoE (notice they are GREEN) which only uses pins 4,5(+) and 7,8(-) are for things like airMAX radios, cameras, mFi and such that consume less than .5A.

Ports without PoE are GREY like the ports to the Router.

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[sirhc]

On the Status tab you will notice little gears to the right side.

The very top gear if clicked provides a drop down menu to switch between raw numbers and human readable numbers for all the port stats and or the option to clear stats.

The gear at the end of each port row provides access to drop down menu that gives access to special utility functions.

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Cable Diagnostics is a powerful tool that will tell you the cable length and if the cable is improperly terminated. We suggest you run this on new cable runs before you plug the device on at the end. In this configuration it should indicate that all pairs are OPEN and provide the pair lengths. Then plug the cable into the device but before you apply power to the port run the diagnostics again.

If the PoE device is Gigabit capable you normally get all 4 pairs reported as OK and the pair lengths are displayed.

If the PoE device is only 10/100 capable like a Ubiquiti Rocket M5 you normally see pairs 1 and 2 reported as OK and pairs 3 and 4 report as SHORT and the pair lengths are displayed. (see below)

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You can even run the diagnostics on a port that has POE turned on. If it is a Gigabit connection it will not interfere with the traffic at all but if the connection is 10/100 Mbps it will momentarily interrupt data causing several pings to be lost so a pop up menu will warn you that this is about to occur. (See below)

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If pairs 3 or 4 report open then likely you have a bad end or wire where either the blue/blue white or brown/brown white pairs are not both shorted together. Remember in PASSIVE POE 24 volt the positive is carried on the blue/blue white pair together and negative on the brown/brown white pair. The radio will more then likely work OK if one of the pairs 3 or 4 is open but you are then carrying power on a single wire which is really not sufficient in longer cable lengths and can starve the radio of power.

However if ever get CROSS SHORT reported on any pairs NEVER apply power to that port because you have a short across pairs or color codes and will damage the radio or your switch. CROSS SHORT means that one color orange/green/blue/brown is cross shorted which should NEVER happen. POE polarity is NEVER split across pairs.

Port Bounce if selected will drop power to the port for 5 seconds to reboot your POE device.

Port Details will bring up a detailed breakdown of the port traffic and errors. (see picture below)

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[sirhc]

In the lower portion of the Status tab screen you have two graphs.

The graph on the left always displays throughput either Total or Port throughput.

If you do not have a port selected it displays Total switch throughput, you can un-select any current port selection by clicking on any area other than a Port row.

If you have a Port selected the left graph represents the selected ports throughput. The nice things about the WISP Switch graphs are when you first log into the UI the graphs are already fully populated whereas with the Ubiquiti ToughSwitch you have to wait for the graph to slowly populate.

Even better there is a selection on the right side above the right graph where you can select 30 seconds, 5 minutes, or 1 hour graphs all fully populated provided the switch has been running that long. (see picture below)

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Now keep in mind that the graphs sort of flatten out with longer representations as the data points are averaged on longer intervals.

If no Ports are selected the right graph by default will show a pie chart of the Traffic or Data Distribution but if you click on "Data Distribution" a drop down menu will appear where you can select between Data Distribution, Total Packets Rate, or Total Power Usage". (see picture below)

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If a Port is selected then the right graph by default represents Packet Rate for the selected port but if you click on "Packet Rate" a drop down menu will appear where you can select between Packet Rate or Power Usage for the selected port. (see picture below).

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Now in the graph below you can see a 30 second Power Usage graph for port 18 which is a Ubiquiti Rocket M5 access point and you can clearly see that is spikes to over 10 watts while transmitting which is interesting because on the spec sheet it claims a maximum power consumption of 6 watts... Makes you wonder!

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[sirhc]

If you click on the Device Tab a drop down menu will give you several options one is MAC Table.

If you click on the MAC Table option you will be presented with a screen showing the switch MAC table. (see picture below)

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The neat thing about our MAC table is we tell you the manufacturer of each entry on the table.

Eventually we plan to also display the last known IP address which is something most switches if any EVER display because normally switches do not care about IP addresses since they work on Layer 2 hardware MAC addresses only and are unaware of IP addresses.
How we intend to achieve this is Top Secret!

You can sort or filter the list based on many selections, you can sort based on any column by clicking on the column title such as "Manufacturer"

[sirhc]

So in an example above we showed how we used VLANs to create a mini 2 port switch within the WISP Switch to power AF24 links.

Now in this example, which is how we are doing all our Towers, we created a Static LAG using 2 copper SFP ports (ports 25 & 26) and port 24 also copper creating a 3Gb LAG between the WISP Switch and our Cisco 2951 router. We then created VLANs for each AP in the tower and for each airFIBER as well as some NanoBridges used for a couple high end customers with dedicated PTP links.

Here is the Status Tab (click on image for FULL Size)

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Here is the LAG Tab (click on image for FULL Size)

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Here is the VLAN Tab (click on image for FULL Size)

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[sirhc]

For instance if you have a VLAN defined with ID 10 and it includes ports (1 & 2) but you also want that same VLAN definition (cluster of ports) to carry VLANs "11,12,13,100,111, and 1000" you would click the check box "Trunk Port/Allowed VLANs" on “BOTH” ports (1 & 2) and make sure the list that by default is “1-4095” is changed to this “11-13,100,111,1000” or “10-13,100,111,1000”

But if you do not check and modify the allowed VLANs list for all ports in that VLAN it will not work.

Not sure if you need to include “10” in the allowed VLAN list as it is the primary VALN ID already?

Now ports 1 and 2 will pass VLANs “10,11,12,13,100,111,1000”