Recommendations for Hardware Setup for Optical Fiber with VyOS

[whitesmaverick]

Hello Everyone,
I am planning to set up a network using optical fiber and would like to use VyOS as my operating system. I need some advice on the hardware requirements and best practices for this setup.

Here are some specific points I’m looking for guidance on:

1. Recommended Network Interface Cards (NICs): Which NICs are best suited for optical fiber connections and fully supported by VyOS? I’m particularly interested in 10Gbps or higher.
2. Optical Transceivers: Are there specific brands or models of SFP/SFP+ transceivers that are known to work well with VyOS? Any compatibility issues I should be aware of?
3. Hardware Configuration:What are the recommended CPU, RAM, and storage specifications for a VyOS router handling high-speed optical fiber connections?
4. Switches and Other Networking Equipment: Are there any particular switches or other networking hardware that you would recommend for a robust and reliable optical fiber network with VyOS?
5. Best Practices: Any tips or best practices for setting up and maintaining a VyOS router in an optical fiber network environment?

I appreciate any advice or insights you can share from your experiences. Thank you!

[Apachez]

1. Mellanox, Broadcom and Intel (in that order).

2. FS.com have a good reputation of 3rd party optics.

3. Depends on which speed you need, number of concurrent interfaces working and pushing data at that speed and the size of your wallet. Personally I prefer AMD EPYC these days along with maximizing the memory channels to maximize performance. AMD have far fewer security vulnerabilities compared to Intel where each found vulnerability decreases performance (due to microcode updates and/or through kernel mitigrations).

4. Depends on what kind of gear you mean? When selecting cabling go for the LSZH, OFNP, OFNR regarding firesafety: Optical fiber, nonconductive, riser - Wikipedia

5. I use RJ45 (TP-cabling, CAT6A, S/FTP or UTP depending on application) for up to 1Gbps. Anything above I use singlemodefiber (even for short runs - by IEEE standard the fiber can be down to 2 meter in length, you can add attenuation if needed either by a attenuator (attaches at the end of the signal) or by just but the cable as a spool). Avoid 2.5G and 5G for RJ45 (aka NBASE-T) since that got issues with autoneg (which is partly why I choose fiber for anything above 1G).