Re: 10Gb and 40Gb equipment available

[Thor Lancelot Simon <tls%panix.com@localhost>]

On Thu, Feb 16, 2017 at 10:42:21AM -0500, Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:
> NetBSD has received a donation of 10Gb Ethernet switches (Arista 7124S or SX
> and 7050).
> 
> We will use some of these switches in our own infrastructure but are
> offering others for long-term use by developers interested in using them to
> work on NetBSD-related projects.
> 
> An immediately obvious project would be porting of additional 10Gb card
> drivers, such as those for Broadcom, Solarflare, or Mellanox cards.  I
> can supply cards and cabling for this purpose.

I should note that another obvious project would be support for link-layer
encryption (MACsec) in our kernel.  I haven't used it on these switches
but according to the datasheet, it is supported.

The Linux kernel and many Windows drivers support this and it is
becoming an increasingly common protocol for protecting LAN and WAN
traffic (particularly in light of the recent slew of vulnerabilities in
IKE implementations and consequent nervousness about IPsec on WAN
links).

This should be a fairly simple task starting with the existing code for
encryption on wireless networks.  Strictly speaking, since this could be
tested card-to-card there is no need for a switch with MACsec support to
do this work, but we would be more than happy to supply one of these
switches to an interested and capable developer as a reference peer for
the protocol(s) (encryption and key negotiation).


-- 
 Thor Lancelot Simon	                                      tls%panix.com@localhost

	Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the
	inheritor of our fear.			-Alan Paton