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Comment by stargrazer | Hacker News Reader

Does any one know of switches similar to this but might be loadable with Linux? Maybe able to run with switchdev or similar?

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OpenWRT > Table of Hardware > Switches: https://openwrt.org/toh/views/switches

ansible-openwrt: https://github.com/gekmihesg/ansible-openwrt

/? terraform OpenWRT: https://www.google.com/search?q=terraform+openwrt

/? terraform Open vSwitch: https://www.google.com/search?q=open+vswitch+terraform

Open vSwitch supports OpenFlow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_vSwitch

Open vSwitch > "Porting Open vSwitch to New Software or Hardware" https://docs.openvswitch.org/en/latest/topics/porting/

Maybe consider MikroTik switches running RouterOS (ROS) / SwitchOS (SwOS)? The learning curve is steeper than other switches, but the functionality is quite powerful. At first I was not a fan of WinBox, but it grew on me after I learned they had a beta version for Linux/macOS and that it could connect to a router by using just a L2 MAC address. It can also be virtualized / dockerized, so you can experiment with it before buying hardware.

The newer hardware is even better, but I have the compact desktop version of this 24-port MikroTik switch: https://www.servethehome.com/mikrotik-css326-24g-2srm-review...

As well as this Wifi 6 AP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICrDw8_PZ3o

They recently released a small 10G ethernet switch that looks seriously good: https://www.servethehome.com/mikrotik-crs304-4xg-in-review-t...

If I had to do my network all over again, I'd probably get either the MikroTik L009UiGS-2HaxD or RB5009UG+S+IN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIxkkNxsEhs

Side Notes

- The Terraform provider for RouterOS is actively developed: https://github.com/terraform-routeros/terraform-provider-rou...

- If you want Linux without actually needing to poke at the underlying OS, then you might also be interested in Palo Alto NGFW products running PAN-OS. Terraform is also an option: https://github.com/PaloAltoNetworks/terraform-provider-panos

- The one area I found RouterOS majorly lacking was IPv6 support, which is provided as a separate plugin/package. My ISP doesn't support IPv6, so this did not make any difference for me.

- The best IPv6 support in a network product advertizing a unix-like OS is OPNsense / PFSense, but those are routers and not switch hardware. Terraform providers are also available for these.

> The newer hardware is even better, but I have the compact desktop version of this 24-port MikroTik switch: https://www.servethehome.com/mikrotik-css326-24g-2srm-review...

The one you linked unfortunately only runs SwOS, which is really not very good.

However, current versions of RouterOS (i.e., any 7.x version) do IPv6 natively without an additional package.

Nice catch. So it is possible to run both on most switches in that product family. The one I have for example is running RouterOS and performing various L3 functions. Here's a product table explaining which ones can support RouterOS: https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/spaces/SWOS/pages/76415036/CR...

If you know how plebians can get affordable, licensed Palo firewalls for the home, I'm all ears.

Big fan of Opnsense for the home gateway!

https://blog.benjojo.co.uk/post/sn2010-linux-hacking-switchd... if you hadn't seen it already and the associated HN comments:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40141967

Any of the SoNIC supported switches - they all run a linux NOS, with an interface to the switch chip.

Can even run containers using kubelet :D

https://github.com/sonic-net/SONiC/blob/sonic_image_md_updat...

any of those switches in the right price range for home? I've been looking for a cheap SONiC switch for a long time but those on the supported hardware list are all rack/datacenter sized I would say -- and none do PoE which I really need for home usage (cameras, wifi APs)

As far as I can tell, these switches tend to run Linux. You can probably get root shell with some effort.

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