Enabling fiber

[Yuval_1]

Im asking this for a buddy that runs REDHAT 7(.2?).
How do you install/uninstall support for fiber optics and the such?
He both wants to run fiber (on a home network. Dont ask me, he also runs everything on SCSIs...) and to stop support for other, unwanted elements.
I realize that I sound like Im talking out of my backside, I only use it as a server in my own little small home network. I got that it's pretty simple to do, but how?

And don't RTFM me, I can't even find it...

[Alexander Chuzhoy]

It's kernel config file configuration.
what you generally need to do is to change the config file and to recompile the kernel.
First of all make sure you have kernel development installed. If you do then go to the link below to see the steps of configuring/compiling the kernel:

http://www.jsward.com/linux/redhat-kernel.html

Anyway I think that 7.2 supports the fiber by default (My redhat 8.0 did), I'm not sure though.

[Ragu_1]

Your friend maybe wanting to wire his home network using fiber. It is a good thing to do but overkill. The fiber usually gets terminated at the switch. Heard that there are NIC cards that terminate fiber, they may be very expensive. There are these Gigabit Interface cards from 3Com, Intel etc. The kernel Linux has got good support for most of these Gigabit Interface cards. You may have to do some patching and re-compiling to get your friend's fiber homenet going!

[Martin P.J. Zinser · Accepted solution]

Yup,

try a make xconfig to check if there is a driver for the card in the system. (7.2 might be a bit old if this is a new card). Once the kernel is built to support the card your friend should be able to configure it like any other network interface.

Greetings, Martin

[Thomas Bianco]

There are already some good replies, but I just want to summarize and clarify:

Support for fibre optics has more to do with the Card then the kernel. In general, the kernel doesn't care what medium the network runs off (isn't OSI layering lovely?). All the kernel cares about is talking to the card's hardware. Itâ s up to the card to actually get the packet over the wire (fibre, as the case may be).

There are a couple of things your friend should think about before running fibre optics in his house.

1) It's expensive. Often several times more expensive then copper.

2) It's fragile. He shouldn't expect to be able to tug or twist fibre. It is glass, after all.

3) It's not long enough. The major benefit to fibre is length. A home installation will probably never get over the 25m limit on gigabit over copper, let alone need 2-10km of fibre.

4) It's only a patch. Fibre optics are retranslated back into copper transmission for processing at the switch. There are some companies working on optical switching, but it's research grade right now. (Single optical transistors are being produced vs. x hundred thousand transistors in a dumb hub)

5) No user serviceable parts. Fibre test and patch equipment cost thousands of US$ and is not generally available. Copper patch and test equipment is cheap and commodity. Radio shack, maybe even best buy, usually has everything you'll ever need

6) It's expensive. Good lord man! 50 US$ for a 5 ft patch vs. 5 for same over copper.

If the kernel sources that came with your distro don't have drivers for your FO card, contact the vendor. Most vendors can bang out a Linux standard driver in no time, but there usually has to be demand.

If it's in there, just change the kernelconfig and recompile. There are some excellent docs on this at http://www.TLDP.org

As for RTFM, you should never get that here. Unless it's a blatant manual question, I assume you've read the manual, help pages, and probably a few FAQs and still need assistanc

[Yuval_1]

Thank you Thomas!
The guy already got all the hardware he needed though. I guess he wants to experiment.
Man, I don't know.
The question was mainly about the program 'how to', and you all answered it well. I'll link him to this page and ask for his feedback.

[Rick Garland]

RH 7.2 has native support for fiber - assuming you have the HBA card. Depending on how your buddy is connected (and what HW he has) is can have the option of running in QuickLoop mode or in Fabric.

Got Dell PE 1650 with QLogic HBA card going to Brocade Silkworm and to SCSI bridges. Works fine. My advice would be to run in fabric mode so as to elimate the LIPs associated with the quickloop mode.

You may want to recompile the kernel to add the necessary support, multiple LUNs, tape drive support, etc...

[Martin P.J. Zinser]

Reading Ricks mail I did realize there are at least two different kinds of "fiber" to talk about here. I (and some others in this thread) assumed fiber as in "normal" Network (Ethernet, FDDI), while Rick is rather talking about a Fiberchannel connection to a storage area network (SAN). Details on what exactly to do do depenend on this obviously.