OpenWRT SFP+ fiber networking

While I have some networking experience using copper networks, I have never configured fiber networking in the past. As I needed to connect two buildings across 150 meters of cable distance, preferably with 10Gbps speeds, this was the moment to get my first fiber network running. However, I wanted to do it entirely using open source software, in this case OpenWRT.

SFP+ tranceivers usually advertise their compatibility with certain hardware manufactures. Unfortunately, I didn’t find any advertising OpenWRT or even Linux compatibility. So I was a bit sceptical aboud which tranceivers to order. After a brief period of research, I decided to just go for it and order two SFP+ tranceivers from fs.com, announcing “Generic” support. And I was very glad to find out they worked out of the box on my OpenWRT SFP+ devices.

On one end, its a Zyxel XGS1250-12 network switch, featuring 8x 1Gbps and 3x 10Gbps copper ethernet as well as 1x 10Gbps SFP+ slot. Stable OpenWRT 24.10 does not seem to support the SFP+ cage yet, at least on the “B” revision I own. However, the SFP+ slot is supported by recent OpenWRT snapshot versions, e.g. r32151-f614322d28. After upgrading, the SFP+ tranceiver was detected out of the box and link was immediately up. This makes the Zyxel XGS1250-12 a great device for dipping ones toes into open source fiber networking.

On the other end, its a Turris Omnia NG, which is a very recent fully open source WiFi 7 device I dedicated a separate article to . At this point, I’ll just say it also supported the SFP+ module out of the box, conncetion to the Zyxel switch was immediately established. So now, I’m enjoying the fastest network connection I ever configured ;)