Quanta LB6M 10 Gigabit Switch

Several years ago, I was looking for a cost effective way to get into 10 gigabit networking for my homelab, specifically between my hypervisors and storage. I came across this article from ServeTheHome. Naturally, I went out and bought a Quanta LB6M from UnixPlus (now UnixSurplus) which had the best price at the time. I followed the guide on Brokeaids. I reflashed the LB6M to the Brocade firmware. It worked, but only at layer 2. I couldn't get the switch to get an IP address so I couldn't manage it over SSH or even telnet. It worked over the serial console and I didn't need to change the VLANs too often, so I let it be.

Fast forward to this year.

I've downsized my lab a bit and I'm using some direct cabled 10G networking (more to come in a later post). I wanted to get my 10G switch running just for options and ultimately the ability to get fiber to my desktop PC. I started looking back at the Brokeaids site. Since I had flashed my LB6M, Brokeaid posted a note that the version 8 firmware that they previously linked turned out to be an unreleased beta firmware. Naturally, that was the firmware that I had flashed onto my LB6M those years ago. I was able to get version 7 put on the LB6M but was still encountering the same issue. After going through all the articles on the website and trying to Google a lot of things (unsuccessfully), I got to the point of setting up a passed through USB-to-Serial adapter to a VM on my hypervisor to control this switch. As a last ditch effort, I followed the procedure to reset the MAC address here, which apparently, I had never done before. Then the pings started completing! I was incredibly surprised. Now all the layer 3 features are working, including management. So for anyone else having the same issue as I was, I wanted to ensure that I shared my experience.

Final Thoughts: Don't buy this switch. It worked for me at the time but now there are A LOT better options for comparable prices.