After doing research on finding a good OpenWrt router, I stumbled on this here. Did the research, watched some youtube videos. Then finally pulled the trigger. My trusty Edgerouter 4 from 2020 died on me so here I am! I installed OpenWrt back in 2022 and was happy ever since.
So I did all the mumbo jumbo: SD Card > Nand > emmc. runs fast yay. Then I plug in my POE Switch (EdgeSwitch 24) to SFP LAN using an SFP+ DAC cable. Thought would work immediately, sure enough it doesn’t. It kicks me off the internet for some reason?? (laptop directly connected to the LAN port). I don’t know how many times i tried to troubleshoot via console USB TTL port.
I’ve come to the conclusion, that I am using the wrong SFP modules??? 10Gtek (thought these were the way to go anyway). Either that or my board is defective.
So far from sifting through these forums. You guys have ran into everything from 2023, 2024, and 2025. Are these seriously still issues to this day??
I’m not quite sure where to go from here. Any advice is truly appreciated.
Poe does not work via SFP…poe is only possible on the phy port (2.5g variant with poe module equipped).
Or don’t you try to power R4 with your poe switch?
Maybe you can get debug log (dmesg) when traffic is getting broken…so that we see if only link goes down or sfp reports removed or something.
RJ45 10G sfp+ getting really hot so make sure you have at least passive heatsink on sfp cages or better fan which also brings hot air outside of the case.
No i’m not connected via POE. i’m connected via the SFP port from the poe switch. My bad if any confusion. my POE switch is already powered by the power cable. I’m also not trying to power the router via POE.
Can i run debug via ssh?
I have the ONT box, and the router on top of a laptop cooler (if that helps).
If network is configured correctly and stable (makes no sense over the sfp which flaps) you can also use ssh…debug-uart is independ of network so mostly more stable in such situations and you see full bootprocess (bootrom,atf,uboot and linux of course) where linux dmesg start with linux kernel…but here dmesg via ssh could be enough
Are you saying that the issue you are having is that your BPI-R4 and your switch don’t link up?
It’s not clear to me what you have connected besides the DAC. Can you please specify your network setup?
Can you paste the output from ethtool -m [interface with the DAC] and also any other transceiver you are having problems with?
Is it an SFP or SFP+ DAC? I believe the OpenWrt developers decided against allowing you to force a particular link rate so you need to make sure your DAC’s EEPROM data specifies the link speed you want.
It has worked great for me the last few months, i.e. as long as I’ve been running it as my main router. I started with OpenWrt to confirm everything could work as I wanted before moving back over to VyOS. I only use the two SFP+ slots, one with a FlexOptix 10GBASE-T 100m transceiver and one with an Ipolex SFP+ DAC connecting it to my Hasivo 10 Gbit/s switch. So far it has been very reliable.
Check dmesg after connecting the DAC and paste the relevant output here.
I think the issue you are seeing might be that the BPI-R4 is trying to link up at 10 Gbit/s because it’s likely the only speed the DAC claims to support in its EEPROM data, while the EdgeSwitch on the other end is trying to link up at 1 Gbit/s. Forcing the link speed to 1 Gbit/s would likely have worked, if possible. Using an SFP (i.e. 1 Gbit/s) DAC would likely fix it.
Why are you running a snapshot release btw.? Just to compare to stable? I would try with the latest stable release if you haven’t already, just in case.
If you post the ethtool output I asked for (requires the ethtool-full package on OpenWrt), we could confirm what speeds the DAC claims to support.
I only use the two SFP+ slots, one with a FlexOptix 10GBASE-T 100m transceiver and one with an Ipolex SFP+ DAC connecting it to my Hasivo 10 Gbit/s switch. So far it has been very reliable.
SFP kernel driver (