Customizable Device Type > Interface > Form Factor

[topside844]

The 'Form Factor' list is missing "10GE (Copper)" and/or "100M/1G/10G (Copper)" types used on 10GBASE-T devices like Cisco's Nexus 93120TX switch.

This can be resolved by either making the Form Factor list customizable, or adding the necessary 10GBASE-T form factor (which is not available in 10GE SFP+ form factor due to limited SFP+ power).

[jeremystretch]

Will add this and probably some others to the static list. Definitely want to avoid custom interface form factors since only a finite set exists in the real world.

[bellwood]

Could I request Cisco "10GE X2 SFP" ... Cisco's 3750E's (and others) use this

[candlerb]

Although this issue is long closed, I would like to a add a couple of points.

• The set of connectors which exist in the real world, whilst mathematically "finite", is much larger than Netbox currently supports. Currently open requests for additions include Add console port form factors #1865, Add support for Infiniband interfaces #1941, Form factor for coax connectors #2865, and there have been many others which were accepted and closed.

  A static list will never meet everyone's needs - but as it gets larger, it will leave users having to scroll through many which are irrelevant to their environment (example: many exotic stacking cables for vendors which you don't use)

• I disagree with the assertion in Interace Form factor should be configurable #97 that making the list customisable "would introduce a significant performance hit.". This is premature optimisation. At worst, you read the table once into RAM at startup, and whenever an edit is made to the list - performance is then identical to today.

  Device Roles and Manufacturers and Platforms are customisable, and performance doesn't suffer.

• There are infrastructure connections which need to be modelled which are not IP interfaces - e.g. DAS (SATA/SAS), SAN (fibre channel). Netbox has special cases for "console" and "power" connections (aside: it would in any case be useful to select the form factor for power connectors). But everything else falls under "interface", which in turn means a wider list of form factors is required than those used for IP.

  There is always "Other" plus interface description, but this does not work well in an environment where you have many interfaces of a very specific type (e.g. in my case, many RF 'F' connectors for satellite feeds)