How to use cable profiles when the patch panels are modelled with one position per fibber

[marcusyuri]

No profiles documentation

Please use the following image as a reference:

All our patch panels are modelled with 1 port (front or rear) 1 position for SC ou LC fibber optical connectors, and we are trying to switch to cable profiles on our documentation.

This panel was modelled with 48 Rear Ports with 1 position SC-APC, mapped to 48 Front Ports with 1 position SC-APC connectors:

The switches are modelled with 24 interfaces, named ethernet 1/1, ethernet 1/2, ... ethernet 1/24.

In our use case, we connect a LC-PC x SC-APC duplex cable from the switch interface to 2 front ports in the patch panel - odd positions to TX fiber and even positions to RX fiber.

The optical panels are connected, on demand, using duplex SC-APC x SC-APC cables, using 2 rear ports front one panel to other 2 rear ports.

Without using cables profiles, we can see the cable trace as follows:

Cable profiles documentation

The first step is to change the switch duplex cables to cable profile 1C2P , as stated in Understanding Cable Profiles in Netbox 4.5, but I got the following error:

It appears that the netbox validation logic was expecting that the optical panel was modelled using 1 front port with 2 positions to apply the profile, instead of 2 front ports with 1 position each.

In our use case we need to keep track of individual fibers on the optical panel, because we use the panel printed label to instruct field teams to perform cabling jumping:

So it is not an option for us to change the modelling to use 2 positions per port. Also, we have use cases with connections to monofiber bidim interfaces 1000BASE-BX10, so we need to keep track of individual fibers on optical patch panels.

Is there any other way to use cable profiles, mantaining the 1 port 1 position patch panel modelling ?????

[edaleand]

Hello. Interesting case. Have you tried the 1C4P breakout profile on the cables to the endpoints, and the 2C2P profile on the rear port to rear port connection?

[marcusyuri]

Hello!

The breakout 1C4P breakout cable generates a python exception.

The 2c2p Trunk Cable profile was accepted in rear to rear connections, but the exception with breakout cables on the endpoint interface connections turns out impossible to test this cable profile configuration, because the general ideia is to use cable profiles in all cables in the path trace.

[edaleand]

I think you need to make sure A terminations only has one termination when using the 1C4P profile. The interface has to be on A terminations and the two front ports have to be on B terminations.

Did you do that?

[marcusyuri]

Hello!

That is exact what I made. The 'no cable profile' is show below:

The 'A Termination' has exact one termination - the interface named 'ethernet 1/1'. The 'B' Termination' has exact two front ports, named (1) for fiber strand TX and (2) for fiber strand RX. I think that the validation code is expecting to have 4 terminations on 'B side' to successfully make the cable jumper.