FTOS or Force10 Operating System is the

firmware In computing, firmware is a specific class of computer software that provides the low-level control for a device's specific hardware. Firmware, such as the BIOS of a personal computer, may contain basic functions of a device, and may provide ...

family used on Force10

Ethernet switch A network switch (also called switching hub, bridging hub, and, by the IEEE, MAC bridge) is networking hardware that connects devices on a computer network by using packet switching to receive and forward data to the destination device. A netw ...

es. It has a similar functionality as Cisco's NX-OS or

Juniper Junipers are coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Juniperus'' () of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on the taxonomy, between 50 and 67 species of junipers are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere, from the Arcti ...

Junos Junos OS (also known as Juniper Junos, Junos and JUNOS) is a FreeBSD-based network operating system used in Juniper Networks routing, switching and security devices. Versioning Junos OS was first made available on 7 July 1998, with new feature ...

. FTOS 10 is running on

Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of De ...

.
As part of a re-

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create a ...

ing strategy of Dell FTOS will be renamed to Dell Networking Operating System ( DNOS) 9.x or above, while the legacy PowerConnect switches will use DNOS 6.x: see the separate article on DNOS.

Hardware Abstraction Layer

Three of the four product families from Dell Force10 are using the

Broadcom Broadcom Inc. is an American designer, developer, manufacturer and global supplier of a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software products. Broadcom's product offerings serve the data center, networking, software, broadband, wirel ...

Trident+

ASIC An application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC ) is an integrated circuit (IC) chip customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use, such as a chip designed to run in a digital voice recorder or a high-effici ...

's, but the company doesn't use the API's from Broadcom: the developers at Force10 have written their own

Hardware Abstraction Layer Hardware abstractions are sets of routines in software that provide programs with access to hardware resources through programming interfaces. The programming interface allows all devices in a particular class ''C'' of hardware devices to be acce ...

so that FTOS can run on different hardware platforms with minimal impact for the firmware. Currently three of the four F10 switch families are based on the Broadcom Trident+ (while the fourth—the E-series—run on self-developed ASIC's); and if the product developers want or need to use different hardware for new products they only need to develop a HAL for that new hardware and the same firmware can run on it. This keeps the company flexible and not dependent on a specific hardware-vendor and can use both 3rd party or self designed ASIC's and chipsets. The human interface in FTOS, that is the way network-administrators can configure and monitor their switches, is based on

NetBSD NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was forked. It continues to be actively developed and is a ...

, an implementation which often used in embedded networking-systems. NetBSD is a very stable, open source, OS running on many different hardware platforms. By choosing for a proven technology with extended TCP functionality built into the core of the OS it reduces time during development of new products or extending the FTOS with new features.

Modular setup

FTOS is also modular where different parts of the OS run independently from each other within one switch: if one process would fail the impact on other processes on the switch are limited. This modular setup is also taken to the hardware level in some product-lines where a routing-module has three separate CPU's: one for management, one for L2 and one for L3 processing. This same approach is also used in the newer firmware-families from Cisco like the NX-OS for the Nexus product-line or the IOS XR for the high-end routers (the

Carrier Routing System Carrier Routing System (CRS) is a modular and distributed core router developed by Cisco Systems Inc that enables service providers to deliver data, voice, and video services over a scalable IP Next-Generation Network (NGN) infrastructure. In a ne ...

s) from

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develo ...

. (and unlike the original IOS: processes under IOS aren't isolated from each other). This approach is regarded not only a way to make the firmware more resilient but also increases the security of the switches

Capabilities

All FTOS based switches offer a wide range of layer2 and layer3 protocols. All features are available on all switches: some switch models (in the S-series) offer an additional license for layer3 or routing: this additional license is NOT required to use that protocol, but only required to get support from the Dell Force10 support department on using these features. All interfaces on FTOS running switches are configured as a layer3 interface and by default shutdown. To use such an interface as an ethernet switchport you need to configure it as such (with the command "switchport") and then enable that port using "no shutdown".

Layer2 capabilities

All standardized ethernet standards are supported by switches running FTOS including:

Spanning Tree Protocol The Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) is a network protocol that builds a loop-free logical topology for Ethernet networks. The basic function of STP is to prevent bridge loops and the broadcast radiation that results from them. Spanning tree also ...

and RSTP,

VLAN A virtual local area network (VLAN) is any broadcast domain that is partitioned and isolated in a computer network at the data link layer ( OSI layer 2).IEEE 802.1Q-2011, ''1.4 VLAN aims and benefits'' In this context, virtual, refers to a phys ...

and the IEEE 802.1Q standards, QinQ or IEEE 802.1ad, Link Layer Discovery Protocol and LLDP MED. The S-series switches ending with a V and some of the E-series line-cards support Power over Ethernet or PoE with the standards for this protocol.

Layer3 capabilities

As mentioned above, by default an interface on a switch running FTOS are configured as a layer3 port. All FTOS switches are thus routers with many interfaces that can (and most often are) reconfigured into a layer2 ethernet switch. All FTOS switches run at least the following routing protocols:

Routing Information Protocol The Routing Information Protocol (RIP) is one of the oldest distance-vector routing protocols which employs the hop count as a routing metric. RIP prevents routing loops by implementing a limit on the number of hops allowed in a path from so ...

and RIP version 2,

OSPF Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) is a routing protocol for Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It uses a link state routing (LSR) algorithm and falls into the group of interior gateway protocols (IGPs), operating within a single autonomous syste ...

IS-IS Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS, also written ISIS) is a routing protocol designed to move information efficiently within a computer network, a group of physically connected computers or similar devices. It accomplishes this b ...

and

Border Gateway Protocol Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is a standardized exterior gateway protocol designed to exchange routing and reachability information among autonomous systems (AS) on the Internet. BGP is classified as a path-vector routing protocol, and it mak ...

version 4.

Management Interface

Switches running FTOS can only be configured using a command-line interface or CLI: FTOS doesn't offer a web-based

Graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows User (computing), users to Human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through graphical icon (comp ...

. Initial configuration is done via the console port using either a straight-through or roll-over cable (depending on model) to a terminal on 9600 bit/s and some models also support an AUX port allowing remote management via a dial-in modem. Most switches have a standard serial port or offer a USB-B port. After initial configuration access to the cli is possible via

telnet Telnet is an application protocol used on the Internet or local area network to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communication facility using a virtual terminal connection. User data is interspersed in-band with Telnet cont ...

and/or SSH. FTOS based switches also support

SNMP Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is an Internet Standard protocol for collecting and organizing information about managed devices on IP networks and for modifying that information to change device behaviour. Devices that typically ...

and file-transfer (FTOS upgrades and startup-configuration data) can be done via FTP, TFTP or Secure copy Most switches running FTOS offer a dedicated management interface where the IP routing to/from the management system is not part of the internal switching or routing system. Some S-series switches only offer ''in-band'' management using a physical router interface or a VLAN interface in layer-3 mode.

Open Automation

Under the name OpenAutomation 2.0 Dell Networking switches running DNOS 9.x (the new

-name for FTOS) offers a number of features under this name. These features include:Dell Force10 Open Automation 2.0
visited 29 May 2013

Smart Scripting

Dell Force10 switches support so called smart scripting. It is possible to develop scripts that run on the switches running FTOS. Both

Perl Perl is a family of two High-level programming language, high-level, General-purpose programming language, general-purpose, Interpreter (computing), interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it ...

and Python are supported as scripting languages to automate environment specific repetitive tasks or to build in custom behavior. Users who write such scripts are promoted to share these scripts with the user-community and make them available to other Force10/DNOS users. Force10 introduced the smart scripting in FTOS in 2010, following other vendors like

for their

Nexus NEXUS is a joint Canada Border Services Agency and U.S. Customs and Border Protection-operated Trusted Traveler and expedited border control program designed for pre-approved, low-risk travelers. Members of the program can avoid waits at border ...

product range

Bare metal provisioning

Force10 switches support a ''bare metal provisioning'' option: if you need to deploy a number of similar switches you can put both (desired/latest) firmware release and standard user-specific configuration on a USB key: when deploying the switches you can insert the USB key, power-up the switch and it will automatically load the correct firmware and configuration. In combination with smart scripting someone can combine these features for a fully automated installation and configuration of new switches.

Virtual server networking

Part of the Open Automation platform are special features for the use of virtualization in your datacenter. Virtualization allows you to create complete (virtual) server-systems running on a standard hypervisor farm. This will create new challenges for networking in such a datacenter, support automated configuration of datacenter switches to connect newly created virtual servers. The open automation platform has several features to support thisTechnical Whitepaper
Network automation with F10 Open Automation Framework
downloaded 25 May 2013 .

Network Automation

According to Del