WED JAN 21 2026

this day i spent the better part of the day at work trying to get a connection between a firewall and switch to come up...
documenting all the hardware specifications to ensure they match, checking what each brand and device type supports, reviewing device logs to make sure the cable is successfully detected on both devices, changing variety of settings on both sides (speed, error correction, trunk mode, etc)

given the firewall had some specific quirky requirements for this hardware version, in the end it was needed to "hard config" both devices to match all settins precisely.
usually this is not needed, and both ends of the connection will "auto negotiate" the settings and the connection will come up without problem

to my credit, i've had very little experience with doing the actual base set up on network devices, so it took me a while to figure out these specific quirks!

drew donkey struggling with the fiber cable giving him problems.... grrr!! haww!!!