NicGiga S100-0800S-M

model : S100-0800S-M brand : NicGiga availability : 2026 supportedcurrentrel : SNAPSHOT target : realtek/rtl930x subtarget : rtl930x cpu : Realtek RTL9303 cpucores : 1 flashmb : 32 flash_chip_type : SPI-NOR rammb : 512 ram_chip_type : DDR3 switch : RTL9303 (integrated) ethernet_gbit_ports_ : 0 sfpplus_ports_ : 8 serial : Yes serial_cons : Yes serial_volt : 3.3 serial_baud : 115200 serial_pinout : RJ45 front-panel console, Cisco-style pinout bootloader : U-Boot oemdevicehomepage : https://www.nicgiga.com/products/s100-0800s-m installationmethod : tftp, sysupgrade

The NicGiga S100-0800S-M is an 8-port 10G SFP+ managed switch built on the Realtek RTL9303 reference design (vendor U-Boot board model RTL9303_8XGE). It is closely related to the TP-Link TL-ST1008F v2 and the DTS is derived from it. Support was added in OpenWrt main on 2026-06-17. Discussion, flashing help and reports: OpenWrt forum thread.

• Unlike the TL-ST1008F v2, this board exposes no software-readable MOD_ABS

GPIO for the SFP cages; module presence and hot-plug are detected by polling

  the SFP EEPROM over I2C. This relies on kernel commit ''8ac44d24c3a1''
  ("net: phy: sfp: detect presence via I2C when no MOD_DEF0 GPIO"), present in
  OpenWrt snapshots via the rtl930x SFP backport.
* One green LED per SFP cage, lit on link + activity at any speed.
* MAC addresses are read from the vendor U-Boot ''ethaddr'' env variable
  (base on the SoC ethernet controller, incrementing per-port offset per cage).

32 MiB NOR flash. A serial console (front-panel RJ45, 115200 8N1) is required. RAM-boot the initramfs image via TFTP from U-Boot as a non-destructive trial, back up the OEM firmware, validate operation, then sysupgrade to flash permanently.

Placeholders below — substitute your own: <TFTP_SERVER> (TFTP server IP), <DEVICE_IP> (switch IP during flashing), <BACKUP_HOST> (where OEM backups are copied), <LOAD_ADDR> (RAM load address your U-Boot uses for TFTP), <MGMT_IP> / <GATEWAY> / <DNS> (post-flash management settings).

RAM-boot the OpenWrt initramfs (step 2 — writes nothing to flash), then dump each MTD partition and copy it off the device:

cat /proc/mtd                       # confirm partition numbering first
for i in $(seq 0 5); do dd if=/dev/mtd$i of=/tmp/oem-mtd$i.bin; done
scp /tmp/oem-mtd*.bin user@<BACKUP_HOST>:/path/to/backups/

Keep the firmware partition (vendor OS) and u-boot especially — together they let you restore stock later.

Place openwrt-realtek-rtl930x-nicgiga_s100-0800s-m-initramfs-kernel.bin on your TFTP server. Interrupt U-Boot on the console and load it into RAM:

setenv ipaddr <DEVICE_IP>
setenv serverip <TFTP_SERVER>
tftpboot <LOAD_ADDR> openwrt-realtek-rtl930x-nicgiga_s100-0800s-m-initramfs-kernel.bin
bootm <LOAD_ADDR>

<LOAD_ADDR> is a RAM address, not an IP — use the one your U-Boot uses for TFTP loads (e.g. 0x84f00000 on Realtek rtl930x builds; check your boot log or printenv if unsure). Env-var names may also vary between U-Boot builds.

Verify ports link, SFP modules detect, hot-plug works, MACs and LEDs are correct, and dmesg shows no EIO spam on empty cages.

cd /tmp
sysupgrade -n openwrt-realtek-rtl930x-nicgiga_s100-0800s-m-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin

The device reboots into OpenWrt on NOR.

Default OpenWrt management is 192.168.1.1 (no password on first boot). Either set your computer to the 192.168.1.0/24 subnet and SSH to root@192.168.1.1 (or use LuCI), or — handy if you're remote — stay on the serial console you used for flashing, log in as root, and set the switch onto your existing network directly:

uci set network.lan.ipaddr='<MGMT_IP>'
uci set network.lan.netmask='255.255.255.0'
uci set network.lan.gateway='<GATEWAY>'
uci set network.lan.dns='<DNS>'
uci commit network
service network restart

Set a root password (passwd) and configure your VLANs from there — the -n flash starts from defaults, so nothing from the initramfs trial carries over.