Pathbox 1.0 and the new balancing engine
Two years of MPLS automation work came together this month: Pathbox went from internal project to versioned public releases with a bring-your-own-hardware deb repo, and the rebuilt auto-balancing engine went live in production. The same engine now drives MikroTik cores and Pathbox appliances identically.
Pathbox: first releases Beta
Our inline appliance for non-MikroTik networks shipped its first versions. VPP-based with custom plugins for per-subscriber fq_codel shaping, captive disconnects, MSS clamping, and RSVP-TE — with a web UI for provisioning, live dashboard graphs, and health monitoring from the platform.
If you run a non-MikroTik core, the whole Swift Fox automation stack now comes as a box you cable inline — bench-tested to 10 Gbit wire rate on a few hundred dollars of hardware. Bring your own box (Ubuntu 22.04/24.04, Debian 12): the install guide is public.
Auto traffic balancing: new engine live Improved
The rebuilt balancing engine went into production: NetFlow demand data calibrated against interface counters, smarter spreading across redundant backhauls, and appliance-aware path selection.
The solver is faster, demand measurement is calibrated against real interface counters rather than trusting NetFlow alone, and a two-pass strategy spreads load across redundant backhauls instead of concentrating it on the single cheapest path.
Customer import wizard New
A new guided importer brings customer lists in from spreadsheets and other systems — mapping columns interactively instead of demanding a rigid template.
4096-QAM support New
Radios negotiating 4096-QAM report their true modulation and capacity — frequency planning and backhaul capacity math stay accurate on the newest gear.
MTU fragmentation at tunnel ingress Improved
Traffic exceeding the path MTU at a TE tunnel entrance is fragmented correctly instead of dropped, finishing off the MTU work from March.
FCC Form 477 updates Fixed
Reports round speeds above 10 Mbit to whole numbers per the updated FCC specification.