This week I am in the Juniper Campus Networks with Mist AI ( JCMA ) course and going over the labs. I ran into a problem where the EX4400-24T et-0/1/0 and et-1/1/1 ports did not appear in in the Junos configuration nor the Mist portal. The configuration was in the portal via the templates, but the ports did not exist on the switch.

I have seen similar conditions as these ports can also be used for the Virtual Chasis (VC) ports. What I did find interesting is that the normal way I have always changed VC-Ports on Junos did not work.

First, let us look at the vc-ports on this EX4400-24T:

{master:0}
lab@ex2> show virtual-chassis vc-port 
fpc0:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Interface   Type              Trunk  Status       Speed        Neighbor
or                             ID                 (mbps)       ID  Interface
PIC / Port
1/0         Configured         -1    Down         50000
1/1         Configured         -1    Down         50000
1/2         Configured         -1    Down         50000
1/3         Configured         -1    Down         50000

As you can see, we have 4 VC-Ports configured on Pic 1 – Ports 0-3.

Normally to remove these you would use the command request virtual-chassis vc-port delete pic 1 port 0, but as you can see that command is not valid.

{master:0}
lab@ex2> request virtual-chassis vc-port delete pic-slot 1 port 0 
error: Please use request virtual-chassis mode network-port/disable command to interchange port mode

Yeah, it says to use the request virtual-chassis mode network-port.

{master:0}
lab@ex2> request virtual-chassis mode network-port ?        
Possible completions:
  <[Enter]>            Execute this command
  |                    Pipe through a command
  disable              Disable specified mode
  reboot               Reboot system after changing mode
  local                Set virtual chassis mode on local virtual chassis member
  all-members          Set virtual chassis mode on all virtual chassis members
  member               Set virtual chassis mode on specific virtual chassis member

So lets set it to network-port and reboot the switch. The ports will not convert until you reboot, if you omit the reboot option, you will receive the following output:

Mode set to 'Virtual Chasiss with network-port-mode enabled'.  (Reboot required)

Let us issue the command request virtual-chassis mode network-port reboot and reboot the switch.

{master:0}
lab@ex2> request virtual-chassis mode network-port reboot     

fpc0:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mode set to 'Virtual Chassis with network-port-mode enabled'.  Rebooting system...

{master:0}
lab@ex2>                                                                                
*** System shutdown message from root@ex2 ***                                

System going down in 1 minute                                                  

After the switch reboots, we can see that we no longer have any VC ports by issuing the command show virtual-chassis vc-port


{master:0}
lab@ex2> show virtual-chassis vc-port 
fpc0:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


{master:0}
lab@ex2>

Now if we check, we should have et- ports on our switch

{master:0}
lab@ex2> show interfaces terse | match et-   
et-0/1/0                up    up
et-0/1/0.16386          up    up  
et-0/1/1                up    up
et-0/1/1.16386          up    up  

You can find the Juniper documentation at this link: Juniper Doc

Ok, back to my lab work :).