JUNOS Enterprise Switching

Basic Switch Maintenance

Once the switch is configured and ready for deployment, some basic checks should be performed, and logging and recovery configuration should be considered. We begin this section by issuing a few chassis health-check commands. We then discuss some additional syslog, SNMP, and Network Time Protocol (NTP) configurations, which are strongly recommended because they enhance troubleshooting and security-related activities. Lastly, we look at some additional (and cool) JUNOS features that can save the day, and occasionally your bacon, in cases of switch configuration deletion, mistakes, or just strange cosmic-ray-based corruption, as has been known to spread through IOS networks in the past.

Chassis Health Check

When the chassis powers up for the first time, issue a few basic commands to verify that all the components are working properly. You can do this before or after the initial configuration. First, check to see whether all the proper hardware pieces are working and recognized by the system; you can do this by issuing the show chassis hardware command. This is also a great command to record into your inventory sheet, as it will list the serial and part numbers for each piece of hardware. As displayed, the new switch is an EX4200-24T with a Gigabit Ethernet uplink module with two Small Form-factor Pluggable (SFP) optics and a 320-watt AC power supply:

lab@Tequila > show chassis hardware Hardware inventory: Item Version Part number Serial number Description Chassis ...