What is SRX Virtual Chassis and how to add it to NSM?
SRX Virtual Chassis is a new feature in NSM2010.2. What does this feature mean and how does one use it?
SRX Virtual Chassis (VC) is a feature that enables in-band management of an SRX cluster from NSM. In the absence of this feature, an SRX cluster member would need to be configured with a dedicated interface for management traffic to and from the NSM. If the forwarding redundant interface is used for sending and receiving management traffic instead, only the Primary node would be connected to the NSM, and the Secondary node would be shown as Down in the NSM.
SRX VC causes the NSM to view the entire cluster as a single unit. The NSM will be connected only to the member which is Primary. The NSM management traffic will travel over the forwarding redundant interface in this case. Since the SRX VC is displayed as a single unit instead of separate cluster members, the VC device will always be shown as Up (except for legitimate cases when it should be down).
In order to enable SRX VC on the device, the following command must be run in edit mode and committed:
root@srx# set chassis cluster network-management cluster-master
NOTE: This is a hidden command. You must type it completely and not depend on auto-complete. This is supported for all SRX platforms from Junos OS 10.4 onwards (SRX-branch from Junos OS 10.1R2).
In NSM 2010.2 version onwards, SRX VC support has been introduced. In order to add an SRX VC in unreachable mode, make sure to enable the check box against “Virtual Chassis” in the window where you need to specify the Device platform, OS name etc. In reachable mode, the NSM will detect the device as a VC and add it. Once added to NSM, the cluster becomes completely manageable from NSM and any changes pushed to the VC will reflect on both members of the cluster.
Requirements: NSM 2010.2, Junos 10.1R2 or higher for SRX-branch devices, Junos 10.4R1 or higher for SRX-high-end devices.
Note: Schema version 147 is required in order to display hardware inventory of SRX VC properly.