23 thoughts on “vQFX 10k Testlab on ESX 6.0 / 6.5”

1. Jerrad June 20, 2017 at 16:23

   Any idea why it’s the RE VM that the data plane NICs are added to? In vMX you would add the majority of the NICs to the PFE VM, I would expect RE NICs only to be used for internal communication/obm or in cases where you didn’t want to emulate the PFE.

   Reply ↓
2. christianscholz Post authorJune 25, 2017 at 16:44

   No idea why. Since the vQFX is a pure “Demo” Case I would expect this to change once the “real”-Version gets out (if it ever gets out).

   Reply ↓
3. Badar March 15, 2018 at 07:20

   Hi Christian,

   Your blog is full of information and very easy to understand. I am building my lab in Vmware workstation 14.2 with eve-ng. i have successfully loaded 3xVqfx(re/pfe).
   i am unable to see any any xe-0/0/* interface under >show int terse command, only em interfaces are visible.
   i tried to ran the commit script which you have shared but getting errors. I want to attach files but i am unable to see any attachment option. Thanks

   Regards
   Badar

   Reply ↓
4. christianscholz Post authorMarch 15, 2018 at 19:16

   HI Badar,

   how long dod you wait after boot? Especially the vQFX takes a long time (up to 30mins) until everything is visible. What does “show chassis fpc” indicate? is your fpc online?

   Reply ↓
5. Vietnamese March 17, 2018 at 12:38

   Hi christianscholz,

   My broblem is like Badar’s, I just following all steps in home page eve-ng.net, waited 30mins up but show chassis fpc is not visible. Have i need to do more?
   Hope to get response soon,
   Thanks!

   Reply ↓
   1. christianscholz Post authorMarch 18, 2018 at 00:13

      Hi Vietnamese,
      how did you connect the vRE and the vFPC? are they part of the same “Lan-Segment”?
      Did you change the config so far? Remember, that some parts of the Default-COnfig (for example the em IP’s) are necessary for the RE to communicate with the PFE.

      Regards
      Chris

      Reply ↓
6. Al March 17, 2018 at 18:51

   Hello;
   I am running VQFX on vmware workstation. I am able to see the xe interfaces, however, I am not sure how to put all xe interfaces on the same switching domain so I will be able to ping between them. If I add network adapters for RE, I can see more em interfaces created, however, I am not sure who I can manipulate xe interfaces. Please advise if you have any idea.

   Thanks

   Reply ↓
   1. christianscholz Post authorMarch 18, 2018 at 00:15

      Hi Al,
      I did not test the vQFX that deep on VMware Workstation, but in ESX there’s also a em Interface per “network-card” and the mapping is 1:1 to the xe-Interfaces.
      Do you mean “Lan Segment” with Switching-Domain”?
      You can also check the MAC-Adresses of the XE / em INterfaces and see if they match with the MAC-Adresses from your WOrkstation Networkcards.

      Regards
      Chris

      Reply ↓
7. Badar March 20, 2018 at 01:19

   Hi Chris,

   I got fpc online, now i can see xe- interfaces from xe-0/0/0 to xe-0/0/11. Problem is that i am unable to see anything in ethernet-switching table.

   {master:0}[edit]
   root@MC-Peer-1# run show ethernet-switching table

   {master:0}[edit]

   Please find below the configurations and outputs. even i am able to get an arp entry for irb interface but i think that there is MAC assignment problem on xe-0/0/0.
   how to solve this probelm? how to assign the MAC to xe-0/0/0?

   MC-Peer-1(irb.100-192.168.100.1/30) ————–MC-Peer-2(irb.100-192.168.100.2/30)
   Configurations:

   MC-Peer-1
   set interfaces xe-0/0/0 unit 0 family ethernet-switching interface-mode trunk
   set interfaces xe-0/0/0 unit 0 family ethernet-switching vlan members 100
   set interfaces irb unit 100 family inet address 192.168.100.1/30
   set vlans vlan-100 vlan-id 100
   set vlans vlan-100 l3-interface irb.100

   MC-Peer-2
   set interfaces xe-0/0/0 unit 0 family ethernet-switching interface-mode trunk
   set interfaces xe-0/0/0 unit 0 family ethernet-switching vlan members 100
   set interfaces irb unit 100 family inet address 192.168.100.2/30
   set vlans vlan-100 vlan-id 100
   set vlans vlan-100 l3-interface irb.100

   irb to irb ping successful.

   {master:0}[edit]
   root@MC-Peer-1# run ping 192.168.100.2 rapid
   PING 192.168.100.2 (192.168.100.2): 56 data bytes
   !!!!!
   — 192.168.100.2 ping statistics —
   5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss
   round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 31.887/45.958/87.940/21.081 ms

   {master:0}[edit]
   root@MC-Peer-1# run show vlans 100

   Routing instance VLAN name Tag Interfaces
   default-switch vlan-100 100
   xe-0/0/0.0*

   {master:0}[edit]
   root@MC-Peer-1# run show vlans 100 detail

   Routing instance: default-switch
   VLAN Name: vlan-100 State: Active
   Tag: 100
   Internal index: 4, Generation Index: 4, Origin: Static
   MAC aging time: 300 seconds
   Layer 3 interface: irb.100
   VXLAN Enabled : No
   Interfaces:
   xe-0/0/0.0*,tagged,trunk
   Number of interfaces: Tagged 1 , Untagged 0
   Total MAC count: 0

   {master:0}[edit]
   root@MC-Peer-1# run show ethernet-switching interface xe-0/0/0.0
   Routing Instance Name : default-switch
   Logical Interface flags (DL – disable learning, AD – packet action drop,
   LH – MAC limit hit, DN – interface down,
   MMAS – Mac-move action shutdown,
   SCTL – shutdown by Storm-control )

   Logical Vlan TAG MAC STP Logical Tagging
   interface members limit state interface flags
   xe-0/0/0.0 8192 tagged
   vlan-100 100 1024 Forwarding tagged

   {master:0}[edit]
   root@MC-Peer-1# run show interfaces irb.100
   Logical interface irb.100 (Index 545) (SNMP ifIndex 517)
   Flags: Up SNMP-Traps 0x4004000 Encapsulation: ENET2
   Bandwidth: 1000mbps
   Routing Instance: default-switch Bridging Domain: vlan-100
   Input packets : 182
   Output packets: 182
   Protocol inet, MTU: 1500
   Flags: Sendbcast-pkt-to-re
   Addresses, Flags: Is-Preferred Is-Primary
   Destination: 192.168.100.0/30, Local: 192.168.100.1,
   Broadcast: 192.168.100.3

   {master:0}[edit]
   root@MC-Peer-1# run show arp interface irb.100
   MAC Address Address Name Interface Flags
   02:05:86:71:b2:00 192.168.100.2 192.168.100.2 irb.100 [xe-0/0/0.0] none

   {master:0}[edit]
   root@MC-Peer-1# run show ethernet-switching table

   {master:0}[edit]
   root@MC-Peer-1#

   Reply ↓
   1. christianscholz Post authorMarch 21, 2018 at 00:10

      I don’t know what exactly went wrong – I can see MAC’s on my vQFX…

      Reply ↓
8. Badar March 20, 2018 at 01:32

   Hi
   even if i assign some address to em3/4/5 then i received below error. it means there is some problem while getting mac address.

   root@MC-Peer-1# set interfaces em4.0 family inet address 6.6.6.6/30

   {master:0}[edit]
   root@MC-Peer-1# commit
   em4error setting host MAC filter table
   em4error setting host MAC filter table
   configuration check succeeds
   commit complete

   what is this error? is this error is creating problem for xe- interfaces?
   please advise.

   Regards
   Badar

   Reply ↓
   1. christianscholz Post authorMarch 21, 2018 at 00:11

      I wouldn’t set IP’s on the em-Interfaces – all config is done on the xe-Interfaces.
      The only em-interfaces with IP are the “management-em’s” for internal PFE to RE Traffic.

      Reply ↓
9. Siddiqui July 18, 2018 at 13:21

   I am trying to follow the same, but my RE of VQFX stucks in db> mode . Any suggestion ??

   Reply ↓
   1. christianscholz Post authorJuly 22, 2018 at 11:08

      db-mode sounds like a corrupted image – did you try to download it again?

      Reply ↓
10. Pavel M August 14, 2018 at 15:43

    Hi all
    i try to use your recommendations, and successfully load PFE, but RE stop at
    Loading /boot/loader
    _
    BTX loader 1.00 BTX version is 1.02

    i try to use both vqfx10k-re-15.1X53-D60.vmdk and jinstall-vqfx-10-f-18.1R1.9.vmdk
    Any idea?

    Reply ↓
11. Omar September 14, 2018 at 16:31

    So i’m using ESXI 6.5 and the biggest thing missed out on here is, when importing the vm’s make sure you set the vm version to version 8. If you do not you will get the following error:

    Loading /boot/loader
    _
    BTX loader 1.00 BTX version is 1.02

    hope that helps!

    Reply ↓
    1. Alan May 31, 2020 at 16:46

       yea, but if on esxi u can set the VM compatibility to esxi 4.0 and later

       Reply ↓
12. Henrik Johansson May 22, 2019 at 16:10

    You need to setup the disk as IDE:0 and Master

    Reply ↓
13. Andre May 24, 2019 at 04:03

    Hi Christian,

    Thank you for this information. I used it to configure a lab of vMXs and vQFXs. I downloaded the script you created for the qfx on vmware esxi, and boom started working. I thought my troubles were over; however I am having an issue with vMX talking the the vQFX. I can get a vMX -to-vMX to talk, and a vQFX-to-vQFX to talk but that’s it.
    Would you be able to give insight to this issue, or point me in the right direction.

    Reply ↓
    1. christianscholz Post authorMay 24, 2019 at 23:20

       Hi Andre,

       how should they talk to each other? L2 or L3?
       What did you configure and how are they “physically” connected?
       Promiscuous mode in the vSwitches on ESX active?

       BR
       Chris

       Reply ↓
14. Andre A Rogers May 27, 2019 at 03:04

    Thanks for the reply. I did a virtual switch in promiscuous mode, and mtu at 9000. I tried layer 3 first to test a simple ping. But is it possible to have both l2, and l3 capabilities?

    Reply ↓
15. Andre A Rogers May 27, 2019 at 04:29

    Sorry read my post, and I don’t think I answered your question well. I can elaborate better with bullet points…. Lol
    • VMware ESXI 6.5
    o vMX version 16.1R7
     VCP and VFP have interconnects, and communicating fine.
    o Vqfx version 15.1×53
     Re and pfe has the same interconnect settings as the vmx
    Creating a topology that has a lot of vMX and vQFX interconnects.
    Tested for simple pings at first…
    • vMX — to — vMX works fine.
    • vQFX – to – vQFX works
    • vMX –to vQFX doesn’t work. On a vSwitch between host
    Further testing was a vSwitch(with physical port), connected to a vMX on Host1. And vSwitch(with physical port), connected to a vQFX on Host2, works with a simple ping. But not a vlan trunk with a l3-interface.
    Hope I am making sense. Sorry have been working on this for a few days. Any insight would be appreciated.

    Reply ↓
    1. christianscholz Post authorMay 27, 2019 at 21:25

       Hi Andre,

       if L3 is working, then L2 must also be working – my guess is, that you need to configure a bridge-domain and associate the irb interface with it.
       What config are you using? Can you send me your files via Mail? I will look into it and test it.

       BR
       Chris

       Reply ↓