Understanding Interface Naming Conventions on EX-series Switches
EX-series switches use a naming convention that is similar to that of other JUNOS platforms for defining the interfaces. This topic provides brief information on the naming conventions used for interfaces on EX-series switches. For additional information, see the Network Interfaces Configuration Guide at http://www.juniper.net/techpubs/software/junos/junos90/index.html
Physical Part of an Interface Name
When you define an interface, you specify the interface type, the FPC slot in which the Physical Interface Module (PIM) is installed, the PIC within the FPC, and the port on that PIC. A hyphen (-) separates the interface type from the slot number, and a slash (/) separates the slot number, PIC number, and port numbers:
type-slot/pic/port
The EX-series switches apply this convention as follows:
-
type—EX-series interfaces use
the following media types:
- ge- Gigabit Ethernet interface
- xe-10 Gigabit Ethernet interface (These are the ports on the EX-UM-2XFP uplink module.)
-
slot number/member-id—EX-series
interfaces use the following slot numbers (equivalent to member ID):
- EX 3200 switches have only one FPC slot for the network ports. It is slot number 0.
- An individual, standalone EX 4200 switch has only one FPC slot number. It is slot number 0.
- If an EX 4200 switch is interconnected with other switches in a virtual chassis, each individual switch that is included as a member of the virtual chassis is identified with a member id. The member ID functions as an FPC slot number. When you are configuring interfaces for a virtual chassis, you specify the appropriate member ID 0 through 9 as the slot of the interface name.
-
PIC number—EX-series interfaces
use the following PIC numbers:
- Use the number 0 to specify the PIC for any network port on the switch itself.
- If you are configuring a port on an uplink module, use the number 1 as the PIC.
-
port number—EX-series interfaces
use the following port numbers:
The network ports are on the front panel of the switch and are labeled from left to right starting with 0 followed by the remaining even numbered ports in the top row and 1 followed by the remaining odd number ports in the bottom row. (On the partial PoE switches, port numbers 0 through 7 have a label that is a different color from the labels on the remaining ports to indicate that these first eight ports are PoE ports.)
Figure 1 shows the network ports on a 24–port EX-series switch.
Figure 1: Port Numbers on the 24-Port EX-series Switch

Figure 2 shows the network ports on a 48–port EX-series switch.
Figure 2: Port Number on the 48-Port EX-series Switch

Logical Part of an Interface Name
The logical unit part of the interface name corresponds to the logical unit number, which can be a number from 0 through 16384. In the virtual part of the name, a period (.) separates the port and logical unit numbers: media-type-fpc/pic/port.logical. For example, if you issue the show ethernet-switching interfaces command on a system with a default VLAN, the resulting display shows the logical interfaces associated with the VLAN:
Interface State VLAN members Blocking ge-0/0/0.0 down remote-analyzer unblocked ge-0/0/1.0 down default unblocked ge-0/0/10.0 down default unblocked
When you configure aggregated Ethernet interfaces, you configure a logical interface that is called a bundle or a LAG. Each LAG can include up to eight Ethernet interfaces.
Wildcard Characters in Interface Names
In the show interfaces and clear interfaces commands, you can use wildcard characters in the interface-name option to specify groups of interface names without having to type each name individually. You must enclose all wildcard characters except the asterisk (*) in quotation marks (" ").




