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 to enable inband management of SRX cluster from NSM. In the absence of this feature, an SRX cluster member would require to be configured with dedicated interface for management traffic to and from the NSM. If the forwarding redundant interface is used instead, for sending and receiving management traffic, 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 and the NSM will be connected only to the member which is primary. The NSM management traffic will be 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 needs to be run in edit mode and committed:
root@srx# set chassis cluster network-management cluster-master
NOTE: This is a hidden command. You need to type it completely and not depend on auto-complete. This is supported from Junos 10.1R2 onwards.
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.
NOTE: Schema version 147 is required in order to display hardware inventory of SRX VC properly.