Enabling VirtualWire Mode on a Switch

To setup a switch in VirtualWire mode, you must install the required license key by using the command:

CLI (network-admin@netvisor) > software-license-install key key-string

For example, to install the license key, ONVL-10G-VW+-LIC, use the command:

CLI (network-admin@netvisor) > software-license-install key ONVL-10G-VW+-LIC

To view the license details on the VirtualWire switch, use the software-license-show command. For example,

CLI (network-admin@netvisor) > software-license-show

license-id description expires-on status

---------------- ---------------------------- ---------- ------

ONVL-10G-VW+-LIC 10G switches license for VW+ never VALID

The following command instructs the switch to operate in VirtualWire mode and is used to enable global VirtualWire functionality on a switch:

First configure the switch as a virtual-wire bridge by using the switch-mode-modify command. For example,

CLI(network-admin@netvisor) > switch-mode-modify switch-mode virtual-wire

switch-mode-modify	Use this command to modify the mode of a server switch.
switch-mode store-and-forward\|virtual-wire	Specify the mode of the switch. Specifying the virtual-wire keyword modifies the switch as a VirtualWire switch.

Note: Enabling VirtualWire mode on a switch disables all the possible error-checks such as Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) and Runts (Runts are very small ethernet packets, upto 50 bytes and is caused by excessive packet collisions). This feature also disables STP, LLDP, Layer 2 learning on all switch ports as well as processing and forwarding of BPDUs .
Also, Jumbo frames are enabled by default on all ports in VirtualWire mode. Additionally, the regular switches function like the VLANs and vRouters are not supported anymore.

To display the switch mode, use the switch-mode-show command:

CLI (network-admin@netvisor) > switch-mode-show

switch: pn-spine1

switch-mode: virtual-wire