Any way to view disabled LAN ports in dashboard?

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dhuffman
Here to help

Any way to view disabled LAN ports in dashboard?

Hello,

 

I could not find an answer to this anywhere so thought I would ask here in case anyone knows. We disable unused LAN ports on our mx68 for security reasons, is there a quick way in dashboard to see if a LAN port is disabled? Currently the only way I can see is to log into the local Meraki IP and check there, but when working with many sites and devices that can be time consuming. The dashboard just shows the port dark and does not seem to show any indication its actually disabled. We know it is, but this is more for our service desk when they get a call so they know if its a port that shouldn't be used or if there might be something wrong.

1 Accepted Solution
alemabrahao
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

In this case, there is not much to do other than validate each MX individually.

When I use templates, I always use the same MX model and use a standard set of ports to make management easier in these cases. Of course, it is not always possible to follow it exactly, depending on the location, but it helps a lot.

I am not a Cisco Meraki employee. My suggestions are based on documentation of Meraki best practices and day-to-day experience.

Please, if this post was useful, leave your kudos and mark it as solved.

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10 Replies 10
alemabrahao
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

On Security & SD-WAN > Configure > Addressing & VLANs page.

 

alemabrahao_0-1736872100171.png

 

I am not a Cisco Meraki employee. My suggestions are based on documentation of Meraki best practices and day-to-day experience.

Please, if this post was useful, leave your kudos and mark it as solved.
alemabrahao
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

Basically green means enabled and gray means disabled.

I am not a Cisco Meraki employee. My suggestions are based on documentation of Meraki best practices and day-to-day experience.

Please, if this post was useful, leave your kudos and mark it as solved.
dhuffman
Here to help

that's exactly what I'm looking for but when I got to Security & sdwan>configure> addressing and vlans I don't see those options, I only see what is attached. is this something i need to get enabled or am I looking at a different version of dashboard?Screenshot 2025-01-14 113353.png

dhuffman
Here to help

     

alemabrahao
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

In this case, there is not much to do other than validate each MX individually.

When I use templates, I always use the same MX model and use a standard set of ports to make management easier in these cases. Of course, it is not always possible to follow it exactly, depending on the location, but it helps a lot.

I am not a Cisco Meraki employee. My suggestions are based on documentation of Meraki best practices and day-to-day experience.

Please, if this post was useful, leave your kudos and mark it as solved.
dhuffman
Here to help

Ok, thanks for the info I figured that was the case. I wish we could be more standardized for sure, different locations just have different needs but enough across them is similar to justify the templates. Thanks again!

AdamWW
Meraki Employee
Meraki Employee

Hi,

 

When using templates, some things can still be overridden locally, the list is here: https://documentation.meraki.com/General_Administration/Templates_and_Config_Sync/Managing_Multiple_...

 

That said, turning ports on or off isn’t included in this list. So, the best way forward would be to rethink the templates, making sure groups of devices in each template need the same settings. After all, that’s really what templates are all about - making it easy to roll out devices with a consistent base setup.

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dhuffman
Here to help

oh good to know, I will get with our network admin and discuss it. It is still a new process for us so we may look into other options

annmarie24us
Meraki Employee
Meraki Employee

I am a Cisco Meraki employee and the suggestion from earlier is exactly correct on disabling ports on the MX and the documentation for this is 

Per-port VLAN Settings

Here you can view and modify the VLAN settings for your WAN appliance on a per-port basis. To modify the per-port VLAN settings, select the port or ports you wish to reconfigure and click Edit. You will be presented with a menu that allows you to set the following parameters:

dhuffman
Here to help

I think I found why mine looks looks different, we use templates. When I view the template I do indeed see the per port vlan setting, but I cant disable the port on the template itself because our template is based on areas, multiples locations will use 1 template,  and each single location has different ports needing disabled. In the template view on per port vlan settings it shows all enabled because that is the template settings and the local settings per location using that template override that, sorry am I making sense on that? Screenshot 2025-01-14 115322.png

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