MX Warm Spare - Setup Spare MX before setting it as a spare?

[ktv-meraki]

Hello Everyone,

Should be a quick question, our primary MX is setup and operational.  We want to setup the warm spare MX.  It's been in the rack for some time now and not powered on.  What kind of set up should I do before setting it as a warm spare?  I am feeling like the spare needs to have an uplink prior to going through the warm spare configuration process. Thanks for the input.

[KarstenI]

You are right, the spare needs the config to get to the internet. Without DHCP, this is typically the IP config including DNS servers. When going online and added as a spare, the MX will update to the same firmware as the primary and fetch the config to become operational.

[PhilipDAth]

This link has lots of info, including configuration.

https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Deployment_Guides/MX_Warm_Spare_-_High_Availability_Pair 

[Sarv]

We have always cabled up the spare (while powered off) (identical to the Primary). Then added the spare via the dashboard to the network. Then powered on the spare, this has worked for us every time. We have never configured anything on the spare in the past, assuming everything is cabled up properly (WAN and LAN ports).

[Sarv]

one additional item to note, once you add the spare you need to configure how the spare (while it is still powered off), you have to decide on using the mx uplink IPs (WAN) or virtual uplink IP (WAN side as well). Once that is done, power on the spare and should be good to go.

[ktv-meraki]

Hi Sarv, was the WAN uplink address manually configured after the fact?

[Sarv]

During the spare configuration it asks you if you want to use the existing PRIMARY MX WAN IPs, or if you want to use a VIP configuration (each MX would have its own PUBLIC IP's + a VIP Public IP -- So you would need to have at least 3 Public IPs in that scenario assuming you only have one ISP).  Then boot up the Spare and it should work, in essence you are configuring the WAN links for the SPARE without booting up the spare first.

[ktv-meraki]

Interesting perspectives.  I've read over the document and the only thing that was confusing me was whether I should set it's static WAN address beforehand so it can get out to the internet.  I dont know how it will communicate out if its never been powered on and I want to set a static WAN IP.

[Sarv]

When you setup the configuration of the SPARE you are giving it the configuration it needs on the WAN side (just make sure the WAN is cabled up to the spare). Once you boot up the spare the configuration will be deployed to the spare. I believe the configuration is deployed to the spare via the Primary FW (assuming everything is cabled properly on both WAN an LAN side, its important that the LAN side be cabled up on both primary and spare and all VLAN's on the LAN side properly presented to both primary and spare from your switches)