Shocking to see how things are still so quirky after so many months... ... View more

I just finished trying to configure a static IP for an MS-120 and what a frustrating experience.   I was unable to bring up the local screen for configuring a static IP address.  Let me explain.   This switch will serve as the "outside" switch where a new ISP for the office will land in.  They gave us a /29 range.  All well and good, but I needed to assigned a static IP for this switch.   The main issue is that this switch has no dedicated management port.  With a mgmt port, I could wire right into that an kick off a local GUI to configure a static IP for the switch.  The instructions say to plug into any switch port and goto my.meraki.com or http://1.1.1.100 and off you go.     Well, not that simple, I was unable to bring up the local config screen no matter what port I tried.   I didn't think of assigning my laptop an IP of 1.1.1.99 like @NolanHerring said because I didn't see this mentioned anywhere in the documentation!   Here is what I ended up doing.   1. The office already has a working Meraki network.  I added this switch to the site   2. I was sitting at home with this switch.  I was planning to assigned it a local IP address and bring it to the office later this week for installation.   3. I booted the switch as a DHCP client on my home network.  It got an IP address and connected to the cloud.  The GUI for my office network saw the switch.   4. At this point, I could configure a static IP via the GUI but I would have no real confirmation that the IP's took because as soon as the local IP of the switch is changed, it will disconnect from the cloud.  Chicken and egg scenario.   So at this point I had one port of the new switch connected to my home network and the switch was visible on my office network.  I still wanted to configure a static IP for this switch.  What to do?   From the GUI, I changed all the ports from trunk to access except for the uplink connection.   I connected an ethernet cord from my laptop to the switch and tried the http://1.1.1.100 and sure enough it came up this time!   Now the ID and password are not the Serial # anymore because it's already connected to my office LAN so I had to use the admin password to get into the local GUI.     Finally I was into the local GUI of the MS-120 and was able to configure a static IP.   Now the real test will be tomorrow when I connect the new ISP handoff to this switch and see if it's able to get back to the cloud!   As soon as I think I've seen it all with Meraki, something else comes along to surprise me. ... View more

Currently running 11.31 but that's because I have core and other switches that are stable on this version.  I only keep with the recommended Meraki versions and try not to jump ahead unless there is a specific bug.  ... View more

@Darren8    I plan on moving forward with the stacking due to the lack of fiber uplinks between my stack and the core.  Plus our model uses an aggregate uplink connection (combining two trunks) and we can only due that across physical switches using a stack.   The stack behavior is annoying but as long as you understand what to expect, you can be ready for it.   I suggest you leave plenty of lead time to build and test the stack before putting it into production.   -Pete ... View more

Not sure why my last reply was wiped, but here goes again.   Some more things learned while configuring a new stack of for MS-390's   - I had static IP's defined for each switch in the stack during staging.  All the switches of the new stack will take on the IP on one the of switches in the stack once the stacking is complete.  Can you recycle the IP's that were originally assigned to each switch?  Who knows, but I wouldn't.   - My stack was offline for over 2 hrs after enabling the stack before it showed up again on the GUI   - Rebooting one switch in the stack will boot the entire stack.  Single switch reboot, 10 minutes.  Four switch stack reboot time?  20 minutes.  Keep this in mind for downtime windows during IOS code updates. ... View more

OK, a quick update as I try to remotely configure the stack of MS-390's.  Just as a point of reference, I've remotely configured at least two dozen stacks using MS-250 switches over the last two years so I get the quirks.   - All of the 4 switches had unique static IP's on the MGMT VLAN before I started.  Everything was stable and updated to version MS 11.31  I have my local contact hook up the stack cables.  The stack was recognized as a "potential" stack and was provisioned.   - A few minutes after doing this, I lost all contact with the stack.  I assume there was a reboot process happening.  About 30 mins later, the stack appeared in my GUI.  I noticed that all 4 switches had the same DHCP IP from another VLAN on my network.  Again, I had unique statics assigned to each switch before this process started.   - At this point, I disabled all the individual uplinks to the switches from the core switch.  These uplinks were only needed for the staging process.  I only need one fiber (or 2 to redundancy) uplink from the stack itself once it's been provisioned.  Switch to switch comms will happen over the stack cables.  Once I did this, the entire stack disappeared from the GUI again.  My local tech had already left the office at this point so there was nothing I could do.   - About 2.5 hours later, the stack magically reappeared in the GUI.  This time they all had the same local IP as one of the original switches.  But at least this was a static IP on the correct VLAN.   I did a reboot test of a switch that did not have a direct uplink to the core and confirmed that switch with the direct uplink also rebooted by watching the link of the port on the core go out.  So the reboot on one in the stack will reset the entire stack.   Individual switches take about 10 mins to reboot.  The 4-stack switch took about 20 mins to come back to the GUI.   I can just imagine how much stress it would be if this was a live network and a reset was needed on an individual switch.  How about reboots during IOS updates?   Anyway, it's a bit disappointing to see how the MS-390's so far seem to be a step backwards in terms of configuration and installation. ... View more

Meraki user here for close to 3 years now.   Just yesterday we started the staging process for a stack of new MS-390-48UX switches.  I thought I had seen most of the Meraki quirks given all the deployments I've done but nope.   First issue was the long (10 mins) reboot process.  Being remote, I had to ask the poor local office manager to divine interpret the colors on the cycling front panel LED.  More than once I thought the switch had died and did a power cycle boot, which only added to the wait.   Second, I like my switches to have a static IP for mgmt.  I boot the new switch with DHCP and then once the switch has stabilized, I would change it to a static.  After my change, this took over 20 mins for the change to be shown on the GUI.  I'm used to the lead/lag effect but this is insane.  As I'm waiting for the GUI to update, my mind of going over all the things that could be wrong.   The restrictions of VLAN 1-1000 on a trunk was another quirk I solved thanks to this thread.  I did NOT like seeing that warning message on my Core Meraki MS-416 but didn't realize the trunk port default for VLAN's is "all" on the core.   So now I have to go on to the next stage, which is to create a stack of these things.  Let's see how that goes...   If I understand correctly from reading this thread, the stack cables for the MS390 are different than the cables for the MS-425/MS-250 series?   ... View more