topic Re: Any way to view disabled LAN ports in dashboard? in Cloud Networking Platform

Any way to view disabled LAN ports in dashboard?

dhuffman1 — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 16:17:03 GMT

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.

Re: Any way to view disabled LAN ports in dashboard?

aleabrahao — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 16:29:16 GMT

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

Re: Any way to view disabled LAN ports in dashboard?

aleabrahao — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 16:32:45 GMT

Basically green means enabled and gray means disabled.

Re: Any way to view disabled LAN ports in dashboard?

dhuffman1 — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 16:40:21 GMT

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?

Re: Any way to view disabled LAN ports in dashboard?

dhuffman1 — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 16:45:00 GMT

Re: Any way to view disabled LAN ports in dashboard?

annmarie24us1 — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 16:45:17 GMT

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:

Enabled: Enable or disable the port. If the port is set to Disabled, no other options will be available. https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Networks_and_Routing/MX_Addressing_and_VLANs

Re: Any way to view disabled LAN ports in dashboard?

aleabrahao — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 16:54:03 GMT

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.

Re: Any way to view disabled LAN ports in dashboard?

dhuffman1 — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 16:56:00 GMT

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?

Re: Any way to view disabled LAN ports in dashboard?

dhuffman1 — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 17:00:17 GMT

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!

Re: Any way to view disabled LAN ports in dashboard?

AdamWW1 — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 17:09:33 GMT

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_Networks_with_Configuration_Templates#Local_Overrides

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.

Re: Any way to view disabled LAN ports in dashboard?

dhuffman1 — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 17:16:53 GMT

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