This took far too long to get working, but finally have it so – here’s how I did it.
Images used (from Juniper):
- (PFE): cosim-18.4R1.8_20180212.vmdk
- (RE): jinstall-vqfx-10-f-18.4R1.8.vmdk
Copy these to your ESXi server (upload to the datastore) . mine is ESXi 6.5, but most would work… enable SSH then SSH to your box.
Tweak Disk Images
Now create “golden” images, note the different process for each file:
(PFE): cosim-18.4R1.8_20180212.vmdk
- vmkfstools -X 10.5G cosim-18.4R1.8_20180212.vmdk
- vmkfstools -i cosim-18.4R1.8_20180212.vmdk pfe-thin.vmdk -d thin
(RE): jinstall-vqfx-10-f-18.4R1.8.vmdk - vmkfstools -X 4.5G jinstall-vqfx-10-f-18.4R1.8.vmdk
Create VM Environment
The PFE/RE link should be on its own vSwitch – do not use a vswitch with other things
PFE/RE Link – New Switch, MTU 9000, Security – allow *everything*, Port-Group: Vlan 0, Inherit All from vSwitch
PFE
- ESXi5.5 Virtual Machine
- Linux
- Other Linux 2.6 64 Bit
- 1 vCPU
- NO CD
- NO HD
- 2GB RAM
- Interface 1 (E1000) – Management
- Interface 2 (E1000) – PFE/RE Port-Group
RE
- ESXi 5.5 Virtual Machine
- Free BSD 64-bit
- 2 vCPU
- 4GB Ram (note: 2GB is fine, but more interfaces, more RAM, I use as I add 3 xe- interfaces)
- NO CD
- NO HD
- Interface 1 (E1000) – Management
- Interface 2 (E1000) – RE/PFE Link
- Interface 3 (E1000) – RE/PFE Link
- !– revenue ports (xe-) –!
- Interface 4 (E1000) – your port group 1
- Interface 5 (E1000) – your port group 2
- Interface 6 (E1000) – your port group 3
copy the image files created earlier to the directories for the relevant VMs
PFE: cp pfe-thin* your-pfe-vm-dir/
RE: cp jinstall-vqfx-10-f-18.4R1.8* your-re-vm-dir/
add a new IDE hard disk to the pfe/re as the relevant image you just copied
Boot the VMS! – this will take a while notably the RE. Expect the RE to hang for 5/10 mins at this point:

when booted – give this another few mins then in theory, you should have the FPC connected (note, BE PATIENT):

Revenue (Traffic Interfaces)
A quirk of the vQFX is you then have to MAP the mac addresses, as vQFX maps interfaces 3+ on the VM to em3+ rather than xe-0/0/0/
so em3 mac needs to go to xe-0/0/0, em4 to xe-0/0/1 etc – do this
On the RE-VM:
root@leaf01> show interfaces em3 | match Hard (this is interface 3, or your port-group 1)
Current address: 00:0c:29:05:a9:d4, Hardware address: 00:0c:29:05:a9:d4
{master:0}
root@leaf01> show interfaces xe-0/0/0 | match Hard
Current address: 02:05:86:71:86:03, Hardware address: 02:05:86:71:86:03
conf
set interfaces xe-0/0/0 mac 00:0c:29:05:a9:d4
repeat for additional interfaces, then you should be able to ping things on the other end of the xe-0/0/x interfaces.
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