Adding an Interface Description to the Configuration
You can include a text description of each physical interface in the configuration file. Any descriptive text you include is displayed in the output of the show interfaces commands, and is also exposed in the ifAlias Management Information Base (MIB) object. It has no impact on the interface’s configuration. To add a text description, include the description statement at the [edit interfaces interface-name] hierarchy level:
The description can be a single line of text. If the text contains spaces, enclose it in quotation marks.
![]() | Note: You can configure the extended DHCP relay to include the interface description in the option 82 Agent Circuit ID suboption. See Enabling and Disabling Insertion of Option 82 Information in the Junos OS Subscriber Management, Release 12.3. |
For information about describing logical units, see Adding a Logical Unit Description to the Configuration.
Example: Adding an Interface Description to the Configuration
Add a description to a Fast Ethernet interface:
[edit interfaces] user@host#
set fe-0/0/1 description "Backbone connection
to PHL01"
[edit interfaces] user@host#
show
fe-0/0/1 { description "Backbone connection to PHL01"; unit 0 { family inet { address 192.168.0.1/30; } } }
To display the description from the router or switch CLI, use the show interfaces command:
user@host>
show interfaces fe-0/0/1
Physical interface: fe-0/0/1, Enabled, Physical link is Up Interface index: 129, SNMP ifIndex: 23 Description: Backbone connection to PHL01 ...
To display the interface description from the interfaces MIB, use the snmpwalk command from a server. To isolate information for a specific interface, search for the interface index shown in the SNMP ifIndex field of the show interfaces command output. The ifAlias object is in ifXTable.
user-server>snmpwalk host-fxp0.mylab public ifXTable | grep -e '\.23' snmpwalk host-fxp0.mylab public ifXTable | grep -e '\.23' ifMIB.ifMIBObjects.ifXTable.ifXEntry.ifName.23 = fe-0/0/1 ifMIB.ifMIBObjects.ifXTable.ifXEntry.ifInMulticastPkts.23 = Counter32: 0 ifMIB.ifMIBObjects.ifXTable.ifXEntry.ifInBroadcastPkts.23 = Counter32: 0 ifMIB.ifMIBObjects.ifXTable.ifXEntry.ifOutMulticastPkts.23 = Counter32: 0 ifMIB.ifMIBObjects.ifXTable.ifXEntry.ifOutBroadcastPkts.23 = Counter32: 0 ifMIB.ifMIBObjects.ifXTable.ifXEntry.ifHCInOctets.23 = Counter64: 0 ifMIB.ifMIBObjects.ifXTable.ifXEntry.ifHCInUcastPkts.23 = Counter64: 0 ifMIB.ifMIBObjects.ifXTable.ifXEntry.ifHCInMulticastPkts.23 = Counter64: 0 ifMIB.ifMIBObjects.ifXTable.ifXEntry.ifHCInBroadcastPkts.23 = Counter64: 0 ifMIB.ifMIBObjects.ifXTable.ifXEntry.ifHCOutOctets.23 = Counter64: 42 ifMIB.ifMIBObjects.ifXTable.ifXEntry.ifHCOutUcastPkts.23 = Counter64: 0 ifMIB.ifMIBObjects.ifXTable.ifXEntry.ifHCOutMulticastPkts.23 = Counter64: 0 ifMIB.ifMIBObjects.ifXTable.ifXEntry.ifHCOutBroadcastPkts.23 = Counter64: 0 ifMIB.ifMIBObjects.ifXTable.ifXEntry.ifLinkUpDownTrapEnable.23 = enabled(1) ifMIB.ifMIBObjects.ifXTable.ifXEntry.ifHighSpeed.23 = Gauge32: 100 ifMIB.ifMIBObjects.ifXTable.ifXEntry.ifPromiscuousMode.23 = false(2) ifMIB.ifMIBObjects.ifXTable.ifXEntry.ifConnectorPresent.23 = true(1) ifMIB.ifMIBObjects.ifXTable.ifXEntry.ifAlias.23 = Backbone connection to PHL01 ifMIB.ifMIBObjects.ifXTable.ifXEntry.ifCounterDiscontinuityTime.23 = Timeticks: (0) 0:00:00.00