Configuring Interface Description
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.
Before you add a text description of a physical interface in the configuration file, you must first configure the interface at the [edit interfaces] hierarchy level. To add a text description, include the description statement at the [edit interfaces interface-name] hierarchy level:
For example:
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 and Services Library. |
For information about describing logical units, see Adding a Logical Unit Description to the Configuration.
To display the description from the router or switch CLI, use the show interfaces command:
user@host>
show interfaces fe-0/0/1Physical 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
