MX400 (EOS) Installation Guide

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On Feb 28, 2018, Cisco Meraki announced the end-of-sale date for the MX400 series appliance will be May 20, 2018. The end-of-support date is May 20, 2025.

Read more about our Product End-of-Life (EOL) Policy.

This document describes how to install and set up the MX400 security appliance. Additional reference documents are available online at: www.meraki.com/library/products.

MX400 Overview

The Meraki MX400 is an enterprise security appliance designed for distributed networks that require remote administration. It is ideal for network administrators who demand both ease of deployment and a state-of-the-art feature set. The MX400 appliance provides the following new features:

Four bypass (fail-to-wire) ports
USB port, to support approved 3G/4G cards for failover to cellular networks.
Support for two interface modules. Each module can have either eight 1Gbit
RJ45 or SFP ports or two 10Gbit SFP+ ports.
Dedicated management port.
Rail-kit for rack mounting

Package contents

In addition to the MX400, the following are provided.

The MX400 front panel

Ports and Status Indicators

The MX400 uses LEDs to inform the user of the device's status. When the device powers on, all the Internet LEDs flash twice. Additional functions are described below, from left to right.

Item	Function	LED Status	Meaning
1	Power	Solid orange	Power is applied
		Flashing green	Operation in progress
		Solid green	Fully operational
2	Warning	Off	During boot or no USB link
		Orange	Device requires attention. Dashboard will contain additional information
3	Disk status	Off	No disk activity
		Orange	Requires attention
		Green	Disk activity
4	Bypass status	Off	WAN and LAN ports are separated
		Green	WAN and LAN ports are connected through virtual wire

Additional functions on the front panel are described below, from left to right.

Reset button	Insert a paper clip if a reset is required. A brief, momentary press: To delete a downloaded configuration and reboot. Press and hold for more than 10 sec: To force the unit into a full factory reset.
USB port	USB 2.0 for 3G/4G wireless cards. Traffic status is indicated by the USB LED.
Interface modules 1 - 2	Interface modules for extended connectivity.
SFP Combo ports	For optional SFP-SX (fiber) or SFP-TX (RJ45 copper) GbE connectivity. The functionality of ports 8 and 8F, and ports 9 and 9F, is mutually exclusive. Only one port of a pair is supported at a time.

Using MX Expansion Slots and Modules

The MX400 has 2 expansion slots which can accept the following Meraki Interface Modules:

IM-8-CU-1GB: Meraki 8 x 1 GbE Copper Interface Module for MX400 and MX600.
IM-8-SFP-1GB: Meraki 8 x 1 GbE SFP Interface Module for MX400 and MX600.
IM-2-SFP-10GB: Meraki 2 x 10 GbE SFP+ Interface Module for MX400 and MX600.

When replacing an interface module, follow the steps below:

Power down the MX400. Interface Modules are not hot-swappable.
Insert the new interface module or modules.
Power up the MX400.
Dashboard will automatically recognize the new module or modules.

Please take caution when working with Interface Modules. Failure to follow the process above can corrupt the unit and void warranty.

The MX400 back panel

Please note that the serial number is located on the product label at the back panel of MX400.

Mounting hardware

The mounting hardware includes a rack mount rail kit. When installing the device, make sure that there is sufficient space between the rear of the rack and other obstacles to ensure adequate airflow.

Safety guidelines

Regardless if you are using a wall power outlet (MAINS) or any other type of power connection (e.g., a UPC device), always ensure that the power cord can be readily disconnected from the hardware unit.

Disconnect all power by turning off the power and unplugging the power cord before installing or removing a chassis or working near power supplies.

Lithium Battery Caution:

Risk of explosion could occur if battery is replaced by an incorrect type. Please dispose of used batteries according to the recycling instructions of your country.

Connecting to WAN

All Meraki MX devices must have an IP address. This section describes how to configure your local area network before you deploy it. A local management web service, running on the appliance, is accessed through a browser running on a client PC. This web service is used for configuring and monitoring basic ISP/WAN connectivity.

Setting up a static IP address

To ensure that the client PC is redirected to the local web service in the following step, you must disable all other network services (ex: wi-fi) on your client machine.

Do the following to configure basic connectivity and other networking parameters:

UUsing a client machine such as a laptop, connect to the management port of the MX.
Using a browser on the client machine, access the appliance's built-in web service by browsing to http://setup.meraki.com. (You do not have to be connected to the Internet to reach this address)
Click Uplink configuration under the Local status tab. The default credentials use the device serial number as the username, with a blank password field.
Choose Static for the IP Assignment option.
Enter the IP address, subnet mask, default gateway IP and DNS server information.

Setting up a DHCP IP address

By default all MX devices are configured to DHCP from upstream WAN / ISP servers. Simply plug the MX's WAN / Internet port to your upstream circuit and wait a few minutes for the unit to negotiate a DHCP address.

When the WAN connection is fully enabled, Internet LED will turn green.

Additional settings

Please note that all these settings below are accessible only via the local management console.

Setting VLANs

If your WAN uplink is on a trunk port, choose VLAN tagging > Use VLAN tagging and enter the appropriate value for VLAN ID for your network.

Setting PPPoE

PPPoE authentication may be required if you are connecting MX device to a DSL circuit. You need to know your authentication option and credentials (supplied by your ISP) in order to complete these steps.

Choose Connection Type > PPPoE.
Select your Authentication option.
If you select Use authentication, enter appropriate values for Username and Password.

Web proxy settings

These settings take effect if the MX device has to fall back to using HTTP to contact the Cloud Controller. By default, web proxy is disabled. To enable web proxy, do the following:

Choose Web proxy > Yes.
Enter values as appropriate for Hostname or IP and Port.
If you require authentication, choose Authentication > Use authentication, and enter appropriate values for Username and Password.

To apply all configuration settings to the appliance, be sure to click Save Settings at the bottom of the page.

Configuring physical link settings

To configure physical link settings on the Ethernet ports, click Local status > Ethernet configuration. You can enable half duplex, full duplex, and autonegotiation, as well as set 10 or 100-Mbps data rates.