This separation of control and data plane allows the virtual switch to faithfully replicate the internal architecture of its physical counterpart. The two VMs must be powered on simultaneously and interconnected via their respective em1 interfaces, which creates an internal backplane. All data traffic is then handled by the PFE, under the command of the RE.
This release includes feature parity with modern data center requirements:
This article provides an in-depth look at what this specific image brings to your virtual labs in 2026, why it is considered "exclusive," and how to deploy it efficiently. What is vqfx202r110reqemuqcow2?
qemu-img create -f qcow2 -o discard=unmap vqfx-re.qcow2 40G vqfx202r110reqemuqcow2 exclusive
A KVM-enabled host (Ubuntu 22.04/24.04 recommended) or GNS3 VM. The vqfx-20.2R1.10-re-qemu.qcow2 image file. A corresponding PFE image. 2. Deployment Steps
Not all physical QFX features (like certain hardware-based VXLAN/EVPN functions) work perfectly in the virtual RE, though version 20.2 has excellent support for modern protocols.
The RE node boots up successfully, but it cannot communicate with the PFE node. The Junos control plane cannot find its virtual data plane ASIC. This separation of control and data plane allows
Performance Optimization and "Exclusive" Configuration Tweaks
+-----------------------------------------------+ | vQFX Virtual Switch | | | | +------------------+ Internal +-------+ | | | Routing Engine | <-----------> | PFE | | | | (vqfx202r110re) | em1 / em0 | (vPFE)| | | +------------------+ +-------+ | +-----------|-----------------------------|-----+ | | Management Port Data Ports (fxp0 / em0) (xe-0/0/0, etc.)
: Indicates this is the Routing Engine image (as opposed to the PFE, or Packet Forwarding Engine). This release includes feature parity with modern data
While "exclusive" is often used in the titles of third-party download sites or community labs (like those found on EVE-NG forums ) to denote a specific pre-configured or "leaked" version, it is not an official Juniper product designation.
Ensure Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) acceleration is active on your bare-metal server or nested virtualization host. Running QEMU without hardware acceleration ( -enable-kvm ) will cause the RE to take over 30 minutes to boot, or fail entirely.
The "vqfx202r110reqemuqcow2 exclusive" keyword is a technical alias for a powerful, multi-layered toolkit. It represents the Juniper vQFX virtual switch—a free, highly capable emulation of the enterprise-grade QFX10000—packaged in the efficient QCow2 disk image format for QEMU-based hypervisors. The "exclusive" aspect not only refers to a technical locking mechanism for disk images but also to the privileged access this knowledge provides to high-level network design, automation, and certification.
First, obtain the official vQFX image bundle by logging into your Juniper Networks support account and downloading the juniper-vQFX-20.2R1.zip file. When extracted, you will have two files: the RE image ( vqfx-20.2R1.10-re-qemu.qcow2 ) and the PFE image ( vqfx-20.2R1-2019010209-pfe-qemu.qcow ).