Upon boot, you will see the Junos loader, then the CLI prompt: root@% . The exclusive image often comes with default credentials:
The "exclusive" image is your gold master. Never boot it directly. Use a backing file. vqfx202r110reqemuqcow2 exclusive
Why is this particular release sought after? Version 20.2R1 is considered a "goldilocks" release for vQFX. It stabilized EVPN multihoming (ESI-LAG) and VXLAN routing, while later versions (20.4+) introduced resource bloat that broke many QEMU/KVM setups. The build is known for its lean memory footprint (~4GB RAM) and stable PCIe passthrough. Upon boot, you will see the Junos loader,
The "exclusive" image may boot faster than standard images, but still expect 2-3 minutes for the Juniper CLI to appear. Log in with root (no password). Use a backing file
: Restricts the QEMU process to physical CPU cores 0 and 1 exclusively.
As Juniper pushes Junos Evolved (a containerized, Linux-native version), the traditional vQFX may become obsolete. However, the 20.2R1.10 release remains a gold standard for three reasons: