The MX2020 shows 2 gnf licenses, each supporting 4 GNFs so a total of 8 should be supported on the device. However, when customer tries to add the 5th and 6th GNFs, the license-check process stalls and stops responding. Also, an alarm is generated:
user@MX2K_RE1> show chassis alarms
3 alarms currently active
Alarm time Class Description
2026-01-01 00:32:24 GMT Minor Potential slow peers are: license-check
2025-11-16 15:05:09 GMT Minor GNF 8 Not Online
2025-08-03 21:14:58 GMT Minor Backup RE Active
It looks like the license-check process is not responding as it has several threads in either wait or sleep state:
97265 root 23 0 880M 103M nanslp 3 115:11 0.20% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M uwait 4 2:03 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M uwait 2 2:02 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M uwait 5 1:46 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M nanslp 4 0:24 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M nanslp 2 0:23 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M uwait 4 0:07 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M uwait 4 0:04 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M uwait 3 0:04 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M uwait 1 0:04 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M uwait 5 0:03 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M uwait 2 0:03 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M uwait 4 0:03 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M select 5 0:02 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M select 0 0:02 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M uwait 5 0:01 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M uwait 0 0:01 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M uwait 3 0:01 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M uwait 2 0:00 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M uwait 5 0:00 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M select 2 0:00 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M uwait 0 0:00 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M uwait 1 0:00 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M select 5 0:00 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M select 1 0:00 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 20 0 880M 103M uwait 3 0:00 0.00% license-check{license-check}
97265 root 68 0 880M 103M uwait 1 0:00 0.00% license-check{license-check}
If you do "show system license", it doesn't respond:
user@MX2K_RE1> show system license
^C[abort]
"show system license" shows license feature installed for 8 GNFs:
License usage:
Licensed Licensed Licensed
Feature Feature Feature
Feature name used installed needed Expiry
Subscriber Services Advanced 0 10 0 permanent
Scale L2TP 0 1000 0 permanent
BGP 1 0 1 invalid
ISIS 1 0 1 invalid
BFD Liveness Detection 1 0 1 invalid
Connectivity Fault Management 1 0 1 invalid
VRRP 1 0 1 invalid
QinQ 1 0 1 invalid
L3 VPN (VXLAN) 1 0 1 invalid
GNF Creation 0 8 0 permanent
Link Fault Management 1 0 1 invalid
LDP 1 0 1 invalid
RSVP 1 0 1 invalid
L2 Circuit 1 0 1 invalid
L3 Static 1 0 1 invalid
L3 VPN Instance Capacity 8 0 8 invalid
EVPN-VXLAN 1 0 1 invalid
L3 Multicast/IGMP 1 0 1 invalid
EVPN-MPLS 1 0 1 invalid
PIM 1 0 1 invalid
QOS 1 0 1 invalid
BGP-PIC 1 0 1 invalid
PWHT L2 1 0 1 invalid
PWHT L3 1 0 1 invalid
Advanced Bandwidth (in gbps) - MX 1120 0 1120 invalid
Subscriber Services Advanced UP 0 100 0 permanent
MVPN Instance Capacity 3 0 3 invalid
Licenses installed:
License identifier: E12345672
License version: 4
Order Type: commercial
Features:
GNF Creation - Guest Network Function creation
capacity: 4
permanent
License identifier: E1234571
However, when we restart the license-management process, it only shows license id E12345671 as "added successfully"
user@MX2K_RE1> show log messages | grep "License key added successfully"
Jan 20 21:17:51.688 MX2K_RE1 license-check[64984]: LICENSE_LICENSE_KEY_ADDED: License key added successfully for feature Guest Network Function creation(216) with license id E1234571
Jan 20 21:20:01.129 MX2K_RE1 license-check[66578]: LICENSE_LICENSE_KEY_ADDED: License key added successfully for feature Guest Network Function creation(216) with license id E1234571
Jan 20 21:20:39.172 MX2K_RE1 license-check[66867]: LICENSE_LICENSE_KEY_ADDED: License key added successfully for feature Guest Network Function creation(216) with license id E1234571
Jan 20 22:42:24.299 MX2K_RE1 mgd[50475]: UI_CMDLINE_READ_LINE: User 'user', command 'show log messages | grep "License key added successfully" '
Things work as normal when we deactivate the 5th and 6th gnfs.
The license infrastructure encountered an issue where license keys are syncing based on the GNF ID configuration under the [network slices] hierarchy. However, some GNF IDs do not have an allocated IP address, which causes the license keys to attempt syncing with GNF IDs that lack an address, leading to issues.
The BSYS will push the license key to the online GNF IDs that have allocated addresses and will skip pushing the license key for those GNF IDs without an allocated address. Issue is not seen in Junos 26.2R1 forwards.