Description

This article describes the issue of being unable to restore the Junos configuration via Junos Space.

Symptoms

Restoring a backed up configuration, using the Backup configuration file option in Junos Space, fails. The dfwc: dfwc_bitfield: "amp" is not a valid keyword error message is generated.

Solution

This error is caused due to the way the backup configuration is stored in Junos Space. The configuration file is stored in a XML format and in XML, the special character amp; is added to indicate that this is a special character.

This special character handling leads to certain configuration parameters to be stored as & as well. For example, tcp-flags is a configuration parameter which is used in JunOS to specify different TCP flags such as syn, ack and so on.

The correct usage for this configuration parameter  is tcp-flags "(syn & !ack) | fin | rst " ; however this gets stored in Junos Space database as  tcp-flags "(syn & !ack) | fin | rst" .

When the restore configuration is performed, the device reports an error indicating dfwc: dfwc_bitfield: "amp" is not a valid keyword , as amp is not a valid configuration value for the tcp-flags configuration parameter on Junos.

To work around this issue, perform the following procedure: 

  1. Go To Config files > Manage Config files , select the device, and click Edit Configuration .
  2. Make a configuration change by adding a whitespace or any other valid change.
  3. Click Modify to create a new version of the configuration file. 
  4. Perform a restore configuration again and it should complete successfully.

See related PR - Unable to restore Junos Config Via Space

Modification History

19-11-2025: Minor, non-technical edit