While working with a customer last week I ran into an issue with the layer 3 daughter card in a Nexus 5500 series switch. After setting up the vlans and connecting the Nexus to the core switch we still could not bring up new vlan interfaces created on the Nexus switch.  After some research it was determined that we did not have the license key installed for the layer 3 functionality.

When installing the new layer 3 cards you must obtain and install a license file to enable the layer 3 functionality.  Be sure to keep the PAK# or the cisco order so that a license request can be opened up with Cisco TAC.

Once Cisco TAC emails the license key save to USB device and use the following command

<kbd><strong>install license bootflash:</strong></kbd>