vlan management without assigning an interface to the vlan I am using VLAN 40 to manage switches, but you have to assign a port to a VLAN for it to come up, is there a way to do this without wasting a port on the switch?

Add VLAN 40 as a trunked/tagged VLAN on the uplink port of the switch.

This will make it active (since it has an active interface) and allow you to reach it in the first place if you are coming from a remote switch.