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Cisco

Cisco Systems is a major network technologies company. This tag identifies general information related to the company.

Defend the city!

Wed, 2010-10-27 07:12

The Cisco SLM2008 switch Jeremy talked about is cool and all, but does it help you defend the city?
Introducing the  Cisco SG 300-10 10-Port Gigabit Managed Switch. According to Amazon's description, not only does it aid in defending the city, it also will help you "find and defeat new Doom Syndicate enemies, including Megamind's re-programmed Brainbots!" 

Say Goodbye to CCVP and CCSP

Mon, 2010-10-25 06:52

Kiss the CCSP and CCVP titles goodbye. Cisco recently announced that the track specific professional certification exams are going to be changing their names. No more CCSP, it is now the CCNP Security. Same with the CCVP, it's now the CCNP Voice. Throw in the CCNP Service Provider Operations and CCNP Wireless, and you have yourself a plethora of professional tracks. 

The previous exam versions are still available for those of you out there who are halfway through completing the current Security and Voice tracks. Beginning next year, you'll start to see the current voice and security exams be replaced by updated versions. 

Virtual Port Channels

Fri, 2010-10-22 07:23

Probably one of the coolest features of Cisco's NX-OS is the ability to create a port channel between 3 different switches. This is called a Virtual Port Channel, or vPC. This completely eliminates spanning-tree from the picture when links fail, because the two switches participating in the vPC simply work it out between themselves when links fail. 

There are several steps that are needed to configure a vPC, such as having the feature enabled in NX-OS and setting up your peer link, but aside from that the port channel configuration looks nearly identical to a typical port channel. To simplify things, we will assume there are two Nexus switches already in place with management interfaces and only the default VDC configured. Each of these Nexus switches have ethernet ports 1 and 2 connected to a single 6509 access switch.

Cisco RELOAD IN Command

Tue, 2010-10-19 06:46
command_line_crypto.jpg

I'm sure many of you out there have used this command, but for anyone who hasn't, this can save you some drive time. If you are performing work on a Cisco device that is remote and there is a risk that the changes you make may cause the device or your connection to the device to fail, there is a command you can issue before making your changes that can save you.

Reload in <time>

This command effectively issues the reload command after whatever duration of time you specify. For example, if you are performing work on a remote site router that could take the WAN interface down, issue “reload in 20” to reload the router in twenty minutes. The amount of time you use is completely up to you. If you have your change scripted out and it will take 20 seconds to paste it in, you might want to type reload in 5 to give yourself a five minutes to complete the change. 

Cisco ACE Checkpoint Command

Mon, 2010-10-18 06:00

Typically with Cisco platforms, if you make a change that doesn’t work the way you intended, you may have to reboot the device you changed to properly restore the configuration to a working state. This is not the case with Cisco ACE modules. Prior to making a change, create a configuration checkpoint using the following command: 

# Checkpoint create <name>


To verify that the checkpoint is saved, issue the following command to see a list of the checkpoints on the context:  

# Show checkpoint all 

If you run into a problem after making some changes, you can rollback to a previous, known-good state: 

How to Build an Empire

Fri, 2010-10-15 07:06

Ever wonder how Cisco recommends you build an enterprise network? If you've studied for nearly any of their exams over the past few years, you've likely read about SONA, IIN, and the Enterprise Composite Network Model. All good things, but you might still be asking how do you actually build that stuff?

Well, someone at Cisco can read your thoughts and decided to give you a crash course on building an enterprise network in the form of the Small Enterprise Design Profile Reference Guide (a mouth full). This reference guide, available in a 20Mb PDF, has diagrams, pictures, configuration script examples, nearly everything except for the equipment and power cables to get a network built. 

Cisco Certification Tracking System

Mon, 2010-10-11 06:59
certification

For all of you out there that have Cisco Certifications or have started the certification process and want to track your exam progress, Cisco has a Certification Tracking System to do just that. The system allows you to login and see what certification exams you've completed, which ones you attempted, and all the potential ones that you can still achieve. The system is linked to your CCO account and if you don't have an account, there is a link on their page create one for free. 

Video Conferencing in the Living Room

Thu, 2010-10-07 07:11
tv.jpg

TV just isn't what it used to be. Remember the days when you could only watch one channel at a time and if someone wanted to change it, they had to get up off the couch and turn the knob? Now with multiple flat panel technologies, 3D TV, and thousands of channels, what could they possibly think of next? How about making a video calls possible like in Back to the Future part 2. 

Cisco has announced their Telepresence in the Living Room product, Umi. From what I can gather, it turns your HDTV into a video conferencing solution, all for a monthly fee. This might be great for someone that has expendable income and wants an extra piece of equipment in their home entertainment system. Or you could just keep using Skype and not buy anything new. 

Cisco Nexus Switches, with built-in Wireshark

Tue, 2010-10-05 06:48

Most of us out there have a copy of Wireshark on our PCs and laptops for troubleshooting problems as well as for learning and figuring out how protocols work. Well, what if you are troubleshooting a problem and you don't happen to have Wireshark installed? 

No problems if you are working on the Nexus 7000, wireshark is built in. Now, don't get too excited, it isn't like there is a built-in GUI (yet?). Cisco simply based their Cisco NX-OS Ethanalyzer on the command-line version of wireshark, also known as T-shark. The syntax is very similar to tcpdump in linux, here is an example:

IOS 12.4 EOL, Universal IOS, and Cisco License Manager

Mon, 2010-09-27 07:25
keys.jpg

Many of you may have heard by now, IOS 15 is the way of the future for IOS based devices. Cisco made their official End-of-Sale and End-of-Life Announcement for Cisco IOS Software Release 12.4. So, if you weren't planning on upgrading to IOS 15 ever, at least now you can know when you won't be able to call Cisco for help. The specific dates for EOL and EOS are detailed in the link above, but here's is a screen shot of the dates to save you a click:


 
Cisco IOS 12.4 EOS, EOL

Quick IOS Upgrade Tip: USB Flash Drive Support

Wed, 2010-09-22 07:12
usb_flash_drive.jpg

Ever have a project that involves deploying several, even dozens, of routers? Upgrading the IOS on each and every one is usually one of the first steps and it can be a time consuming task! 

Well, there is hope my friends. Cisco has been including USB ports on many of their devices for several years. Originally when they first started appearing, they didn't always do anything. You could plug something into them and nothing would happen. 

However, that has changed in many of the newer software versions that are being released, in particular Cisco's ISR series.  This has made the process of upgrading code on a non-production router so much easier it is worth writing about.  Here is the list of IOS versions that support USB:

SIP Trunking for the Home

Mon, 2010-08-30 12:55

Someone at Cisco Live 2010 highly recommended this place...I'm about to take the plunge to have a SIP Trunk as my home phone line - I'll talk more about this later, just putting the link here so I don't lose it:

http://www.viatalk.com/

Cisco ROUTE: The New CBTNuggets Series

Fri, 2010-08-27 09:42
GNS3 Workspace

Image via Wikipedia

Yes, yes...I know. It's been awhile since my last post. A little too much work lately to post about anything!

A "Mini-MRTG" On Your Router - Sweet!

Fri, 2010-07-16 05:20

Check this out - Ray Blair (Cisco guy) creates a TCL script for your IOS-based router that will send SLA probes (performance measurement) and create a graphical display of the results...ALL WITHIN YOUR ROUTER (no external monitoring software needed)! This is insane...impress your friends (ehhh...Cisco-knowledgeable friends, that is) with this one:
Here's the link: http://www.cisco.com/web/services/news/ts_newsletter/tech/chalktalk/index.html

Stop Site-to-Site VPN Drop

Thu, 2010-07-15 07:00

By default, site-to-site VPNs timeout after 30 minutes of idle time. This is a pain for me when I first try to access a site and have the first few packets of my Remote Desktop session or ping or whatever drop. (Yes - those 3 seconds of my life are EXTREMELY valuable). Here's the secret, straight from Cisco:

PIX/ASA 7.x and later

Enter the vpn-idle-timeout command in
group-policy configuration mode or in username configuration mode in
order to
configure the user timeout period: 

hostname(config)#group-policy DfltGrpPolicy attributes
hostname(config-group-policy)#vpn-idle-timeout none

Configure a maximum amount of time for VPN connections with the
vpn-session-timeout command in group-policy
configuration mode or in username configuration mode:

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Dr. Radut