I’ve been working on doing some multicast labs lately and am constantly resetting my lab devices to their default configs and starting from scratch. As many of us know, to enable PIM on all of your interfaces you must go into each interface and enable it manually. There is no default command to enable PIM on all interfaces. We know PIM should be enabled 1 to 1 with interfaces involved in routing making this a boon. With that in mind, and the fact that I am rather comfortable with the concept of needing PIM on the interfaces, and likely speak and type this command in my sleep, I decided to make it easier and modify a previous TCL script I had written to enable PIM on every interface that has an IP address assigned to it. With the great “Send to Chat” feature of SecureCRT I can do this across my entire topology on one fell swoop. In a real world environment, you could use a tool like Solarwinds to push this out to your devices.
Category: Certification
Bulk enable PIM via TCL
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Initial Router Setup For Remote Access
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The following lab can be completed using any Cisco Emulator supporting the appropriate feature(s).
The purpose of this lab is to reinforce basic router configuration including naming the router, connecting two routers via an ethernet connection, and establishing logon procedures for remote access including secure remote access. Remote access if a key design feature of any network. It provides efficiency of management by preventing unnecessary trips to distant devices for simple tasks. Secure access is provided to prevent unauthorized access and data gathering from packet captures on plain text traffic.
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Cisco DHCP Configuration
Cisco routers are capable of doing many more things than simply routing packets. In fact, it can operate as a small DHCP server when needed. By no means is it a replacement for your enterprise, centrally managed DHCP server but it does have its applicable scenarios. Lets say you have a branch office that has its own server for any particular reason. Maybe it is a local file share for an engineering departments CAD program and rather than having all file traffic from opens and saves traverse the WAN during the day, you simply run backs of that server across the WAN at night. Continue reading
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Static Routing with Cisco
Routing is at the core of the network infrastructure. Routing is what ultimately lets you get from point A to point B not only in your own network, but also across the entirety of the world wide web. Routing in its simplest form tells your network devices the path to get to another network device located on another network. This was originally handled by creating static routes to the required destinations.
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Cisco HSRP Example
Todays enterprise network is heavily focused on providing as near to 100% uptime as possible. Newer technologies such as virtualization and server clusters have been a focal point in achieving this level of service for some time now. However, an often missed opportunity to provide that level of service exists in the core of your infrastructure. Many medium size organizations will implement a server monitoring resource to measure and track the uptime on their core applications and infrastructure servers such as DHCP, DNS, SharePoint, Active Directory, and so on. Often times this monitoring server is located within the data center, and likely on the same subnets as the servers themselves. This can quickly skew your uptime numbers in the sense of “can my users reach the servers?”. While true, the uptime of the servers may be near 100% from the standpoint of the monitoring system, that does not indicate the ability for your users to reach the servers, or in the same concept, your servers to reach your users. Enter default gateway redundancy.
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Cisco OSPF Virtual Link Example
In my chase for CCNP I came across virtual links while studying for the CCNP ROUTE exam. When I first read through the concept I was slightly lost during the description. However, upon a couple of runs through a lab it became clear on how easy the were. Before I list the condensed two step (or focus points if you will) to look at let’s look at what a virtual link is and why we would use it.
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Certification Study Strategy
I often get asked what the best way to study for an Information Technology certification is and what it entails. Throughout my career I have taken a number of certification and have developed a strategy that has been working for me with relatively good success for quite some time. While I understand that everyone has a diferrent learning style, and learns at a different pace, I believe many of the concepts can be adjusted to the individual. In fact, my process relies upon creating a timeline based on your own learning goals. In this article I am going to outline my certification preparation techniques and some of the tools I use to accomplish my training. Most of the tools I use are no-cost freeware and readily available on the internet. A quick google search should suffice in obtaining most of them.
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