Monthly Archives: March 2008

New Theme!

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Lucian E. Marin made a very good wordpress theme. It looks clean and the main reason I choose this theme is the width of the content that spread wide enough for my Cisco CLI lines.

Some configuration changes have also been made to accomodate the image placement inside the article. This CSS script is taken from Box-Tube Box Modulize WordPress Theme By Dezzain Studio

Current website may not as provoking as previously but that’s the idea. The intention is to make the design present the content and not the design candies.

Asus EEE PC or Thinkpad X31?

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My wife asked for a computer. The requirements are simple. Small and easy to carry. this computer will be used just for browsing and email and bit of document processing.

Then there was the hail Asus EEE PC hype coming up. The specification looks promising and as it is really light and just enough to browsing, email, and document processing.

But wait. Is this a dream-come-true wish to have a small laptop as small as your bed-time story reading book and paying AU $ 479?

As an aficionado of Thinkpad generation, I then compared Asus EEE PC specifications plus price side by side with X31

EEE X31
CPU Intel Celeron M 900 MHz
underclocked 630 MHz		 Intel Celeron 1.4 GHz
RAM 512 MB 512 MB/2 GB
Networking Ethernet + Wireless Ethernet + Wireless
Hard Disk 4 GB SSD 80 GB HD
Screen Size 7″; 800×600 12″; 1024×768
Keyboard Size Smaller Standard
Sound YES YES
Dimension (width x depth x height (in mm)) 225 x 165 x 35 273 x 223 x 24.9
Weight 0.92 KG 1.4 KG
Built-in WebCam Yes No
Battery 4 Cells; 3.5hrs 8 Cells; 5.5hrs
CDRom No Yes, docking
SD Card reader Yes Yes
Price AU $479 AU $400

Still can’t decide? I finally bought Thinkpad X40, better version than X31, for AU $500.

Source.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Asus-Eee-PC-Family-Notebook.7891.0.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASUS_Eee_PC

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-58212.html#arc

http://www.popsci.com/gear-gadgets/article/2008-02/battle-ultra-mobile-linux-laptops-cloudbook-vs-eeepc-vs-my-old-thinkpad

Cisco CLI Tips.

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Shortcut them all

This is an old skool but just in case you don’t know it. You can use shorter command on your Cisco router or switch.

router#copy running-config startup-config
Destination filename [startup-config]?
Building configuration...
[OK]
router#copy run start
Destination filename [startup-config]?
Building configuration...
[OK]
router#wr
Building configuration...
[OK]

router#show ip interface brief
Interface                  IP-Address      OK? Method Status                Protocol
FastEthernet0/0            1.1.1.9         YES NVRAM  up                    up
Serial1/0                  unassigned      YES NVRAM  administratively down down
Serial1/1                  unassigned      YES NVRAM  administratively down down
Serial1/2                  unassigned      YES NVRAM  administratively down down
Serial1/3                  unassigned      YES NVRAM  administratively down down
Loopback0                  1.1.1.1         YES NVRAM  up                    up      

router#sh ip int br
Interface                  IP-Address      OK? Method Status                Protocol
FastEthernet0/0            1.1.1.9         YES NVRAM  up                    up
Serial1/0                  unassigned      YES NVRAM  administratively down down
Serial1/1                  unassigned      YES NVRAM  administratively down down
Serial1/2                  unassigned      YES NVRAM  administratively down down
Serial1/3                  unassigned      YES NVRAM  administratively down down
Loopback0                  1.1.1.1         YES NVRAM  up                    up

There are a lot more to try and bet you can find it yourself.

Get your CPU processes SORTED.

Checking your CPU usage. You know that to expect when you check your CPU processes. You will be presented with bunch of line of processes running on your CPU whilce you are actually needs to know what are the culprits that utilizing most of the CPU cycle. The idea is to get rid of the 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% lines and you will get what you want in less lines.

router#sh proc cpu | e 0.00%  0.00%  0.00%
CPU utilization for five seconds: 0%/0%; one minute: 1%; five minutes: 0%
 PID Runtime(ms)   Invoked      uSecs   5Sec   1Min   5Min TTY Process
   2          28        52        538  0.08%  0.00%  0.00%   0 Load Meter
   5          96        26       3692  0.00%  0.04%  0.01%   0 Check heaps
  17         204        76       2684  0.00%  0.07%  0.05%   0 HC Counter Timer
  23           4       252         15  0.08%  0.00%  0.00%   0 GraphIt
  31           0       253          0  0.08%  0.01%  0.00%   0 Per-Second Jobs
  47         576        52      11076  0.32%  0.25%  0.14%   0 Compute load avg
  48          24         5       4800  0.00%  0.01%  0.00%   0 Per-minute Jobs
  64         708       234       3025  0.24%  0.04%  0.11%   0 Exec
  77           0       981          0  0.00%  0.01%  0.00%   0 SSS Feature Time
  85          88        17       5176  0.00%  0.04%  0.00%   0 IP Background
  94         140      2504         55  0.00%  0.10%  0.08%   0 RBSCP Background
  97          56         6       9333  0.00%  0.03%  0.00%   0 Adj Manager
 100          76       498        152  0.00%  0.03%  0.02%   0 CEF process
 104         336       252       1333  0.16%  0.20%  0.09%   0 RUDPV1 Main Proc
 121           4        95         42  0.08%  0.01%  0.00%   0 FLEX DSPRM MAIN
 165          96        17       5647  0.00%  0.02%  0.00%   0 BGP Scanner

However, I bet you don’t want to type those 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%.

There is actually another shorther way to show this information. 

router#sh proc cpu sorted
CPU utilization for five seconds: 2%/47%; one minute: 1%; five minutes: 1%
 PID Runtime(ms)   Invoked      uSecs   5Sec   1Min   5Min TTY Process
  64        1884       497       3790  0.81%  0.44%  0.34%   0 Exec
  47        1000       100      10000  0.40%  0.20%  0.17%   0 Compute load avg
 104         780       491       1588  0.24%  0.11%  0.13%   0 RUDPV1 Main Proc
 100         376       920        408  0.24%  0.22%  0.09%   0 CEF process
  94         160      4897         32  0.08%  0.08%  0.08%   0 RBSCP Background
   2          80       100        800  0.08%  0.01%  0.00%   0 Load Meter
   5         276        55       5018  0.00%  0.07%  0.03%   0 Check heaps
   6           0         1          0  0.00%  0.00%  0.00%   0 Pool Manager
   7           0         2          0  0.00%  0.00%  0.00%   0 Timers
   8           0         2          0  0.00%  0.00%  0.00%   0 Serial Backgroun
  11           0         1          0  0.00%  0.00%  0.00%   0 AAA_SERVER_DEADT
   4           0         1          0  0.00%  0.00%  0.00%   0 EDDRI_MAIN
   3          16        49        326  0.00%  0.00%  0.00%   0 OSPF-1 Hello
   9           4         1       4000  0.00%  0.00%  0.00%   0 Crash writer
  10           0         2          0  0.00%  0.00%  0.00%   0 AAA high-capacit
  12           0         1          0  0.00%  0.00%  0.00%   0 Policy Manager
  17         372       148       2513  0.00%  0.06%  0.07%   0 HC Counter Timer
  18           0         2          0  0.00%  0.00%  0.00%   0 DDR Timers
  19           8         2       4000  0.00%  0.00%  0.00%   0 Entity MIB API
  20           0         2          0  0.00%  0.00%  0.00%   0 ATM Idle Timer
  14           0         1          0  0.00%  0.00%  0.00%   0 OIR Handler
--More--

Just press Q to stop it from listing the rest of processes.

Top-N your NBAR result.

Once in a while your customer complaining that their network is slow. After checking using sh ip accounting command you realize that an IP is hammering the network with lots of downloads. You want to know what type of data using the most of the bandwidth.

Using options TOP-N will list the top N most active packets traversing a particular interface.

Router#sh ip nbar protocol-discovery top-n 5

 Ethernet1/0
                            Input                    Output
   Protocol                 Packet Count             Packet Count
                            Byte Count               Byte Count
                            30 second bit rate (bps) 30 second bit rate (bps)
   ------------------------ ------------------------ ------------------------
   rip                      2102906                  0
                            1111292596               0
                            4000                     0
   exchange                 445134                   476293
                            94999897                 71142644
                            1000                     0
   citrix                   17533000                 26189816
                            1699134115               1757238725
                            0                        0
   http                     757374                   531709
                            767270905                119874802
                            0                        0
   netbios                  273322                   286568
                            102971995                116649079
                            0                        0
   unknown                  1370743                  1286614
                            848454115                351384151
                            0                        0
   Total                    23608400                 29194373
                            4845810303               2530247355
                            5000                     0

DO it now!

You want to do sh command but you are in the global or interface configuration mode and you don’t like the idea to keep doing CTRL-Z and re-entering the configuration mode. Just DO it!

You can also use the rest of the command in user EXEC mode like clear, debug, wr, etc.

s1r1(config-router)#do sh ip int brief
Interface                  IP-Address      OK? Method Status                Protocol
FastEthernet0/0            1.1.1.9         YES NVRAM  up                    up
Serial1/0                  unassigned      YES NVRAM  administratively down down
Serial1/1                  unassigned      YES NVRAM  administratively down down
Serial1/2                  unassigned      YES NVRAM  administratively down down
Serial1/3                  unassigned      YES NVRAM  administratively down down
Loopback0                  1.1.1.1         YES NVRAM  up                    up

NO ip domain-lookup.

You probably know that command no ip domain-lookup will make your router not to check to DNS server for every name or IP that you enter. You also probably know that using this command will save your life when you accidently mis-typed something.

router#pong
Translating "pong"...domain server (255.255.255.255)
 (255.255.255.255)
Translating "pong"...domain server (255.255.255.255)
% Unknown command or computer name, or unable to find computer address

But, do you know that it can also making your traceroute faster? NO ip domain-lookup will make your traceroute NOT to try resolve each IP thus will make your traceroute faster.

SECTION your sh run

I used sh run | begin router bgp to show my BGP configuration. This command will show the configuration BEGIN with the word router bgp

router#sh run | begin router bgp
router bgp 1
 no synchronization
 bgp log-neighbor-changes
 neighbor IBGP-PEERS peer-group
 neighbor IBGP-PEERS update-source Loopback0
 neighbor 1.1.1.2 remote-as 1
 neighbor 1.1.1.2 peer-group IBGP-PEERS
 neighbor 1.1.1.3 remote-as 1
 neighbor 1.1.1.3 peer-group IBGP-PEERS
 no auto-summary
!
ip http server
ip forward-protocol nd
!
!
!
!
!
!
control-plane
!
!
!
 --More--

However, it will also show anything that comes after BGP configuration.

Use SECTION to show ONLY your BGP configuration.

router#sh run | section router bgp
router bgp 1
 no synchronization
 bgp log-neighbor-changes
 neighbor IBGP-PEERS peer-group
 neighbor IBGP-PEERS update-source Loopback0
 neighbor 1.1.1.2 remote-as 1
 neighbor 1.1.1.2 peer-group IBGP-PEERS
 neighbor 1.1.1.3 remote-as 1
 neighbor 1.1.1.3 peer-group IBGP-PEERS
 no auto-summary
router#

It’s not no term mon but term no mon.

How do you think you going to cancel a command? put no in front of it. in this case, NO. Use command term no mon to disable term mon.

Extended but Shortcut.

You probably know that we can use extended ping which include particular source interface or source IP.

router#ping
Protocol [ip]:
Target IP address: 1.1.1.2
Repeat count [5]:
Datagram size [100]:
Timeout in seconds [2]:
Extended commands [n]: y
Source address or interface: 1.1.1.1
Type of service [0]:
Set DF bit in IP header? [no]:
Validate reply data? [no]:
Data pattern [0xABCD]:
Loose, Strict, Record, Timestamp, Verbose[none]:
Sweep range of sizes [n]:
Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 1.1.1.2, timeout is 2 seconds:
Packet sent with a source address of 1.1.1.1
!!!!!
Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 4/7/8 ms

We can actually make a shortcut from this. For example, as the above try to ping 1.1.1.2 with source address 1.1.1.1, we can use command

router#ping 1.1.1.2 so 1.1.1.1

Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 1.1.1.2, timeout is 2 seconds:
Packet sent with a source address of 1.1.1.1
!!!!!
Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 4/12/20 ms

router#ping 1.1.1.2 re 1000 si 1500 so lo0      

Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 1000, 1500-byte ICMP Echos to 1.1.1.2, timeout is 2 seconds:
Packet sent with a source address of 1.1.1.1
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Success rate is 100 percent (1000/1000), round-trip min/avg/max = 1/11/152 ms

Guess what? the above command is to
PING to 1.1.1.2
REpeat 1000 times
Packet SIze 1500-byte
SOurce address loopback0

Get RELOADed

If you plan to make a configuration change in one of the critical interface and afraid that your change can break the connection, you can use reload in 5 to reload your router in the next 5 minutes. Once you succesfully make the change and want to abort the reload command, just do reload cancel

router#reload in 5
Reload scheduled in 5 minutes by console
Reload reason: Reload Command
Proceed with reload? [confirm]
router#

***
*** --- SHUTDOWN in 0:05:00 ---
***

*Mar  1 01:53:29.491: %SYS-5-SCHEDULED_RELOAD: Reload requested for 01:58:25 UTC Fri
Mar 1 2002 at 01:53:25 UTC Fri Mar 1 2002 by console. Reload Reason: Reload Command.

router#reload cancel
router#

***
*** --- SHUTDOWN ABORTED ---
***

*Mar  1 01:53:41.567: %SYS-5-SCHEDULED_RELOAD_CANCELLED: Scheduled reload cancelled
at 01:53:41 UTC Fri Mar 1 2002

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Talent is Never Enough.

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I bought this book following its exceptional editorial reviews in Amazon.com.

Talent is “often overrated and frequently misunderstood,” observes leadership expert Maxwell (The 360 Degree Leader), who advises readers on building their strengths to become a “Talent-plus person.” In the first chapter, he examines how “belief lifts your talent,” whether it’s belief in your potential, yourself and your mission that empowers and encourages you. He then introduces a dozen other factors that can be combined with talent to achieve your goals: passion, initiative, focus, preparation, practice, perseverance, courage, teachability, character, relationships, responsibility and teamwork.

I need this book not because I’m talented but merely I need to understand what it takes to go beyond what I’m capable of. I certainly believe that being in IT industry is not just a coincident journey. I have a purpose and I need to work it out how I can be more than I currently am.

This book is not about achieving what you want. This book is about how to stay in the race and win it. A lot of people can enter the race but not many, surprisingly, can even run to finish. It takes several factors within us to finish the race.

Here are some points to ponder.

Believe that you can enter the race. Without believing what you’re capable of, you might wasting your time entering a wrong race.

Passionately run the race. It’s never about the race. It’s about how you really like it even when nobody support you, even you don’t get reward for this race. It’s something about your passion that you’re willingly doing it without anyone telling, even when no one bother to pay you!

Make your first step, take the initiative. Without it you would never even enter the race. You can believe you can do great things and passionately doing it. But if you do not even take the first step to do it, it would just vaporize.

Practice. You can enter the race and be the same for the next 10 years without practicing. Practice sharpens what you believe you’re capable of. Imagine if you’re in IT industry without adequate knowledge or enough practice. Eventually when the test time come and you’re not prepared, you know what you’re getting.

Perseverance. This is chapter I like most. Perseverance is about not letting it go for whatever reason. Keep pressing on no matter what happen. It’s just like trying to know something and it takes 20 times for you to read the book.

Teachability. Knowledge grows. If you’re humble enough to get knowledge from other people it means you’re proportioned yourself to grow.

Character. I’ve talked about this to my colleague. I don’t mind to get a stupid co-worker but I do hate to get an @$$h0l3. Your attitude shows your latitude.

Relationship. Who you’re with now will show you where you will be.

I finished reading the book and I don’t mind to read it again. This book not only shows you how but it enlightens with lots of great quotes and I have this book full of markers for nice quotes appeared.

Talent is God-given. Life is playing the hand you have been dealt well. That is determined by your choice.
John C. Maxwell

New Learning Curve.

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I started year 2008 with a new concept of study and learning. This is a priceless experience that I gain a complete different understanding about the way I acquire knowledge.

I began to realize that I’m not like those people who can finish CCIE within very limited time continuum, one even can get it for 3 months. I’m not here to judge, some people can have 16 hours of study in a day while I couldn’t. I was also offered to take two cisco field engineer exams within 2 days but then I asked, “what’s the point?”.

This is about acquiring knowledge, not getting the certification. Aristotle once said “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.” and I believe that. I’m a man of repetition, monkey see, monkey do.

I’ve been studying BGP since November last year and I believe that passing the exam is a complete different field than understanding it. I took this learning as slow as possible with different goal. Not only to pass the exam but understand it.

Of course, there are shortcuts to pass the exam, but there is no shortcut for understanding. I wish the world would be much easier if we can download knowledge within seconds just like Trinity and Neo do. But even if that technology exist, where is the fun?

I was intrigued by some comments on the mailing confirming that it is okay to have CCIE without proper knowledge, people say it as paper CCIE. I even heard that this and that countries have CCIE factory that can build CCIE within 6 months. I beg to differ!

That’s why I reluctantly join CCIE journey before I can assure myself that I have proper knowledge to enter the battle. When will I be ready? I don’t know. I don’t intend to be ready. I want to learn. I will know it when I’m ready.

The actual battle is never about getting CCIE. I believe many people can get CCIE. However, to stay the the same level of knowledge and attitude of being CCIE is a different story. It takes consistency and determination to stay in. How many people can pass CCIE and still actively being CCIE? Or even, many people can join the IT industry by working in the industry. However, how many people can be really be good inside it without consistency and determination to stay in and perform better.

Note for using BGP link bandwidth

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Taken from http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/ios/iproute/configuration/guide/irp_bgp_link_band.html

The link bandwidth extended community attribute is a 4-byte value that is configured for a link that on the demilitarized zone (DMZ) interface that connects two single hop eBGP peers. The link bandwidth extended community attribute is used as a traffic sharing value relative to other paths while forwarding traffic. Two paths are designated as equal for load balancing if the weight, local-pref, as-path length, Multi Exit Discriminator (MED), and Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) costs are the same.

BGP Lab v01

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This is my BGP lab I’ve created on dynamips. I don’t have the time to explain in details why I configure it this way. This is actually part of my BGP/CCIP study. So, don’t expect you will find BGP/CCIE level on this lab.

This lab consists:
– Multihoming to multi ISP
– Usage of Weight, Local Preference, AS-Path, and MED.
– Multipath
– BGP dampening
– ORF
– Confederation
– Route-Reflector
– Next-Hop
– Aggregation
– Cluster
– and probably some more I could not remember.

Enjoy!
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