I have a Junos router (Juniper SRX) with the default route pointing to the ISP (IP and default route assigned by DHCP) and a pair of Cisco Nexus switches with OSPF routing between all the boxes. I needed to originate a default route from SRX to Nexus switches. First, in order to be able to […]
Junos authentication-order Configuration
In Cisco IOS you usually configure RADIUS or TACACS+ authentication with local user database as a backup, and you explicitly define the “local” keyword to tell that the local database is used if external servers are not responding. If the external server says “rejected” then the local database is not consulted. In Junos you use […]
Review: Sena Parani-SD1000 Bluetooth Serial Adapter
I have always disliked using serial console connection to a switch or other network device with my laptop. The serial cable just ties me to that particular place and device. Depending on the situation you may have options like using a console server or a dedicated management network connection. But every now and then the […]
Configuring BGP Sessions in IPv6
My colleagues were faced with an IPv6 implementation case where the router IOS feature set prevented them from configuring the BGP sessions. I labbed something for them and thought this overall IPv6 BGP session configuration would be worth of documenting here because there are some differences when compared to the usual IPv4-only BGP configurations. I […]
Cisco Nexus 7000 Features Available on Modules
In the Cisco Nexus 7000 series switches there are several features that are bound to the hardware, meaning that your module selection restricts the features you can run on the switch ports. Thus, here is once again a summarization of the module-dependent features: Update 20-Apr-2013: Added OTV and LISP, clarified M1 FEX support. Update 22-Jul-2013: […]
Installing VMware Tools on Debian Linux
[Updated on 1-Apr-2017: For a long time now I haven’t bothered with installing VMware Tools manually anymore. Instead I’ve just used the open-vm-tools package included in Debian, so a plain “apt-get install open-vm-tools” does the job. I’ve understood that some features are missing when compared to the original VMware Tools, so be sure to check […]
Cat6500 FEX, or Smart Install?
I was surprised when I got a broschure in Cisco Live London 2013 that said Catalyst 6500 is supposed to support FEXes (Fabric Extenders) in the future. Does it make sense? A FEX is a device that looks like a data center LAN switch but it is not designated as a switch. FEX needs a […]
Building My Own VMware vSphere Hypervisor Host
As I wrote in my previous post, I’m building my own VMware vSphere Hypervisor (a.k.a. ESXi) host. Today I was able to get the first Debian server running on it! Let me go through the platform install for us. Planning the Hardware I was totally not planning to get a rackmount server or even a […]
Installing VMware vSphere Hypervisor 5.x on a USB Stick
I’m planning to get my own virtual server platform installed at home for testing purposes. The easy way would be to just run the free VMware Player on the laptop but I want to play with the free VMware vSphere Hypervisor as well. Apparently vSphere Hypervisor is the engine that has been known as ESXi. […]
IOS 15.1SY Product Bulletin and New BFD Features
As a continuation to my previous post about IOS 15.1SY and 12.2SX, here is the product bulletin for IOS 15.1SY (for Sup720 and Sup2T): http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/iosswrel/ps8802/ps11821/ps11846/product_bulletin_c25-717747_ps11845_Products_Bulletin.html It presents the highlights in a different way to the Release Notes. The most interesting new features for me personally are the following: BFD (Bidirectional Forwarding Detection): Static Route Support […]