Skip to Content

Technology

OCZ Technology 128GB Vertex 4 Series SATA 6.0 GB/s 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive (SSD)

Wed, 2012-11-21 07:57

I just picked up an OCZ Technology 128GB Vertex 4 Solid State Drive (SSD) to drop in one of my machines at home. It doesn't need much space, so 128Gb size should be more than enough.

The main reason for picking this up is the speed. The box that this is going in currently hosts several VMs and the storage is on a NAS. After installing this, some of that storage will be offloaded onto the SSD, which should make for some speedier response times than a 1Gb Ethernet connection to some spinning disks.

Robotic Plane Avoids Walls

Thu, 2012-08-09 20:47

Robotics is an area of technology that both fascinates me and frightens me at the same time. Although it would be cool to have a robot that is self sufficient enough that it could do things for me, it's also scary to think what someone else's robot would be told to do (images of the terminator come to mind).

I found this video while reading the news. It demonstrates the use of some insane mathematical computations in the form of a remote control airplane that makes corrections to it's flight path to avoid obstacles. Watch the video to see for yourself (requires flash)...

APC 9211 MasterSwitch Password Reset Procedure

Fri, 2012-07-06 07:52

I recently purchased an APC 9211 MasterSwitch PDU for my home lab. I wanted the ability to remotely power up and power down devices so I can lab while on the go and not have equipment running 24/7. This specific device was acquired from a liquidator on ebay for less than $100 USD, which compared to the newer Smart PDUs on the market is a fraction of the cost.

This device has been discontinued by APC for quite some time, however these things are rock solid and so far this unit has been performing quite well. However, there was one problem when I tried to manage it... the previous owner didn't clear the password and I was locked out.

Linux crippled by a second

Mon, 2012-07-02 22:43

If you administer Linux servers or network appliances running Linux under the hood, you may have had to deal with high CPU utilization as a result of the Leap Second that was introduced this past Saturday. In fact, as a result of this leap second and some key software not being equipped to handle it, Amazon Web Services and many other web sites took a performance hit.

If you haven't heard of a leap second before, it's simply the addition of one second to the UTC clock to realign time with solar time. 

Turn your Mac into a TFTP Server

Fri, 2012-06-29 08:18

If you are working on some gear and need to tftp a config off a box or upload a new version of code, you might find yourself scratching your head when it comes to setting up the TFTP server built-in to Mac OS X. I know I did. This little tutorial is meant to show you how to quickly and easily get TFTP going on a Mac (in my case, a Macbook pro running Snow Leopard).

First, download TFTP Server. The developer's site has a copy. Once the dmg is open, drag the application to the applications folder to install.

How to do Crtl+Break sequence in SecureCRT without a Break Key

Mon, 2012-06-25 00:08
Command Line

So, for the past couple years I've been using a Mac Book Pro for the majority of my writing, but still relied on a Windows platform for most of my command line work. I recently was faced with the need to perform a password reset on a device using Secure CRT on my Macbook Pro, and wouldn't you know it? There's no Break key! Here's how I got around this issue, if you have another way to do it, please feel free to share in the comments below.

1. Start out by establishing your console connection.

BGP AS List and potaroo

Sat, 2012-06-02 14:23

Have you ever wanted to see a list of all the BGP Autonomous Systems Numbers and what organization they are associated with? I did this morning and after some searching, here's what I found.

There is a cool website (cool in a nerdy BGP statistics sort of way) called potaroo.net that is "the personal site of Geoff Huston." The site has a blog and provides links to a variety of statistical analyses and reports on Internet BGP data.  No surprise that Geoff appears to work at APNIC.

Infoblox to host IPv6 "How to" webinar

Fri, 2012-05-25 07:09

World IPv6 Launch will be here June 6. If you haven't heard of it, this is the day where several large companies that have an Internet presence (Google, Yahoo, Facebook, etc.) will permanently enable IPv6 for their online services. 

The following day, June 7, Infoblox is featuring an IPv6 webinar with host Cricket Liu. This webinar will focus on the following topics:

Cisco Live 365

Wed, 2012-05-02 07:27

Cisco has created a new rendition of their Cisco Live website called Cisco Live 365. You can register with the site for free and gain access to some of the conference materials presented at the various Cisco Live conferences around the world throughout the year.

If you are signed up for CiscoLive2012.com (because you are attending Cisco Live in San Diego this June), then your credentials for that website don't apparently work automatically at the new site. To get access to the new site using your current credentials, login to the old site CiscoLive2012.com, then click on Registration, and click on the huge button that says Enter Cisco Live 365. A new tab or window should open and voilà, you're in.

How to concatenate multiple text files into one

Mon, 2012-04-23 07:01
Command Line

Have you ever wanted to merge a bunch of text files together into one large one? For example, if you use a tool to go grab a bunch of show command results and output it to a text file per device, it's handy if you can have the operating system merge all that together for you. Many of you have likely done this at one point or another, but I figured it was worth capturing here to share the syntax.

So, if you are in a Windows command prompt, you can use the type command to output the contents of a file.

C:\>type text1.txt
This is a test.

Then you can use the type command plus the double arrows to merge a bunch of files:

C:\>type *.txt >> merge.txt

text1.txt

text2.txt

text3.txt

text4.txt

This leaves you with all the original files plus a new one called merge.txt. Piece of cake.

Upgrading 3750X can take longer than you think

Sat, 2012-04-07 19:51

I recently upgraded a Cisco 3750X stack to a newer version of IOS. Since the production system I was planning to upgrade had some critical systems on it, I tested the process on a stack in the lab first.

At the outset I figured "no problem, this will take a few minutes to reboot and we'll be back up and running." Little did I know I was in for a long wait... Unbeknownst to me the version of code I was upgrading to included a Microcode update which adds a considerable amount of time to the process... emphasis on considerable.

The stack was running 12.2-53.SE2 and I was upgrading it to 12.2-58.SE2, which at the time of the upgrade was the recommended 12 version (I've had problems with IOS 15 on this platform, so I'll be sticking with version 12 for now).

Networking 101 Video - Switch Latency

Thu, 2012-04-05 07:11

Jimmy Ray Purser from TechWise TV  provides a pretty good review of how switch performance is measured. Topics reviewed include cut-through switch latency, store and forward switch latency, FIFO, LIFO, and LILO. Check it out if you've always wanted to know how to measure the speed of a switch.

Here's a direct link if the video embed code doesn't load in your browser: http://youtu.be/C8cTrhcbOLc

Wireshark updated to version 1.6.6

Wed, 2012-03-28 07:14

A new version of wireshark has been released. A full list of features and updates are in the official announcement.

For reference here is the updated protocol support and new file capture support:

Updated Protocol Support

   ANSI A, BSSGP, DIAMETER, DTLS, GOOSE, GSM Management, GTP, HTTP,
   IAX2, IEEE 802.11, IPP, ISAKMP, ISO SSAP, MP2T, MPLS, MySQL, NTP,
   PacketBB, PGM, Radiotap, SSL, TCP, UDP, USB, WSP

  New and Updated Capture File Support

   Endace ERF, Pcap-NG, Tektronix K12

You can download the latest version here: http://www.wireshark.org/download.html

Configuring NTP on a Linux client

Mon, 2012-02-27 00:14

I had to setup a Linux client this weekend and wanted NTP to sync the time with the rest of the systems on the network. Much to my surprise, ntpd wasn't installed on the box by default so I had to get it setup. Figured I'd share the steps I followed in a blog post to share the knowledge. Here it is...

To install ntpd, you can do it a couple different ways (such as downloading it from ntp.org and installing it manually) or you can use your favorite installer (I use apt-get):

sudo apt-get install ntp

Then you need to edit the /etc/ntp.conf file to point to the server you want to grab the time from. Since the installation started the process for me, I wanted to stop it before editing the conf file:

service ntp stop

Also, you might need to chmod the file first to allow writing to the file:

Navigating the IOS command line

Mon, 2012-02-20 09:23

I decided to put together a quick blog post on some handy IOS file management commands. I'll likely add to this again in the future to make it more complete, but I wanted to get something started, so here it is..

dir - Get a directory listing of whatever path your are in. 

Syndicate content


Dr. Radut