VMWARE ESXi is now FREE!

The battleship of VMWARE, the ESXi server has became a free product! You can download it directly from vmware.com and you are free to use it. Without any restrictions and with all the ESX power!

Ready? Go! Virtualize :-)

HOWTO: Clear the DNS Cache

When you use DNS to resolve hostnames to IP addresses or services end point addresses, and you make a change in your domain zone configuration you have to reload the cached records on your devices so the new addresses will be used for processing. You have two options:

• wait while the DNS cache of your device will expire and your device will send a new DNS query request
• clear the cache manually

On Windows you can clear the DNS cache with the “ ipconfig /flushdns ” command.

On Cisco gears you can use the “ clear hosts * ” enable mode command.

Packet Tracer 5.0 – Unofficial release date

From some sources I’ve got an information that the new Packet Tracer 5.0 is planed to be officially released on Academy Connection on 28th of July 2008.

So on July 28th, be ready to find a new download icon on the left navigation toolbar on your academy connection site to download the final version of PT 5.0.

If you want to know more about new features in PT 5.0, read my previous post.

Access some Cisco.com pages that require higher level CCO without CCO

Today I came across some documentation on cisco.com related to IP Telephony Express and was really disappointed to find that after clicking on the link that was there to find out more about some features, a higher level CCO (guest level was not enough) account was required to access them.

Here I prepared some screenshots:

 
Fig. 1 – Cisco Feature Navigator with a link to a Feature Guide

 
Fig. 2 – CCO account required to access the Feature Guide link from above

Fig. 3 – My guest level CCO account seems to be not enough :-(

So I started to think about it and got to a conclusion that why the hell I have to have higher level CCO to read a documentation that should be publicly available. I mean there is nothing confidential, is there?

So I started to compare URLs that do not require CCO at all, with this link that does required it. And I found a pretty nice “hack” :-)

As it’s shown on fig. 1, this is the link that required higher level CCO account to access it:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/customer/products/ps6441/products_feature_guide09186a00804a878f.html

Well, I guess that there is some J2EE application server in the background that processes URLs and uses different modules based on what “commands” are in the URL (like en – English language, US – guess that some USA specific stuff, …). I found that if you do not use the “customer” module, then there is no authentication required and the requested page is directly served to you :-)

So the only thing that you have to do to access these kind of URLs even without any CCO account is to remove the “/customer” from the URL. And then it works. Try it:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6441/products_feature_guide09186a00804a878f.html

First Day of July, the First Day of me as an Employee

Since today, I have became a member of thousands of people around a world who are employed in some companies. I am working as a “systems engineer” at Center of Computers (or what’s the official translation) at Technical University of Kosice. I am responsible there mainly for the VoIP Network and for backup systems.

CCNA Voice, CCNA Security, CCNA Wireless + new Cisco Learning Network

Cisco has today officially announced the release of three new associate level certifications:

• CCNA Voice - validates skills in VoIP technologies such as IP PBX, IP telephony, handset, call control, and voicemail solutions. Candidates also get exposure to the Cisco Unified Communications architecture and design covering mobility, presence, and TelePresence applications.
• CCNA Security - validates a candidate’s skills including troubleshooting  and monitoring of Cisco network devices to maintain integrity, confidentiality and availability of data.
• CCNA Wireless - validates candidate’s skills in the configuration, implementation and support of wireless LANs, specifically those networks using Cisco equipment.

To help people in building of their IT carrier and gathering more information related to certifications, Cisco has started a new social networking web site that provides a platform for knowledge and experiences sharing, discussions, learning materials, guidelines and other cool stuff that might help you in your certification and IT carrier. Register, learn, blog, discuss and share your knowledge at cisco.com/go/learnnetspace

To find out more about Cisco certifications, go to cisco.com/go/certification

I am going crazy for the iPhone!

On the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2008, Steve Jobs introduced the new iPhone 3G with 3G support, GPS, Enterprise support (MS Exchange, Cisco VPN, etc.), additional languages support, the iPhone 3G will be officially sold now in 70 countries and many more new features!

But what really makes me crazy is THE PRICE!!!! For the 8GB version of the iPhone 3G it’s only $199 !!!!! WOW! Amazing! I can’t wait until I get my own iPhone 3G ;-)

There is also a new SDK available that makes mobile application development as easy as never before.

I definitely recommend to watch the keynote from the WWDC conference.

Firefox 3.0 is out!

It’s still not available through www.getfirefox.com (it will be from 10:00AM PDT {19:00 CET}) but it’s already available on the official FTP server.

Get it from ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/3.0/win32/en-US/Firefox%20Setup%203.0.exe

Graduation Informational Card

Here in Slovakia, there is a custom that graduates send small cards to their friends and relatives, to inform them about their graduation. This is usually just a small paper card with the university name, graduation ceremony place, … and it is usually sent by postal mail. Well, here is my card:

It’s in Slovak language, but the ENG translation could be: Jozef Janitor, is please to announce that after successful finishing of his studies at the Technical University of Kosice, at Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics, he will be on 20th of June 2008 at 10:00AM in the House of Arts graduated to Engineer (MSc).

I have been awarded – Activity of the year 2007/2008

During the Annual Slovak and Czech Cisco Networking Academy conference (12.-14. June 2008) in High Tatras I have been awarded with the Activity of the year 2007/2008 in Slovakia.

As they said, it was for my long time work with Packet Tracer publication, emulation and simulation software reviews, teaching, deploying and presenting IP telephony courses in Slovakia, Ukraine, Poland and Czech republic and for leading the development of the NCTT NetAcad Curricula Translation Tool. I was quite surprised and I started smiling when I heard all these activities in a row and I knew that at the end there must be my name :-) And it was :-D

Thank you very much Cisco Networking Academy!

 
From left: Karol Kniewald (AAM CZ),Me,John Edwards (Cisco EMEA),Frantisek Jakab (AAM SR)

Graduated!

6 years of university master’s studies are finished. Today at 3:00PM I have successfully graduated with A A A grades.

Best regards,
   Ing. Jozef Janitor

(hopefully) The last night as non-Ing. (non-M.Sc.)

Hopefully, tomorrow I will finish my MSc studies at the Technical University of Kosice, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics, Department of Computers and Informatics with an MSc degree :-D Here in Slovakia the MSc studies are called “engineer” studies, so my official degree will not be “M.Sc.” but “Ing.”as an acronym for a word “Inžinier” (Engineer).

The last 6 years of my studies at the university now look like as if I have had began my first semester just recently. It was really quick, and if someone will ask me what was the university about, what has it given to me, I would probably answer that new thinking, ideas, skills and friends. The university wasn’t really about learning how to write programs in Java or C#, or how to configure a Cisco device. It was more about theoretical ideas, finding out how things are really working, what’s in the background behind technologies; it was about learning to think with open mind and learning to learn. Now staying here at the end, I have to say that it was a pretty good time (some things could be maybe different, but nothing is ideal) :-)

I would like to send a big Thanks to everyone who has helped me through my studies and my life at the university. A big Thanks goes to the Computer Networks Laboratory, its members and Mr. Frantisek Jakab. A big Thanks goes also to my family!

Thank you.

My Master’s Thesis were about VoIP. The title was “Efficient VoIP Solution for the Environment of the Technical University of Kosice”. In the thesis I described differences between VoIP and TDM networks, outlined some aspects of VoIP technologies like QoS, Security, etc. If you are interested in reading it, you will find it at http://tinyurl.com/555u7g.

Unofficial Cisco Wiki :-)

Heyyaaaa! It seems that there are new wikis opening in every second :-) I was just writing about the official Cisco Wiki pages and yet there is an unofficial wiki for Cisco products. Ivan Pepelnjak has started a wiki that seems to be open to contribute after filling our a registering form. Ivan’s blog and his articles at nil.com/ipcorner are one of my favorites. Hopefully this new wiki site will be very successful. Already, there are some very interesting pages about BGP, EEM, TCL, etc.

Go ahead and check out wiki.ioshints.info

And don’t forget, we are more powerful together, that we ever could be apart :-)

Official Cisco Wiki

 

Did you know that there is an official Cisco Wiki page? It’s at supportwiki.cisco.com. It seems that this wiki is not as open as the Wikipedia is and probably it’s edited only by Cisco employees :( You can contribute on this wiki by logging in (login link at the top of the page) with your CCO account (guest level is enough).

I have already found there some interesting tips and solutions. I definitely recommend to check it out and contribute on it :-)

Because we are more powerful together, that we ever could be apart.

Run Linux (or Windows) in your Cisco ISR Router

Sounds good isn’t it? :) I remember the times when I flashed a Cisco 2500 series router with a ucLinux image. It was nice to see Linux booting on a Cisco router, even tho’ it was unusable :-( The interfaces didn’t work at all, the only thing that was working was a console access to the Linux CLI.

But this time I wanted to write about something different. Cisco was already using Linux as a base operating system on several products like Wireless LAN Controllers, ASA, etc. Cisco has lately announced a new Network Module (Cisco Application eXtension Platform (AXP)), available for Cisco ISR series routers, that contains a small motherboard with CPU, RAM, and a Hard Disk Drive.

The great thing about the AXP module is that there is preinstalled a fully functional Linux (and I have heard that there is also a Windows 2008 Server version) operating system with basic tools. What’s more, there is an API that allows you to create your own Linux applications that will directly interact with your Cisco ISR router. And as Cisco ISR routers are designed to be used in Branch Offices, now you can pretty easily integrate your email server, or whatever simple Linux (or perhaps Windows (Domain Controller)) application into a single box, thus saving space, electricity power and making your network services management much more simpler!

To find out more about AXP, please go to cisco.com/go/axp

HOWTO: Paste clipboard contents to a CMD.exe window

It was screwing me that when I was working in Windows Command Line interface (cmd.exe) I couldn’t use the CRTL+V or Shift+Insert combination to paste a text from the clipboard. I always had to use the mouse pointer, right click and the paste option from a contextual menu. That was really annoying :-(

Fortunately I found a solution that makes this paste process much more simple:

It’s a bit tricky, and it may take some time while you get that combination into your fingers, but it works :-) So the “magic” keys combination is: “ALT+Space e p”. That is, first press the ALT and the Space key at the same time. A window menu will be shown:

Then press the “e” key. That will move the selected menu option to the Edit>. And finally press the “p” key to paste a text from the windows clipboard.

It’s just that simple. Made by Microsoft to be user-friendly :-)