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 :-)

Computer Tomography - CT

I have been on CT few weeks ago. It was my first "experience" and and I was a bit exited about it. When I arrived to the hospital, to the CT station, I had to wait for about a half an hour to get my turn. The CT "machine" looked like a big circle (it was bigger then me I guess) and at the top it had a logo of Philips (let's make things better). Unfortunately I didn't take any picture of it :-(

Well, the CT itself took just about 2 or less minutes and I have got the results on CD. You may guess what was the first thing that I had done with that CD :-D I had my laptop with myself, so I woke it up (I don't remember when was the last time when I clicked on the Shutdown button in Windows as I always just put my laptop to Sleep or Hibernate mode) and checked what's on the CD. There was some application for viewing the results so I started it. And wu-ala, I was looking at my head from inside :)

 
My head from side.

 
My head in layers from front.

There were about 400 photos taken and the provided application can create nice animations of those photos. Unfortunately I don't have any screen recording application installed here on my laptop so I cannot show it to you :-(

Write Code: Mind Wide Open

I was talking with a friend of mine about some programming stuff. He has got a school assignment to develop a simple game in C#. Well, the first thing that students usually start with, is that they buy a book about C#. They read the book, and when the last page is over, they start with the development of their fabulous application. Now they know a lot of C# commands, structures, objects, we could maybe say that some of them are now even C# gurus (at least they know a bunch of commands). Now there is a problem. Many times I face people that even tho' they know HOW to write code, they do not know WHAT to write!

Many times they are missing the essential imagination of the application's building blocks, relations, dependencies, application flow, etc. My suggestion for this case is to grab a pencil and paper, forget everything you know about C#, open your mind and start drawing and designing your application.

You can start with the user interface. If you know that the game will be the minesweeper, draw a basic window, control objects, the minefield, etc. Then start with the application analysis. Within the analysis you have to understand what must your application exactly do. After finishing the analysis part, you should have an activity diagram, that will clearly display what actions may happen in you application and how to handle them. This part was the platform independent analysis. For this part it is not necessary to know anything about C#. As you will go deeper and deeper, your drawing will became more and more platform dependent, and for this game it should end up at the .net and C# platform.

So continue with deeper analysis and create the architecture of you application. Start thinking about building blocks of you application - basic classes, interfaces, methods, their relations, dependencies, etc. Draw everything to your paper and take notes. Supporting applications like MindManager or FreeMind may help you to collect your ideas and don't forget anything.

After having completed all these steps, remember all the things that you learned about programming in C#, take a look at your drawings and notes, and now you should know HOW and WHAT to write to your source code!

A successful analysis at the beginning is about complete understanding of the application and it ensures that at the end of your application development you should not end up in such a situation as it is displayed on this ^ picture :-)

Packet Generator

Are you looking for a powerful packet generator? You need nothing more but a Windows XP machine:

I made this screenshot maybe a year ago from a computer running Windows XP SP2. The screen says that there were in 1 hour 20 minutes 19.262.375.378.395 packets sent out from a network card. It must have been caused by some bug or a hardware error, but anyway, it's  still funny :-)

There is No Internet Anymore! Now we are all Alone :-(

Just imagine it. How horrible it is to even think about it. What if there would be no more Internet service?

What would you do then? What would you do without your emails, instant messages, life 2.0? What would you do without skype, youtube, google, myspace and your best friends (those you have never met IRL (in real life)) on facebook?

And there is no Internet to find out (e.g. google) why there is no Internet.

Well, finding out the answer for this simple question is not easy. But the South Park creators have been smart enough to show us what would happen if there would be no more Internet (at least in the South Park town):

South Park: Season 12: Over Logging - part 1

South Park: Season 12: Over Logging - part 2

A world beyond network device simulators ...

You have probably already heard about different network device simulators like Boson NetSim, Cisco Packet Tracer, etc. All of these applications are capable of simulating few functions of network devices. The problem is that these applications are only simulators - they can only simulate features which were ported from real devices to algorithms into these simulators. And what's more, they will never be able to simulate real situations, as it would mean to rewrite the real codes from real devices to algorithms on simulators. This would be very expensive. On the other hand, there is one very big advantage of these simulators: you can pause, stop, restart, or do whatever with your simulated topology and simulated devices. You can even see animations of how are the packets flowing from point A to point B. In this way, network simulators are perfect tools for teaching network technologies as students learn not just the theory, but they can see how are these different packets exchanged between devices and what's happening to them.

So I think we can end this up by saying that network device simulators are great for teaching and for low level troubleshooting (e.g. CCNA level). When we face a situation, where the simulators are not enough for us (lack of supported commands, features, etc.), we can try to get some real devices with full features. If you work in a big networking company maybe you will find a way to get some spare devices from storage for testing, but generally it's a problem. Networking devices are sometimes very expensive and it's definitely hard to get in touch with higher level of devices like Cisco 38xx, 45xx, 5xxx, 65xx, 72xx, 12xxx, ...

There are some virtual laboratories provided by training partners, where the real devices are already interconnected into labs, and the console ports are shared via telnet or other type of remote CLI connection. You can then order and schedule these labs use them for your training. It's especially handy when you are preparing to get your next CC*P or CCIE :-)

The last option is to get a device emulator. Emulators "emulate" the real hardware like CPU, memory, interfaces, etc. VMWare, MS VirtualPC, VirtualBox are applications capable of emulating the X86 computers hardware. With these applications you can build up your virtual network of end devices. Maybe you have seen some emulators for game consoles like PlayStation emulators, SNES, etc which emulating special hardware. The only disadvantage of emulators is that because the emulators are emulating only the hardware, you will still need some operating system to run on this virtual hardware. This sometimes means additional licenses for operating systems and applications. And now comes the best: there is also an emulator for Cisco gears too!

Dynamips is an emulator for the MIPS CPU platform. Most of the Cisco routers are using MIPS CPUs. Dynamips is not only emulating the CPU, but the whole case with many different networking interfaces. It does support LAN and WAN interfaces like Ethernet cards, ATM, Serial, T1, etc. It supports emulation of the Cisco 7200, 3700, 3600 and 2600 series platforms. You can run Dynamips on Linux, Windows and even MacOS. You can even start Dynamips on more computers connected through a network and then connect together via IP sockets the dynamips emulated boxes. A pretty nice feature is also that you can connect the virtual interface of a router to a real interface of your PC. In this way you can connect a bunch of virtual routers even to real gears! Because Dynamips only emulates the Cisco case with CPU and stuff, if you want to really use it you will need the IOS file to run it on.

Dynagen is a wrapper around Dynamips which allows to create a topology based on emulated routers. Dynagen uses a connections definition in a special format saved in a lab file with ".net" extension.

For this topology, the .net file contents are:

# Fullmesh topology
# Serial + Frame Relay + Switch
#
autostart = false
ghostios = true
sparsemem = true

[localhost]

    [[7200]]
    idlepc = 0x6262a240
    ghostios = true
    mmap = true
    image = c7200.bin
    npe = npe-400
    ram = 160
    disk0 = 32

    [[ROUTER R1]]
    F0/0 = NIO_gen_eth:\Device\NPF_{312F26FF-F960-4442-AF71-2633843F88FD}
    F2/0 = SW1 1
    S1/0 = R2 S1/0
    S1/4 = R6 S1/4
    S1/2 = R3 S1/2
    S1/3 = R4 S1/3
    S1/6 = R5 S1/6
    S1/7 = F1 1
    #F0/0 = SW1 1

    [[router R2]]
    F0/0 = NIO_gen_eth:\Device\NPF_{312F26FF-F960-4442-AF71-2633843F88FD}
    F2/0 = SW1 2
    S1/1 = R3 S1/1
    S1/5 = R4 S1/5
    S1/4 = R5 S1/4
    S1/3 = R6 S1/3
    S1/7 = F1 2

    [[router R3]]
    F0/0 = NIO_gen_eth:\Device\NPF_{312F26FF-F960-4442-AF71-2633843F88FD}
    F2/0 = SW1 3
    S1/4 = R4 S1/4
    S1/3 = R5 S1/3
    S1/5 = R6 S1/5
    S1/7 = F1 3

    [[router R4]]
    F2/0 = SW1 4
    S1/0 = R5 S1/0
    S1/2 = R6 S1/2
    S1/7 = F1 4

    [[router R5]]
    F2/0 = SW1 5
    S1/1 = R6 S1/1
    S1/7 = F1 5

    [[router R6]]
    F2/0 = SW1 6
    S1/7 = F1 6

    [[ethsw SW1]]
    1 = dot1q 1
    2 = dot1q 1
    3 = dot1q 1
    4 = dot1q 1
    5 = dot1q 1
    6 = dot1q 1
#    7 = access 1
#    8 = dot1q 1 NIO_gen_eth:\Device\NPF_{312F26FF-F960-4442-AF71-2633843F88FD}

    [[FRSW F1]]
   1:102 = 2:201
   1:103 = 3:301
   1:104 = 4:401
   1:105 = 5:501
   1:106 = 6:601
   2:203 = 3:302
   2:204 = 4:402
   2:205 = 5:502
   2:206 = 6:602
   3:304 = 4:403
   3:305 = 5:503
   3:306 = 6:603
   4:405 = 5:504
   4:406 = 6:604
   5:506 = 6:605

 

For Dynagen you have to start the Dynamips in a "Hypervisor" mode:

and then open the lab .net file in Dynagen:

after entering the "telnet /all" command in the Dynagen's console, new telnet windows will be opened connected to console ports of emulated devices. Now you can start to configure your virtual devices :-)

One of my favorite features of Dynagen is the ability to capture packets into a Wireshark compatible file on a virtual wire that interconnects two emulated routers. In this way now you can sniff packets even on ATM or Serial interfaces! It's great for troubleshooting and learning more about networking.

GNS3 is like Dynagen on steroids :-D GNS3 is again a wrapper around Dynamips but towards Dynagen it has a graphical user interface and it's much easier to use. What's more, the new version of GNS3 has support also for Pemu which is a PIX emulator built on Qemu.

 

 

Afaik, the official statement from Cisco (well, read the IOS license) is that you cannot run IOS on different hardware than genuine Cisco. So it looks like it might be "not legal" to use all these emulator stuff. You should definitely not use them for production networks and don't try to sell it as a solution (virtual laboratories, etc.)