BenchAddix

If you are on a tight budget and can’t afford to build your own Cisco lab then head over to PacketLife.net. They have a community Cisco lab that is free. All you have to do is register for a free account, schedule an open time slot, and get to playing. Whether your are studying for your CCNA or just want to do some pre-project simulation this site is very useful.

Here is a list of their currently available lab hardware:

Block A
• 1x Cisco 2811 (with 2x WIC-2T)
• 2x Cisco 1841 (with 1x WIC-2T)
• 1x Cisco Catalyst 3560-24
• 1x Cisco Catalyst 3550-24 (with Inline Power)
• 1x Cisco ASA 5505

Block B
• 1x Cisco 2811 (with 2x WIC-2T)
• 2x Cisco 1841 (with 1x WIC-2T)
• 1x Cisco Catalyst 3560G-24 (with IEEE 802.3af PoE)
• 1x Cisco Catalyst 3550-24
• 1x Cisco ASA 5505
• 1x Cisco Aironet 1232AG

Block C
• 1x Force10 S25N

Today we are going to look at how to assign IP addresses to interfaces in Mikrotik’s RouterOS CLI. For this example we are going to assign an outside IP address of 210.50.10.1/28 to interface ether1 and an inside IP address 10.100.20.1/24 to interface ether2.

Once you have logged into the RouterOS CLI we first need to navigate to the “IP address” sub-menu by issuing the following command:

 /ip address

Now we are going to add your outside address with this command:

add address=210.50.10.1/28 interface=ether1

Now add the inside address:

add address=10.100.20.1/24 interface=ether2

We can then verify that our settings were added correctly by typing:

print

You should now see something similar to the following:

Flags: X - disabled, I - invalid, D - dynamic
  #   ADDRESS            NETWORK         BROADCAST       INTERFACE
  0   210.50.10.1/28     210.50.10.0     210.50.10.15    ether1
  1   10.100.20.1/24     10.100.20.0     10.100.20.255   ether2

And that’s it. RouterOS is pretty straight forward and easy to navigate. I will be covering more in future posts on advanced routing, dhcp, dns, etc so stay tuned.

There are times when you don’t want to use the routers built in DHCP server and want to use say a Windows Server to hand out your networks DHCP scopes. This guide is for basic DHCP relay configuration in Cisco IOS.

In this example we are going to be configuring the “ip helper” command on interface FastEthernet0/1. Our IP for the interface will be 10.10.20.1/24 and the IP of our DHCP server will be 10.10.10.5/24.

After you have accessed the command line of the router the first thing you will need to do is get into configuration mode by issuing the following command:

conf t

The DHCP server and relay agent should be enabled by default, however if for some reason they are not already enabled they can be enabled by issuing the following command:

service dhcp

Next we will want to enable the DHCP relay agent information option:

ip dhcp relay information option

Now we need to configure the actual interface via the following commands:

interface fastethernet0/1
ip address 10.10.20.1 255.255.255.0
ip helper-address 10.10.10.5
no shut

We now have a working DHCP relay pointing to our Windows DHCP Server for clients that connect to interface FastEthernet0/1. There are tons more ways to utilize and configure this functionality. For example you could assign “ip helper” to sub-interfaces for vlans. We will dive into the more advanced functionality in later articles, but for now this gives you the basic principal of the commands for configuring DHCP relay.

I have received a lot of questions lately about resetting the TCP/IP stack in Windows 7. The command is actually the same as it was in Windows XP. Just open a command line window and type the following:

netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt

You will then need to reboot to make sure the changes take effect.

Intro to Basic VLAN Configuration

This guide is more of a tutorial on basic VLAN configuration than an explanation of what VLAN’s are. If you don’t know what a VLAN is you probably won’t be reading this site to begin with. This guide also is not a “HOWTO” on configuring VLAN’s on a specific piece of equipment. We will be discussing the general basics of how VLAN’s are configured in theory. The goal is that after reading this guide you should be able to take the information learned and apply it to real world situations regardless of which brand/model VLAN switch you use.

In this guide I will be using an example network configuration with a 24 port switch with 5 VLAN’s (default, management, data, voice, and wifi), 1 server, 2 network printers, 10 computers, wireless AP, and an IP phone system with 8 IP phones. I will not be discussing configuring routers, wireless AP’s, or phone systems. These subjects will be covered in other more advanced articles in the future where we will build on the basics discussed here.

Read more…

This is a list of online router emulators for popular brands. Great for remote support situations. Will add to the list as I find more.

• Linksys
• Netgear
• D-Link
• TRENDnet
• SonicWall
• Asus
• Fortigate Login: demo/fortigate

Note: Some of the links above even include a few switch emulators.

OCC (Overclockersclub.com) recently posted a new review of the new OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD. It is an excellent review that is worth a few minutes of your time. As the review author ccokeman points out the only real con of this drive is the cost at a staggering $559. I love high performance as much as the next guy but at that price per GB is the performance increase really worth it?

Read the review here

Panasonic has announced that they are releasing a 10″ Android powered Toughbook late this year. Details such as hardware specifics and price have not yet been released.

Ran across a good article on cnet about solid-state drives. The writer covers mainly the idea of longevity and reliability of solid-state drive technology.

Storage talk: Understanding your solid-state drive

Now I know this makes me sound like a nerd but when I first read this headline the first thought through my head was the movie “War Games”. Regardless of how it turns out the Pentagon is creating an internet simulator to simulate cyber warfare and assess the results.

[Pentagon to simulate cyberwar - networkworld.com]