Top Female Astronauts of China

Wow you have to be smart and hot to be chosen as the next Astronaut of China. Really? Perfect teeth, for the photo ops I bet. Another criteria, having given birth naturally, so that cosmic rays don't affect reproduction or rather their reasoning was, to prove that biologically all systems were functioning. Ew.

Can you wear makeup in space? Image Source

The original article mentions that there were two top candidates selected from a list of top fighter pilots. Some folks were upset that requirements for higher education wasn't mentioned.  My opinion is that I'd rather have a good pilot fly the spacecraft; if they've made it this far, they definitely have an impressive resume. Last I heard, Chinese people are all about having that Dr. in front of the name, and the extra degrees and fancy industry qualifications. Therefore, by default to be a pilot you have to have a university degree.

I have a friend who would indeed meet all the other specs, writes: "The article itself doesn't seem to say that they need to be photogenetic (though the photo certainly implies that), but rather have a body with certain biological standard, none of which applies to looks. What I'm naturally skeptic about are their "scientific" claims as to why these standards are necessary in space."

What makes the best astronaut for the mission?

Here is a more balanced view of reporting on mothers for female crew selection.

Forever Stocks to Buy

Bill Gates buys $571 Million dollars in stocks on this ticker. Are you gonna read on? He calls these kind of things, like Mastercard and the Deer & co (farm equipment) his Forever stocks, things that you could hold on to forever.

What are Warren Buffet and Bill Gates buying.

Personally I would consider Cisco a Forever stock, and for sure Lululemon. I'm just bragging because I made over $200 in one day on that stock the other day. I bought the shares at $71 and it went up to $72-something. I say something cuz I'm obviously not managing my own money, too busy studying for these Cisco exams but there you go. Imagine if I had bought these in 2009 when they were $9 something a share, and then they split at $100 a few months ago.

My friend works at Cisco in Silicon Valley Kanata and he writes the Cisco IOS. They get stock options so that's pretty awesome.  He was explaining to me this new thing with delivery of wireless in a metropolitan area and enabling mobility by having the user keep the same IP. The cellular bandwith is getting to congested so it sounds like folks in Hong Kong are moving over to the internet routing. Sounded really impressive, I'm not in mobile or wireless but that sounds really neat.

I won't be rich like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, just working full time hours on routers and switches but atleast I know what is powering those supercomputers at the NYSE, forever!

ICND 2 Flashcard: Frame Relay

Frame Relay allows the expansion of the WAN with less hardware by providing virtual circuits; less costly than running multiple leased lines like HDLC and PPP.

For example Router 1 (DTE) at your company site has to connect to Router 2 (DTE) at the other site. In between is the Frame Relay cloud. The Router 1 connects to one switch (DCE) in the cloud, and the other Router 2 connects to anothr swtich (DCE). Router 1 could also connect to a Router 3 and so on.

One router is an access linl which can support multiple virtual circuits to send data to multiple remote routers. Each link is a virtual circuit. The data link header and trailers on each frame. The header holds ad address filed called a DLCI.
DLCI - Data Link Connection Identifier

The notes for this section are taken from the first CCNA Bootcamp course I studied in 2003 by Marketbridge Technologies in Hull-Gatineau. http://www.marketbridge.com/#  The company has grown and changed alot over the years from offering courses to consulting services, but the owner remains the same so it's probably the same company.

Two Frame Relay encapsulations: Cisco and IETF
Cisco is the default, and it means that you have a Cisco router on each end of the Frame Relay network. If you don’t have a Cisco router on the remote end of your Frame Relay network, then you need IETF encapsulation.

Frame Relay is a cost efficicient technology, for intermittent connection from LAN or between endpoints to major backbones or a public WAN.  A permanent virtual circuit (PVC) is formed, enabling the customer to perceive a continous, dedicated connection without having to pay for a full-time leased line; the ISP determines the route each frame travels to its destination and can charge based on usage.  Think of it as shared bandwidth, a portion of the dedicated paid bandwidth to allotted to each user; allows the user to exceed the guaranteed bandwidth if resources are available

However for a truly private network, Frame Relay would run over leased lines over T-1 lines. A dedicated connection during the transmission period is required, but without a steady flow of transmisions, so it is not often used for voice or video.  The data units are in frames in variable sizes.

Packet based switching.
Frame relay is based on the older X.25 packet-switching technology which was designed for analog voice. Frame relay today is fast packet switching because it operates in the Layer 2 data-link layer and not so much Layer 3 network even though a frame can carry packets of Ethernet and X.25 Error checking or resending is up to to the endpoints to evaluate.

DLCI - Data Link Connection Identifier

I really like the description of a frame-relay map and how it joins an DLCI with an IP address much like ARP mapping MAC address to IP. See the IP-to-DLCI mappings with the command, show frame-relay map (IARP is default on Cisco routers).

Possible network topologies
Hub and Spoke: one hub many spokes used with sub interfaces
Partial Mesh or Hub and Spoke - routers do not have a VC to all other routers

Full Mesh: each router has a logical circuit to every other router

Hybrid: Two remote routers may have VC to each other providing full mesh connectivity between them and the hub. The other remote routers may have only one VC back to the hub.
Frame-Relay LMI
Frame-Relay used the Local Management Interface (LMI) protocol to generate keepalives and obtain a status on the virtual circuits.  LMI message formats: Cisco (DLCI 1023), ANSI or Annex D (DLCI 0), and Q.933A or Annex A (DLCI 0?) containing info regarding -

• Keepalives
• Multicasting - Multicasting uses the reserved DLCIs from 1019 through 1022.
• Global addressing - This provides global significance to DLCIs, like a LAN
• Status of virtual circuits - This provides DLCI status.

Possible states for the circuits
Active - the circuit is up and running
Inactive - possible cause, circuit to CO (frame switch) is find but remote end is down
Deleted - circuit to CO not working, interface down or cabling issue, no LMI

Congestion Control in Frame-Relay
DE - Discard Eligibility, mark for packets exceeding the CIR
BECN - Backward Explicit Congestion Notification, tell source to slow down transmission
FECN - Forward Explicit Congestion Notification, tell destination there was congestion in the cloud
An excellent summary of everything you need to know about Frame Relay for Cisco CCNA, written like a study blog with network diagrams. The style of writing is like an instructor speaking. Click here.

usage: conf t
encapsulation frame-relay

Scenario
There are seven remote sites to connect and only one serial port on the router. Instead of seven leased lines, frame-relay might be a good soluction to statistically multiplex multiple logical circuits over one physical interface to save money.

Access rate The maximum speed that the Frame Relay serial interface can transmit.

CIR The maximum bandwidth of data guaranteed to be delivered. In reality, it’s the average amount that the service provider will allow you to transmit.

For example if the T1 is carrying an access rate of T1 (1.544Mbps) and you're paying for a CIR of 256Kbps. The first 256Kbps of traffic you send is guaranteed delivery. Beyond that, it's a “burst”— a transmission that exceeds the guaranteed 256Kbps rate and up to the T1 access rate (if that amount is in your contract). I believe this sounds like the whole discussion about paying for bandwidth usage and doing away with unlimited with the CRTC ruling??

Obviously if the combined committed burst (the CIR) and excess burst sizes, known as the MBR or maximum burst rate when combined, exceed the access rate, then the packets will be dropped, depending on the service provider.

ICND2 Flashcard: EIGRP

EIGRP = Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol

It is a Cisco proprietary, Advanced Distance Vector metric. Some folks may refer to it as a hybrid routing protocol, but it is truly not.  EIGRP uses Hello packets, much like a link state protocol

Advertised distance - EIGRP metric for blank to reach network
Feasible distance - the metric to reach neighbor + the advertised distance

Features of EIGRP
Rapid convergence using Diffuse Update Algorithm (DUAL) guarantees loop free paths and backup paths.  If the primary route in the table fails, the best backup route is added to the table immediately. If no route exists, EIGRP queries the neighbors.

Reduced bandwidth by not sending the entire database and instead using:
Partial updates: only include route changes, incremental updates and not the whole table
Bounded updates: only send updates to routers affected

Multiple Network Layer Support can do Appletalk, IP, IPv6, Novell (IPX)

Less Overhead by using multicast and unicast, not broadcast. The ip address 224.0.0.10 is listed in my notes

Classless Routing
The mask is advertised for each network as this provides smaller subnets and efficient use of IP addresses.  The protocol can also support discontiguous subnets and VLSM (variable length subnet masks)

Load Balance
The protocol allows load balancing on equal (by default) and unequal cost paths. Caveat, for unequal cost paths, variance must be specified.

EIGRP does equal metric load balancing by default up to four equal metric routes. This means the variance value is 1 (default).  The routing table can have 16 entries for the same destination.

Configuring EIGRP
usage: conf t
router eigrp 100 (automonous system 100, 1 to 65535 possible)
network 10.0.0.0
network 192.168.10.0 0.0.0.15 (the wildcard mask can advertise subnets now)
no auto-summary (what does this do?)
variance 2

Verifiy EIGRP
show ip route eigrp
show ip protocols
show ip eigrp interfaces
show ip eigrp int fa 0/0
show ip eigrp int 100
show ip eigrp topology
show ip eigrp topology all-links
show ip eigrp traffic (this command lists number of packets sent/ received; HELLO, updates, queries, replies, ack etc)

More about the Variance Command
This command allows unequal metric load balancing, metrics being
* bandwidth
* delay
* reliability - the most reliable based on keepalives
* load
* K value - calculation method and AS number must match

Troubleshoot EIGRP
show ip eigrp neighbors
show ip int brief (shows which interfaces are active)
show ip int fa 0/0 (see ip subnets)
show ip protocols (see routing for networks)
show ip eigrp int (check for the process id and the same K method)
debug eigrp packets

show ip route (displays all the routes and eigrp is labeled)
show ip eigrp topology (shows the router id with the highest IP address which should be the loopback 0)

Who are your online friends?

Ego-surfing

So I did a google search on myself because my colleagues claimed that they searched everywhere on the Internet for me, to find my phone number, but they could not find me. I'm not convinced because I am who I am. I run the search myself on my firstname lastname city; most hits on the first page are true, albeit outdated.  A job I posted as a prospective employer, an old work email address that got too much spam, what I studied and where I went to school, my volunteer work at a professional organization, and my resume as a piano teacher resume. The part about me running a half marathon? That's not true. LOL  I am registered for a mini-triathlon, but no I have never run that far in my life.

On the next page I see a Linked In profile for a girl with the same name as mine in Washington. She's American but not asian, with 30 years of experience in Law Enforcement, industry specific skills and two big stints in Interpol. Her photo is a really good looking chic, probably age 25. I'm nice so I decide to send her a friendly note to say... "hey we have the same name but your resume is so amazing! But the linked in profile is wide open to the public and you have security clearances, perhaps you could change the default privacy settings, but you don't have to friend me." I had to send the message like a "connection request" because that's the only way you can contact someone you are not actually connected to.  Surprisingly, she accepts. I'm intrigued by this mysterious and successful persona with my name.  I get frequent updates that she has new connections joining her from Northrop Grumman (US DOD contractor) and other interesting people.  In the back of my mind, I have suspicions why someone has 30 years experience and looks 25 (but that cannot be a crime).


Managing your online relationships

I decide to talk to my old boss because he is in the IT Security industry, he would know what to say about these kind of sticky things I get myself into. He jokes that women with my name simply cannot be trusted. He sends me a link to this article about the famous Robin Sage Experiment. It's a good read about basic online security awareness and social engineering.  The "girl" who duped military intelligence and top notch IT Security professionals.

He reassures me that he did some peripheral background checks on my new contact and the info in her resume does check out; and he even convinces me that based on her info if she is 46, well some women could still look that good. (So that confirms that he thinks she is good looking too) But he cautions me with something I should know already, as a general rule, be careful about being friends with someone you haven't actually met in real life.

Another time on Facebook, I accepted a friend request from a person who I assumed was a twenty-something year old friend of my sister because it was a name I thought I recognized.  As soon as I accepted, she chatted me up and started her note with "hihi" and her writing style was very girly and teeny boppy and we talk about similarities with her hometown Vancouver and mine.  Her friend list is full of really good looking asian chics, but no guyz. Well that's odd but I think nothing of it.  Over the course of weeks we continue to talk, about Victoria Day long weekend, how cute the kids are with tulips. Soon after I get a friend request from her again because she told me her account got locked so she started a new one. This keeps happening on a weekly basis and I decide to forget about it. On a whim I search for her profile name and there are many many profiles (without a profile picture) with her name, but there was one with a photo of a really ugly looking guy. Reminds me of a guy who did too much boxing in the face, was my first impression. I was shocked to learn that my new "friend" was probably some kind of predator. What should've been my first clue? What kind of teeny-boppy girl doesn't have guy friends on the friend's list?


Managing your online profile

You ask yourself, Who am I? Well if you feel the need to do some ego-surfing and google yourself and if you don't like what you see, here is a good article I found about un-googling yourself and managing your online identity a little bit better. Un-google yourself!

Verify the privacy settings on your various social media websites, especially access policies to the photos you post of yourself and your own children! Google has recently updated their privacy policy, which makes it harder to delete your online search history. So, um don't google something criminal like that other guy, "where to hide a body".

ICND 2 Flashcard: Routing OSPF

This material on link-state routing protocols is supposed to be ICND2 but I'm just gonna say that you should still study this for ICND1 because I said so, and wish I did. Hello!

OSPF Configuration Commands

usage: conf t
router ospf 100 (numbers 1 to 65535 valid)
log-adjacency-changes
network ipaddressofnetwork wildcardmask area number
network 10.1.1.0 0.0.0.255 area 0

router-id
Create a router's interface loopback 0 address first
Turn on OSPF
If the IP address ever changes, use the command, clear ip ospf proces

1) This part can be configured here, else
2) Choose the highest of loopback interfaces, else
3) Choose the highest of active interfaces

Verification of OSPF working
show ip route (shows all the routes the router knows and how they are learned, O = OSPF)
show ip protocols
show ip ospf (displays general information)
show ip ospf interface (area id, adjacency info)
show ip ospf neighbor ipaddress mask

The command, show ip route, is very useful because it also shows the interface of the learned routes. I had a scenario to set up two encrypted tunnels for redundancy. I did a show ip route from router2 and I noticed that all the networks I was looking and learned from OSPF were listed; I was quite perplexed that the routes were not learned from the secondary tunnel associated with router2. Everyone thought I was quite the wizard to get all the systems green again, high fives all around, and no one really cared to listen what I was still concerned about.

Eventually I figured out that the routes were obviously learned by OSPF through the interface to router1 whose tunnel is indeed up, which verifies OSPF learned routes to distant networks works but my intended secondary tunnel was not up. I did some digging and discovered I was missing the tunnel's source ip address in the interface tunnel configuration, what a silly rookie typo. But that's proof that OSPF was working so well I had fooled everyone (but not myself).

Logically, a hub and spoke topology or partial mesh? You be the judge.
Authentication of OSPF
service password-encryption (otherwise the key will be in plaintext)
ip ospf authentication-key plainpas
ip ospf authentication OR
area 0 authentication (you can choose md5)

Troubleshooting OSPF
Consider possible errors in neighbor adjacency's, routing table, and authentication.
The authentication methods are 0 = null, 1 = simple pssword, 2 = md5

OSPF means Open Standard Shortest Path First
- It is Classless IGP within a larger AS operating as a single OSPF network on Cisco
- A Link State protocol propagates the LSA's and not routing table updates

These are flood to all OSPF interfaces in the area
- the description of the interface
- advertises immediately state changes
- periodic update of entire database in 30 minutes
- forms a link state database
- calculates the shortest path using a SPF algorithm
- all routers in the area will have the same topological database; knowledge of distant routers

HELLO Protocol
- OSPF sends hello packets on an interface and confirms to OSPF routers the presence of another OSPF on the link, with each other
- bidirectional response
- adjacency is formed when two routers agree on area-id, hello/dead interval, authentication, stub, area flags

To reduce traffic there is one router chosen as the DR (designated router), a BDR (backup designated router) and the rest are DROTHERS.  The multicast ip address is used 224.0.0.5 and the router id used is the loopback interface.

COST
To calculate the cost of the link, use the reference bandwidth/ interface bandwidth in bits per second. For link speed greater than 100 Mbps use the ospf auto-cost reference-bandwidth.

http://ccie11440.blogspot.com/2007/11/why-are-some-ospf-routes-in-database.html

Wiring Diagram Quiz

Image Source


Quiz
Assign a type of equipment for each of the points in the network, switch, router etc
Assign a media to each link based on distance- copper, fibre, T1 etc
Post your answers in the comments and let's discuss it!

My colleague had mentioned that MPLS was in alot of the questions in the CCNA Security exam as well as Cisco SDM though he was more familiar with the CLI. I just grabbed this image from google because it has alot of components of a network carrying data, voice, media during my search for MPLS, wire speed!.

Cisco Subnetting Game Solutions

I pulled excerpts from the discussion page, to verify my own results. It seems that you have to use the whole Class C space to make the subnets even if you don`t need all the hosts. The hint is don`t worry about wasted addressing space, it`s a game for fast subnet calculations and it gets very addicting.

It`s a race against time to subnet the networks for the buildings in Area 51 before the aliens attack!

The moderator writes:
A common mistake new players make is failing to set the correct subnet mask. Even if all of the subnets have a green arrow, you still must enter the correct subnet mask in order for the game to advance. For example, if the instructions ask you to designate 2 subnets, the mask must be set to 255.255.255.128

Also, remember to click the "Set" button after each entry.

Level 1 by C Byington
Janet Area
2 Areas = 255.255.255.128
1st room
Network 192.168.1.0
Broadcast 192.168.1.127
Router 192.168.1.1

2nd Room
Network 192.168.1.128
Broadcast 192.168.1.255
Router 192.168.1.129

J Vaagen has some tips:
Memorize the subnet masks and the associated number of networks.
Then work at the 8x multiplications all the way to 248.

A tip to use in the 224 mask;
network 192.168.0.0
last ip (gateway + 30 = 31)
gateway 192.168.0.1

a lot of the scenarios use 224 as the mask..

David the Instructor:
The following table shows you possible subnet masks and why they are a certain value. Remember we borrow from the left and move to the right for more subnets.

bit 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
---------------------------------------------
weight 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

128 1 = 2 subnets
192 1 1 = 4 subnets
224 1 1 1 = 8 subnets
240 1 1 1 1 = 16 subnets
248 1 1 1 1 1 = 32 subnets
252 1 1 1 1 1 1 = 64 subnets

More hints about valid hosts and usable subnets, by Zose:
The formula 2^(number of bits) - 2 only applies to "host" bits. When determining the number of hosts in a network you use this formula. The "-2" comes from subtracting the Network Host (first IP address) and the Broadcast Host (last IP address).

When determining the correct number of subnets you do not subtract 2 normally. The only time you would subtract 2 to find the number of usable subnets is if the "ip subnet zero" command was in use (meaning the 1st subnet is not usable), and if the router is using a classful (IGRP, RIPv1) routing protocol. Usually this is not the case as both IGRP and RIPv1 are older protocols and are not commonly used any more. Instead classless protocols such as RIPv2, EIGRP, and OSPF are used.

Emmanuel has finished the game!
Okay. I've just finished the game with 32445 points. I understand your frustration cause the text is not so explicit. In this case, it means that for each of the initial subnets (8 subnets for a maximum of 16) you have to consider that this subnet could be extended in the future. So 16 subnets for the mask is the right answer (255.255.255.240) but you must leave one reserved subnet between two of these 8 initial subnets. For example suppose the network number is 192.168.1.0. With a /28 mask, the first subnet is 192.168.1.0 (With a broadcast of 192.168.1.15), the second is 192.168.1.32 (192.168.1.16 reserved for the first subnet and broadcast = 192.168.1.47), the third is 192.1.168.64 (With a broadcast of 192.168.1.79) ... Etc.

An answer with contiguous subnet numbers is wrong cause for a subnet to be extended in the future, the future reserved part must be contiguous with the initial part in order to get the possibility to migrate easier from or to the 255.255.255.224 mask (In this case we really have no more than 8 subnets but each subnet is equivalent of 2 initial subnets).

I've noticed you might have to solve this kind of problem in level 4 and 5 too with more text or no text. For the Aliens rooms there's no text and you have 8 rooms with devices. You have to imagine that aliens population will grow like the science fiction films and therefore in this case other rooms or subnets would be necessary... I guess it's this concept of creating more subnets than showed on the screen which is the same problem for us, Jesse, David, James, Joel, Joseph and others : green everywhere except that the great "Finished" doesn't appear. I take this example of the aliens cause they are impredictible... Once you have been lucky to consider the same number of devices per room, next time you might have one alien room with 16 devices whereas 4 for another : Welcome VLSM ! Different situation and i understand why there is no text about what to do !

Applying these rules to solve your problem, i am sure you will successful in finishing the game. For me, the most difficult is the 32 subnets challenge in level 5 cause it needs to save time with the previous problems in typing correctly as fast as possible : in this question, you have to enter 32x3 numbers plus the subnet mask !

ICND1 Take one

When you wake up from a dream and you want to write down every thought or random fleeting memory right away, but it evaporates in front of you too quickly. Here's my list: ARP vs DNS, default clock rate set? DTE/ DCE interface, cell switched? PVC, ATM, wiring solutions between midpoints, DSLAM, TCP headers, sequence numbers, HELLO, NAT, service password-encryption, WAN, T1.

I had enough time to do the exam, but it was one of those things where I wished I could go back and change the answer to a previous question. You can't do that on these exams.

About four questions in, on the first router simulation question I didn't realize that you had to click on the console computer graphic to launch the CLI of the router to access the running-config. I kept looking through all the windows for the console login, but I just didn`t clue in. Well duh, how else would you answer the questions. Anywayz I messed up that question probably worth 30 marks and made a guess on the int fa 0/1 address and the multi-part answers were all based on that first assumption which I probably got wrong.

I only practised subnetting questions in Class C, but in real time I had to do subnetting for Class B. Not a big deal because I think I got that part right but still a bit stressful under time pressure.

Another random fact - Routers breakup broadcast domains; each interface on the router is a separate network.  Routers breakup collision domains too but a layer 2 switch can do that too.
WAN is an important topic. Frame relay is not supposed to be part of ICND1 but you still had to know enough about it to get some facts straight. I will need to clarify some aspects of Permanent Virtual Circuits.

Here's the breakdown of the modules tested and my score.
Describe the operation of data networks - 71%
* Implement a small switched network - 60%
Implement an IP addressing scheme and IP services to meet network requirements for a small branch office 80%
Implement a small routed network - 67%
* Explain and select the appropriate administrative tasks required for a WLAN - 0%
Identify security threats to a network and describe general methods to mitigate those threats - 100%
Implement and verify WAN links - 75%

So I end the exam with my score of 787 out of 1000. You need 804 to pass which means I missed it by a margin of 17. That makes me knowledgeable enough to be dangerous.

It is my own fault for not passing I`m sure, but I will still launch a complaint because I noticed a couple of peculiarities with my exam experience. I felt like I was doing question 9 and then I clicked the mouse one too many times and I was on question 13. So I probably missed a four part question. I was a bit perplexed, probably should`ve said something at the time but I was like whatever. I`m wondering if those are the WLAN questions I completely skipped over. I only remember doing two questions on that whole subject and they did not adequately cover the topic of Explain and select the appropriate administrative tasks required for a WLAN.

I have the Pearson Vue 1 800 number so I may lodge a complaint and try to ask Cisco for a rebate on the retake of the exam. But do I really want to do this again after 10 days. Do I really want to re certify in 3 years and do this again. Right now though, I just feel like I want to crawl under a rock and die, but I can`t help but pulling my books to... restudy! All the kids are napping so I have 2 hours!!!

I have the difficult task of explaining to my boss that I didn't pass the exam. Hopefully if I show him the report card with the marks broken down he can see that I passed the important stuff and even got a 100% on the network security portion (comforting). However I feel that I have temporarily lost my geek status so the blog will not be named Barbie Geek Tech Bytes for now...

Confreg 2142 Password Recovery and Config Wipeout

HOW TO force into ROM MON mode:

Press Break on the terminal keyboard within 60 seconds of power up in order to put the router into ROMMON.

An alternate break sequence is to setup the Hyperterminal session on a wrong baud rate, say 1200. About 10 to 15 seconds after power up, keep pressing the space bar (for about 10 seconds till you feel silly doing that). Close the Hyperterminal and reconnect at the correct baud rate of 9600 and you should see the ROMMON prompt.

If the break sequence does not work, refer to Standard Break Key Sequence Combinations During Password Recovery for other key combinations.


You're in ROMMON and you're really messed up. You can't even do tftpdnld because you don't have a tftp server nor a proper IOS config file. It's bad!

I think I even tried the password recovery mode, which would erase the running config file and all that.
ROMMON 1> confreg 2142
ROMMON 2> reset
The router should boot up in the skeleton configuration with no startup or no running, factory defaults to build up from scratch.

Well that didnt' seem to work so I swapped flash cards with another unit (don't know why I had to do that) but I was desparate and it worked. Now what will happen to the unit with the wrong flash?? Whatever.

So the recovered unit is now in the state of - revert to password recovery mode. You will lose the original configuration. The router will have no login, enable password nor telnet

do show version
Most important remember to change the confreg to 0x2102 (otherwise it will go back to 2142)
reload

The factory default setting for the configuration register is 0x2102. This indicates that the router should attempt to load a Cisco IOS  Software image from Flash memory and load the startup configuration with a console speed of 9600 baud. For most purposes, the factory default setting of the configuration register is the most appropriate. To change the configuration register to this setting, issue the configuration-register 0x2102 command, as shown:

Router(config)#config-register 0x2102

Circuit Switched Networks

Here are some quick facts lifted from a CCNA online quiz

Three accurate descriptions of Circuit Switched Networks
* With circuit switching a dedicated physical circuit is established, maintained and terminated through a carrier network for each communication session
* Circuit switching allows multiple sites to connect to the switched network of a carrier and communicate with each other
* ISDN is a circuit switched network

Three statements for PSTN
* Other than a modem, no additional equipment is required
* Relatively lost cost associated with the implementation of a PSTN connection link
* The maintenance of a public telephone network is very high quality with a few instances in which lines are not available

Three statements describe PPP
* A point to point (or serial) comms link provides a single preestablished WAN communications path from the customer premises through the carrier network ie telephone company to a remote network
* Carriers lease point to point lines usually, so they're often called leased lines
* For a point to point line, the carrier dedicates fixed transport capacity and facility hardware to the line of a customer

Three statements describe WAN bandwidth
* North American standard to describe bandwidth in DS numbers (DS0, DS1...) that refers to the rate and format of the signal
* Bandwidth on a serial connection can be incrementally increased to accommodate the need for faster transmission
* Bandwidth refers to the rate at which data is transferred over the comms link

HDLC
* Includes support for both PPP and multipoint configurations
* Cisco HDLC there is no windowing or flow control
* HDLC specifies an encapsulation method for data on synchronous serial data links using frame character and checksum

Function of PPP
* twist: Authentication phase of PPP session is not necessarily required
* PPP originally emerged as an encapsulation protocol for transporting IP traffic over PPP links
* PPP provides router to router and host to network connections over synchronous and asynchronous circuits
* The LCP in PPP is used for establishment, configuration and testing the data-link connection

Considerations for PPP
* PPP links require minimal expertise to install and maintain
* usually offer a high quality of service
* provide permanent dedicated capacity that is always available

Cisco ICND1 Flashcard: A Brief History of the Internet

The US DOD researchers figured out a way to break up messages into smaller parts, and sending each part to the destination, whereupon reassembly of the original message would be possible. This is called the packet system.

In 1972, ARPANET developers created the first email message software for the purpose of communicating and coordinating projects

In 1984, DNS was introduced to give the world domain endings like .edu, .com, .gov, .org and other country codes.

A 3-way handshake
send-SYN
SYN-ACK
TCP ACK

HVAC and Power Rating Calculators

A quick link to find a Dell Energy Star rating calculator for heat generation and cooling requirements for Dell models for 48U, 42U or 24U Poweredge racks.

I was actually looking for the rating for one machine but it makes sense the application is making the calculations based on an entire rack.  Launch the page for Dell Star Online here.

Another important factor to consider is how many units you can fit into the rack given the power available to the rack. Here is a useful answer for Dell Poweredge Server Power Requirements rated for PE 2950 as a starting point.

Check again for more information about Water Cooled Racks or High Performance Cooling solutions.
Whitepaper for Watts and Volt-Amps

Doing My Own Cisco Tech Support

Cisco has a really good tech support hot line. I put in a TAC request for a pretty simple question about not being able to configure the serial port.

Create Serial Sub Interface Cisco 2811

"Hi. I can't access the serial port, was trying to configure serial 1/0 on my router cisco 2811 but I guess it does not exist?
The cisco online help says to try
Controller t1 0/0/0
Framing esf
Linecode b8zs
Channel-group 0 timeslots 1-24 speed 64
I did show controllers and all kinds of hardware descriptions pop up but not t1 specifically
The router didn't know what to do with the controller command, I checked the hardware but it does not have a serial port. Is that possible?"

I guess I could pause next time, and give the guy a chance to talk or take notes. Anyway I couldn't immediately provide the serial number on the unit cuz I wasn't logged in and I didn't have the service contract searchable right in front of me. So I mention that I will login and write up the TAC online. While clicking online and trying to find the TAC gui, I stumble upon the link for T1 HWIC cards, like the one that is NOT even plugged into to my unit. There is no WAN interface and link connected, the T1 truly does not exist!

I didn't even have a Cisco T1/ E1 WAN Interface Cards
Anywayz I feel rather silly about calling in the first place but now I have confirmed that the show controller command really works! Once again it is the USER error.

CCNA, ICND1 and ICND2 Practice Exams

I found a really good link on the Cisco Learning Network website for practice questions here.

There are questions for the six modules:
Module 1: OSI Layer and IP questions
Module 2: Hardware, bridges, Hubs
Module 3: WLAN
Module 4: IP addressing, IOS Commands, Routing basics
Module 5: WAN, nat
Module 6: cdp, hardware and memory

There are tabs and links to study modules, 15-20 training videos and lab simulations.
At the login page I also found an ad for a new "game". Cisco Aspire CCNA Edition! Practice for your Cisco CCNA exam by solving realistic networking problems. Seriously? That's a game?

The website Cisco Tests dot org also has a timed exam with pretty realistic questions! It's not for the ICND1 and ICND2 but it would cover the similar line of questioning if you just wanted a timed practise exam experience.
CCNA

Ask Siri to Sing Happy Birthday

At a friend's birthday party dinner this evening in a very fancy Italian restaurant as we all finished dinner and everyone somehow felt it was appropriate to whip out that iPhone and start texting the buddies at the other long end of the table, the guy beside me suggested let's play Ask Siri!

I don't have an iPhone, I don't even own a cell phone really. I'm very curious who is Suri (I didn't even know how to spell it). The "Industry Canada RF Bandwidth Allocation Committee member" rolls her eyes and says,  you folks are wasting bandwidth! I suppose this is true, asking age old questions like why did the chicken cross the road, what is the meaning of life, who's your daddy, and How big is the Pacific Ocean? (that's a good one) Siri gives the answers in Liters with extra information about the comparative volume, 51% of the all the earth's oceans. I'm hooked.  I ask, What is Pippa Middleton wearing? Siri displays button to perform a website for that.  I'm giggling too much at the idea of asking a computer for answers. I get one of the guyz to ask, what are you wearing Siri? But I miss the answer because it's just too funny.

We're at a birthday party so buddy asks, Siri would you sing happy birthday to my friend please?
Siri answers, Daisy, daisy, give me your answer do.

It wasn't quite the answer I was searching for. People keep texting each other or playing Angry Birds, but I desire an explanation! The Cisco guy at the end of the table explains that it is a cultural reference to the IBM computer that became the first computer to sing Daisy Bell.

In the late 1950's  a computer sung a song for the first time. Here is a nice clip from  YouTube.
Daisy, daisy, give me your answer do.
I'm half crazy all for the love of you.
It won't be a stylish marriage -
I can't afford a carriage,
But you'd look sweet on the seat
Of a bicycle built for two.

This is quite a cute response. I guess it's an AI joke that's preprogrammed in, but it's still very cute. Well here are some other questions to ask Siri though personally I think people should really talk to their friends at a party and not play with their phones too much. Tweet tweet.

Would you like a slice of Raspberry Pi?

10,000 units sold out in minutes, a $35 programmable GNU/ Linux mini computer the size of credit card. I gotta get one of those on the next batch they bake. It was created in Toronto and manufactured in the UK!

Image Source

It's so sweet that the inventors initially created this device to be accessible in cost and available one per person with the intention that kids could learn programming.

Mobile IPv6 for earth

Studying for the CCNA Exam and the next topic is ipv6. I remember my teacher explaining that the last ipv4 address was given out in November 2011, and the number one reason was the proliferation of smart phones requiring an IP address. Did some reading on cell phones in general, curious on what's new because I don't even own one myself, and my brother keeps bugging me that I'm missing out (What, on Angry Birds?) and they mentioned about mobile IP and I put the two ideas together.... well they must be using IP v6!

Mobility driving the requirement to maintain the same IP address while moving seamlessly across different networks. That's pretty cool. Read all about Mobile IP. 

So do all the addresses really start with 2 (for planet earth?). The prof also had a few other wacky ideas too, like he could write a book about IPv6 in less than page, and that to  make millions in IT just sign up to be the IPv6 networking guy. It would be easier job ever. Really? So I guess this is my book on IPv6: (Be careful with the use of colons, they mean something!)

The IPv6 address is formed from 32 bits of hex.
The global unicast begins with 2000

The Link Local Address refers to the physical link
- not for forwarding datagrams
- for neighbor discovery and route discovery
- begins with FE80 <internal mac address> or FFEE

The Loopback address is ::1 which means all preceding zeros.

Unspecified address
- a host looking for his own address
0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0 or ::

Stateless Autoconfiguration
prefix + interface ID

Stateless DHCP

HOW TO Enable IPv6 on a router
usage: ipv6 unicast routing
usage: ipv6 address 2001:db8:c18:1:: 64
(the first part was the global address, no need to write sequential or preceding zeros, the 64 means eui-64)
* Specify the 64 bit prefix by using eui-64 if you want the router to derive interface ID portion from mac addres

* You can automatically get the link-local address FE80:
show ipv6 int ethernet 0

RIP based on RIPv2
* uses the multicast group FF02::9

QUIZ
Do you want to be IPv6 Certified by Hurricane Internet Services? Here is a quick link to a neat service. I think they are a web hosting service.