Posts on Packet-forwarding.net

25/01-2026 CCIE Security Study Status

Sun, 25 Jan 2026 14:07:06 +0100

Status Update:

So in order to be fully transparent about this whole study thing: This week has been a bust!

There, i said it! now i need to do something about it.

So what happened? - Well, for one thing, i was out of the country from Thursday until Saturday (yesterday) with my great coworkers on our annual kick-off trip (it was a great time), and i didnt do much studying monday to wednesday either.

17/01-2026 CCIE Security Study Status

Sat, 17 Jan 2026 10:45:31 +0100

Status Update:

This is an update on my progress studying for the CCIE Security v6.1 Lab exam. Today is the 17th of January 2026 and im going to do an inventory of where im at and what i will be focusing on for the coming week.

10/01-2026 CCIE Security Study Status

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 09:19:52 +0100

Status Update:

Its weekend, which means its time to do a review on my study progress (along with other life items), but lets focus on the study part.

First off, i have about 12 weeks left before my next attempt. It is scheduled for April 13th.

WSA Lab With AD Integration

Thu, 08 Jan 2026 10:12:29 +0100

So i just finished a lab that included integrating the WSA to my Lab Active Directory. One that thats certain is that you must enable NTP for this to work. I tried manually setting the time and even though it was just off by a few seconds, the WSA would not tolerate it and would cancel the integration.

SSL Fix for WSA

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 09:18:15 +0100

I am currently setting up a home lab for practicing Cisco Web Security Appliance (WSA). I am using EVE-NG with an image for the WSA called: Coeus-10-5-2-072-S100V, which means its version 10.5.

I have it setup in my lab and was able to access it through the GUI after setting up IP + default gateway on it. However, i got an SSL error and was unable to use the GUI.

Verified TrustSec

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 16:01:28 +0100

In my continued journey with Cisco TrustSec, I now have a verified switch configuration with all the components of basic TrustSec with ISE doing the policy and the switch doing the enforcement.

It was important to me to reach this point, as i now have to remember everything until this point in my practice. That and i dont have to fumble around a million different blog posts scattered all over the interwebs, in order to figure out what to do.

Troubleshooting TrustSec

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 09:43:23 +0100

So today i spent some time setting up Cisco TrustSec on my ISE installation as well as my Catalyst 3650 switch. I did all the mandatory configuration on the switch, including:

Setting up ISE / Radius with a pac key.
Setting up a CTS authorization list that references the ISE / Radius server.
Setting up device credentials on the Switch.
Setup ISE to allow TLS 1.0 (this is required in order to get a PAC key assigned from ISE).
Getting the PAC key on the Switch.

Everything was looking good so far, but for the life of me i could not get the environment data from ISE. This was even though ISE said it was sending it back to the Switch, which i could verify from the Radius Live Logs.

CCIE Security Part2 - Restarting

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 10:23:10 +0100

Happy New year… Welcome to 2026.

I actually failed my blog aspirations for 2025.. I didnt post a single time. Work and real life issues took up my time in 2025. I also didnt progress much in the first 9 months study wise.

Preparing for Attempt 2

Mon, 25 Mar 2024 16:09:31 +0100

Well, its late March 2024 and I have a little under 2 months left to prepare for my attempt #2 at the CCIE Security Lab exam.

I dont have much confidence yet, but I do hope I have improved in certain areas of the exam.

Therein lies the difficulty

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 10:37:28 +0100

Happy February - 2024 everybody.

I wanted to take a moment to express my thoughts on why I have such a difficulty with the CCIE Security program as compared to the other certifications I have taken.

First and foremost, it deals with a lot of different technologies within the security realm. All the way from IPS to security provided by Cloud services such as Umbrella.

Happy New Year 2024

Thu, 04 Jan 2024 16:55:38 +0100

Happy New Year - 2024 everyone!!

Its a new year, which means a new beginning.

For the last couple of years I have been very incognito and focused on some personal areas of my life. This meant that I have not been active in the networking community as much as I would have liked and not attended as many things either.

Upgraded the Home Lab

Tue, 17 Jan 2023 10:25:48 +0100

I am currently deep diving into the whole TrustSec architecture. It has quickly become apparent to me, that i need to lab alot of this out in detail. That means upgrading my homelab with a 3650 switch as well as a refurbished laptop for acting as the supplicant for Dot1x operations.

Dropped Lab Date

Fri, 13 Jan 2023 09:48:23 +0100

Today I made the decision to drop my next lab date for the CCIE Security V6 lab exam.

Why?

Im simply not ready for another attempt yet and im not sure im going to be ready for the V6 before they transition to V7.

Invest in Yourself

Wed, 12 Jan 2022 16:57:41 +0100

Hi Folks,

I wanted to take a few moments to share an idea I learned way back. Its very simple, because its the simple of act of “investing in yourself”.

What I mean by that is, that you should set aside some amount of $$$ each year and use that to further educate yourself in a suitable area.

Cisco Preparation Labs coming

Sun, 12 Dec 2021 13:58:09 +0100

So a couple of days ago I was going through the CCIE Security training videos on Cisco Learning Network and I noticed a golden nugget.

It was mentioned that Cisco was on track, to release some learning labs for practice use for the CCIE Security lab exam!!

Update on CCIE Security V6

Mon, 06 Dec 2021 15:21:02 +0100

Its been almost a year since my last post. Wow, do I feel bad about that! :(

Anyways, ive been studying on and off for the last year and I was scheduled to have my first lab attempt this coming thursday. However, with the rising numbers of Corona, I made the tough decision to postpone it until March 10th 2022.

My CCIE Security V6 Home Lab Overview

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 15:06:00 +0100

So I have had some time to put everything together in my small CCIE Security V6 lab.

I want to spend a few moments explaining how everything is put together so others can benefit from it.

At the core of the whole thing is my new server, which is running great! (and importantly, fairly silent :) )

Lab Gear Ordered - Part 1

Wed, 28 Oct 2020 13:32:13 +0100

It was a scary experience, but a few moments ago I pressed the “Buy” button on a new (refurbished) server that is going to be the backbone and workhorse of my lab preparation.

Basically its a 1U HPE server (DL360 Generation 9) with 2x Xeon E5-2690v3 processors (12 Cores/2.6Ghz each). I had it upgraded to 256Gig of memory and 6x 200Gb SSD drives.

SCOR Exam Passed

Sun, 25 Oct 2020 14:18:13 +0100

So a couple of days ago, I passed the Cisco 350-701 SCOR (Secure Core) Exam. I passed on my 2nd attempt.

I spent quite a bit of time preparing for this exam, as alot of security technologies are new to me.

Forward Networks - The Sequel

Sun, 23 Feb 2020 11:40:10 +0100

This is the sequel to what was my first introduction to Forward Networks a year ago at Cisco Live Barcelona 2019. No surprise that, since I put their presentation among the highest rated during that time, that I was really looking forward to an update on their technology.

Attending Networking Field Day #22

Mon, 13 Jan 2020 14:35:06 +0100

I am very happy to announce, that I have been invited to attend “Networking Field Day #22”.

As you might know, the Tech Field Day events are all about getting a bunch of people together to figure out what the presenting companies are all about, with the products they bring to the table. It is also a great opportunity for the presenters to get direct feedback from people in the industry. So its a win-win situation for everyone involved in these events.

SVTI's Explained

Mon, 23 Dec 2019 13:41:39 +0100

The Concept:

In legacy site to site (S2S) VPN’s we are used to defining crypto maps and applying them to a physical interface. However, since these does not utilize GRE, you have no way of supporting multicast and routing protocols. This leads to having to define “interesting” traffic using ACL’s. Something which is clearly not scalable.

Thoughts on Hard Work

Sat, 23 Nov 2019 11:06:50 +0100

I am catching up on my RSS feeds and fell upon Ivan’s post on “Hard Work”. The article references Seth Godins post Hard Work, which examines 3 types of work being carried out.

In summary we have the following types:

Doing repetitive, back grueling work. One task at a time until completion.

ASA Lessons: Failover

Fri, 16 Aug 2019 12:14:59 +0200

In this post I will go through an example of setting up redundancy between a pair of ASA’s using one of the two methods of accomplishing this. The 2 methods are:

Failover
Clustering

This post is exclusively about the failover option.

New Goal

Mon, 12 Aug 2019 10:45:10 +0200

So I have further evidence that I might be crazy:

I have decided to abandon any and all CCIE DC studies. Why you might ask? Simple: I dont have access to the required equipment continually so I can practice and reinforce any knowledge.

Enterprise Networking PVT

Thu, 23 May 2019 10:43:42 +0200

This week, I am attending Cisco’s EMEAR Enterprise Networking PVT in Amsterdam and I wanted to highlight some key takeaways.

Cisco is really doubling down on getting its software strategy in place. Everything, and I mean everything gets a mention in regards to what sort of software is enabling it (DNA Center/SD-Access/SD-WAN etc.).

ASA Lessons: Static PAT

Sun, 12 May 2019 09:40:44 +0200

I decided a while back I would spend a bit of time learning about the Cisco ASA firewall. This is the first post surrounding some technologies I have explored during that time.

For some of you it might be easy stuff, but for others, including myself, might find it interesting for reference.

Leadership Matters

Wed, 03 Apr 2019 16:13:45 +0200

Im currently listening to an awesome book called Extreme Ownership. I wish to share some thoughts on its teachings as I think they are very valuable in any industry and particularly the IT industry.

First off, this is the book (im using the Audible service for audio-books):

Updated Learning Path

Sun, 17 Mar 2019 15:38:41 +0100

I am modifying my learning path for the year. Basically I will be focusing on automation, Python and Network API’s.

These are the courses/goals I will be trying to attain:

Course: PRNE (Completed)
Course: NPDESI (Completed)
Course: NPDEV (Completed)
Book: Network Programmability and Automation (100% Done)

With those 3 courses completed, I will have re-certified my CCIE’s and CCDE using the Continuing Education Program.

Site Migrated

Tue, 05 Mar 2019 12:11:20 +0100

Just a quick update on the site migration process. Everything should be in working order now, including certificates and the image repository. As always, give me a shout if you find something broken.

The old VPS server is about to be taken down, which will be the final test for something cross-function that might be left behind.

Site Maintenance Update

Sun, 24 Feb 2019 11:44:28 +0100

A quick update on the site maintenance progress.

I have chosen to move away from Wordpress and instead using a CI/CD workflow using Hugo+Netlify+Github. Im still learning the ropes, so expect some mistakes here and there. Its a work in progress like anything else.

Site Maintenance

Mon, 11 Feb 2019 10:06:59 +0000

I am performing some site maintenance in conjunction with a move to a new VPS server. (Thank you Hetzner (some irony may be involved)).

Hopefully everything should be reachable, but some minor UI tweaks may occur.

Thanks for understanding.

/Kim

TFDx – Forward Networks

Thu, 07 Feb 2019 14:29:07 +0000

Time to say goodbye to Barcelona

Thu, 31 Jan 2019 08:15:53 +0000

As im sitting here in the hotel, waiting to leave for the airport, the only thing on my mind is: Wow.. what an amazing week this has been.

I have met so many old friends and made a bunch of new ones. All of the Tech Field Day delegates and staff are so bright and friendly that its hard to put into words. We have debated, discussed, thought out loud, shrugged our shoulders and laughed hard.

Thoughts before CLEUR 2019

Thu, 24 Jan 2019 15:42:25 +0000

In just 3 days time I will be leaving for Cisco Live 2019 in Barcelona. Im thinking about what sort of event it will be and what to expect in term of announcements.

Especially one thought keeps reappearing and thats the thought of the transformation of Cisco. It is no longer a company with a future in just selling hardware. It itself has been disrupted by the emergence of “everything software” and merchant silicon.

Tech Field Day @ CiscoLive Europe 2019

Sun, 13 Jan 2019 11:28:11 +0000

I am honoured to have been selected as a delegate for Tech Field Day during Cisco Live Europe 2019 in Barcelona!

Cisco Live Europe will take place from the 27th of January until Friday 1st.

I am really looking forward to this opportunity. There are some really great names among the list of delegates that I hope to be interacting with quite a lot, both during and after the event.

Cisco Champion 2019

Fri, 04 Jan 2019 15:16:41 +0000

Small update.

I was fortunate enough to be selected as a Cisco Champion for 2019. Looking forward to alot of good information and cooperation from the program! 🙂

Practical OTV

Tue, 30 Oct 2018 11:18:19 +0000

Practical OTV

————-

This post is all about OTV (Overlay Transport Virtualization) on the CSR1000v.

I wanted to create the post because there are alot of acronyms and terminology involved.

A secondary objective was to have a “real” multicast network in the middle, as the examples I have seen around the web, have used a direct P2P network for the DCI.

Useful links for Observium + Rancid

Wed, 03 Oct 2018 09:07:19 +0000

I recently decided that i would like to utilize Observium as well as rancid for configuration backups on my home network. To that effect, the following links really helped me out getting it all setup correctly:

https://docs.observium.org/rancid/

http://packetsandpings.blogspot.com/2013/05/installing-and-configuring-rancid.html

https://layer77.net/2016/08/10/upgrading-from-rancid-2-3-8-to-3-4-1/

Let me know if you run into anything i might help out with.

A quote from an Ex-Googler

Tue, 11 Sep 2018 08:47:30 +0000

I really like this paragraph, because almost everyone wants to imitate google. Why? well, the answer to that questions seems to be what everyone is missing!

Google’s solutions were built for scale that basically doesn’t exist outside of a maybe a handful of companies with a trillion dollar valuation. It’s foolish to assume that their solutions are better. They’re just more scalable. But they are actually very feature-poor. There’s a tradeoff there. We should not be imitating what Google did without thinking about why they did it. Sometimes the “whys” will apply to us, sometimes they won’t

Complicated Vs. Complexity

Wed, 05 Sep 2018 13:01:38 +0000

I am currently reading Team of Teams, an excellent book!

In it, it highlights an interesting fact that I think is very relevant for the networking world and that is the difference between something that is complicated versus something that is complex.

JNCIA-Junos

Mon, 03 Sep 2018 15:25:36 +0000

I recently completed the entry level Juniper certification. I thought it would be a good idea to study for something other than the mighty Cisco, so Juniper’s JNCIA-Junos seemed like a good choice.

It was a very fair exam I can highly recommend.

VxLAN on the CSR1Kv

Wed, 23 Aug 2017 11:55:10 +0000

By now, VxLAN is becoming the standard way of tunneling in the Datacenter.

Using VxLAN, i will show how to use the CSR1Kv to extend your Datacenter L2 reach between sites as well.

First off, what is VxLAN?

It stands for Virtual Extensible LAN. Basically you have a way of decoupling your vlan’s into a new scheme.

ISIS Authentication types (packet captures)

Mon, 24 Jul 2017 07:16:18 +0000

In this post i would like to highlight a couple of “features” of ISIS.

More specifically the authentication mechanism used and how it looks in the data plane.

I will do this by configuring a couple of routers and configure the 2 authentication types available. I will then look at packet captures taken from the link between them and illustrate how its used by the ISIS process.

Progress update – 10/07-2017

Mon, 10 Jul 2017 12:34:30 +0000

Hello folks,

Im currently going through the INE DC videos and learning a lot about fabrics and how they work along with a fair bit of UCS information on top of that!

Im spending an average of 2.5 hours on weekdays for study and a bit more in the weekends when time permits.

New Lab Server & random updates

Wed, 07 Jun 2017 15:52:48 +0000

New Server:

So I just completed a purchase off eBay for a new server for my lab purposes.

For a while now I’ve been limited to 32Gb of memory on my old ESXi server, which is really more like 20Gb when my regular servers have had their share. Running a combination of different types of devices, each taking at least 4Gb of memory, doesn’t leave much room for larger labs.

Onto the next one…

Thu, 20 Apr 2017 10:10:11 +0000

Yesterday I passed the CCNA-W exam. Now onto the next partner certification I need to do before summer.

Its called 500-452 ENCWE – Enterprise Networks Core and WAN Essentials and a large part of it involves iWAN, which im not too familiar with.

So whats next?

Wed, 08 Mar 2017 16:14:31 +0000

CCDE – A different Journey

Sun, 26 Feb 2017 05:38:45 +0000

Wednesday the 22nd of February, in a testing center in the middle of London, my journey towards achieving the CCDE certification, finally ended in me passing this beast of an exam.

This learning journey was a very different one than either of my CCIE’s. Whereas going for the CCIE meant spending countless hours at the command-line, the CCDE meant spending all of those hours reading and discussing use cases for technologies. It also meant stepping my toes into the business side, picking up the “Why?” behind selecting a specific technology.

A look at Auto-Tunnel Mesh Groups

Thu, 19 Jan 2017 09:42:51 +0000

In this post I would like to give a demonstration of using the Auto-Tunnel Mesh group feature.

As you may know, manual MPLS-TE tunnels are first and foremost unidirectional, meaning that if you do them between two PE nodes, you have to do a tunnel in each direction with the local PE node being the headend.

Happy New Year

Tue, 10 Jan 2017 09:41:57 +0000

Snippet: The story of the EFP

Mon, 14 Nov 2016 12:26:40 +0000

New practice lab(s) available…

Mon, 31 Oct 2016 14:54:36 +0000

In case you are serious about going for the CCDE certification, I highly recommend you check out my friend Martin Duggan’s new lab(s) on Leanpub. His writing style is very good and its easy to follow along and i look forward to hitting this lab myself.

Practical DMVPN Example

Thu, 13 Oct 2016 13:28:04 +0000

First off, lets take a look at the topology I will be using for this example:

Everything works, and we the math is right, we should see an NHRP shortcut being created for the Spoke to Spoke tunnel:

1st Attempt – No Dice

Mon, 05 Sep 2016 08:41:16 +0000

The exam has been documented elsewhere, so i wont spend much time on it here. Suffice it to say its a difficult beast 🙂

Cisco Live US! 2016

Wed, 25 May 2016 15:04:14 +0000

I am fortunate enough, to be able to goto Cisco Live US! again this year.

Last year was such an experience, that my hopes are really high for this year as well.

I will be arriving on Friday the 8th and leaving on the 15th. Not a long stay this time, but it was what my boss could arrange for.

GETVPN Example

Sun, 15 May 2016 11:28:05 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I had the good fortune of attending Jeremy Filliben’s CCDE Bootcamp.

It was a great experience, which I will elaborate on in another post. But one of the technology areas I had a bit of difficult with, was GETVPN.

February – A busy month indeed!

Sun, 06 Mar 2016 15:49:01 +0000

Wow, what a busy month this has been!

So I started my new job on February 1st and thus far, everything has been really great.

My new coworkers are very friendly and helpful.

I’ve spent the better part of february, trying to get to grips with the SP network I will be focusing on from now on. Im still not where I want to be yet, but im getting there. One of the guys I will be working very closely with, started cleaning up the network when he was hired 9 months ago and he’s done a really great job with what he’s had to work with.

Doing right in the VAR role!

Wed, 13 Jan 2016 09:08:15 +0000

This post is my follow-up on a recent discussion on twitter.

Working for a VAR (Value Added Reseller) is not always the glamours life some make it out to be.

Working as a consultant, what you are really doing, is being the CEO of your own service company.

Passed the CCDE written. Now what?

Wed, 06 Jan 2016 06:31:42 +0000

I was fortunate enough to finally pass the CCDE written exam yesterday morning.

That begs the question of “Now What?”

Well, I will spend a couple of days putting together a study strategy, based on where I am now compared to where I need to be in order to pass the exam. As it looks now, I am probably going for a fall 2016 exam date. That gives me enough time to settle into a new job with everything that entails.

Time for change

Wed, 02 Dec 2015 15:55:16 +0000

Its time for a change!

It was a tough decision, but i’ve decided that I need some new challenges in my professional life. To that effect, i’ve quit my old job and joined a different VAR/SP where I will be working in a skilled team of network engineers.

Stay tuned for important news in December!!

Tue, 10 Nov 2015 15:27:36 +0000

I’ve got some important news which I will reveal in the beginning of December!

So stay tuned 🙂

Why Cisco?

Sun, 30 Aug 2015 14:40:15 +0000

Why do i keep focusing so much on Cisco, when there are clearly alot of different vendors out there with similar products and technologies?

There are several reasons for this.

I began the professional part of my networking career with Cisco.

The case for lifelong learning.

Wed, 15 Jul 2015 05:11:35 +0000

People often ask me why i keep studying and when i will be “done”.

To me, this type of question seems odd, because i am committed to lifelong learning.

I am of the opinion that going through life without learning something all the time would be a life wasted. I think this goes back to the early explorers. Discovering new things, whether it be a new continent or simply a piece of knowledge really excites a certain type of people.

My first Cisco Live!

Sun, 14 Jun 2015 20:56:53 +0000

Even though im still in San Diego, Cisco Live! US 2015 is but a memory.

But what a memory it is! It being my first time attending a Cisco Live conference, I didn’t really know what to expect.

What I was met with, was a conference full of really sharp and nice people. The conference staff was very helpful and polite and really made an impression on me, from the time I first stepped onto the pavement outside San Diego convention center.

MPLS VPN's over mGRE

Sun, 17 May 2015 08:07:02 +0000

This blog post outlines what “MPLS VPNs over mGRE” is all about as well as provide an example of such a configuration.

So what is “MPLS VPNs over mGRE”? – Well, basically its taking regular MPLS VPN’s and using it over an IP only core network. Since VPN’s over MPLS is one of the primary drivers for implementing an MPLS network in the first place, using the same functionality over an IP-only core might be very compelling for some not willing/able to run MPLS label switching in the core.

Overwhelmed – CCDE

Thu, 07 May 2015 16:26:55 +0000

I am preparing for the CCDE written exam, which I have coming up at CLUS.

There are so much material to go through, both to read as well as watch CL presentations, it can be a bit overwhelming at times.

Cisco Live US 2015 – Session Schedule

Tue, 07 Apr 2015 15:56:08 +0000

This is my current schedule for the Cisco Live US 2015 event.

Most are related to my CCDE studies and a few are with technologies and products that im interested in in general.

Monday:

08:00 – 09:30 BRKSAN-2101 FCoE for small and mid size enterprises.

Cisco Live US – 2015

Mon, 30 Mar 2015 08:08:02 +0000

I will be attending this year’s Cisco Live US in San Diego!

This is my first Cisco Live, so I dont really know what to expect. There are alot of great sessions that I want to attend (if they are not already full), and I will be posting my week here when i have my sessions down.

Upcoming webinar with Daniel Dib

Thu, 12 Feb 2015 10:01:45 +0000

Just wanted to let you know that Daniel from lostintransit.se is doing a webinar on network design. I will be attending and helping out any way i can.

Go here to learn more: https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/blogs/community_cafe/2015/01/21/network-design-fundamentals-webinar-with-ciscovip-daniel-dib

Unified/Seamless MPLS

Sun, 08 Feb 2015 17:00:01 +0000

In this post I would like to highlight a relative new (to me) application of MPLS called Unified MPLS.

The goal of Unified MPLS is to separate your network into individual segments of IGP’s in order to keep your core network as simple as possible while still maintaining an end-to-end LSP for regular MPLS applications such as L3 VPN’s.

Its a new year!

Tue, 27 Jan 2015 16:41:23 +0000

My apology. I have been very absent here as of late.

I have been doing some different stuff, which is irrelevant here, but rest assured, i got some posts lined up. The next one on Unified MPLS. I think you will like it, so stay tuned! 🙂

Cisco Champion.

Wed, 26 Nov 2014 11:57:52 +0000

Woke up to a very nice email today.

I have been selected as a Cisco Champion for 2015! – Now i get to see what all the fuzz is about and hopefully be able to contribute something.

EIGRP OTP example

Thu, 09 Oct 2014 16:16:17 +0000

In this post id like to provide an example of a fairly new development to EIGRP which is called EIGRP Over The Top (OTP).

In all its simplicity it establish an EIGRP multihop adjacency using LISP as the encapsulation method for transport through the WAN network.

A bit of maintenance

Wed, 08 Oct 2014 14:28:36 +0000

I am currently performing a bit of maintenance on the blog (moving host), so there might be some small errors here and there. I apologise for this! – Hopefully everything will be up and running smoothly in a few days time.

Trying out IPv6 Prefix Delegation

Thu, 18 Sep 2014 16:22:48 +0000

In this post i will show how and why to use a feature called IPv6 Prefix Delegation (PD).

IPv6 prefix delegation is a feature that provides the capability to delegate or hand out IPv6 prefixes to other routers without the need to hardcode these prefixes into the routers.

VRF based path selection

Wed, 20 Aug 2014 12:36:41 +0000

In this post I will be showing you how its possible to use different paths between your PE routers on a per VRF basis.

This is very useful if you have customers you want to “steer” away from your normal traffic flow between PE routers.

Using the OSPF Forwarding Address for traffic-steering

Sun, 17 Aug 2014 12:36:22 +0000

In this fairly short post, id like to address a topic that came up on IRC (#cciestudy @ freenode.net). Its about how you select a route thats being redistributed into an OSPF NSSA area and comes into the OSPF backbone area 0.

Using LISP for IPv6 tunnelling.

Sun, 10 Aug 2014 15:29:34 +0000

In this post I would like to show how its possible to use a fairly new protocol, LISP, to interconnect IPv6 islands over an IPv4 backbone/core network.

LISP stands for Locator ID Seperation Protocol. As the name suggest, its actually meant to decouple location from identity. This means it can be used for such cool things as mobility, being VM’s or a mobile data connection.

EIGRP Query bounding.

Sun, 13 Jul 2014 11:00:56 +0000

In the process of restudying EIGRP as a protocol, and more specifically as to how it converges, you can’t avoid running into the saying “Remember to bound your queries!”.

From a conceptual point of view its fairly easy to understand that the further out you ask for a prefix the longer the convergence process will take. But what really takes place when you have different tools in place to bound the query from taking place?

Change of focus

Tue, 17 Jun 2014 07:53:01 +0000

I have decided to change my focus quite a bit.

I was planning on tackling the IOS-XR exam this year and was preparing for it by going through the blueprint. However another track kept pulling me towards it, and ofcourse thats the CCDE track.

CRS/ASR Switching fabrics

Tue, 29 Apr 2014 17:01:55 +0000

At the moment I’m going through whitepapers, Cisco Live 365 presentations and IOS XR fundamentals learning about switching fabrics.

Its a steep learning curve, but in its own way its quite fascinating.

There are a lot of acronyms to be mastered, so later on i will post a list that might serve myself and others when looking at these sort of architectures.

Whats next…

Sun, 06 Apr 2014 09:27:42 +0000

I have a lot of non-technical related projects in the pipeline, but study wise, whats next up for me is the IOS XR specialist exam.

I think the blueprint for it looks interesting and it provides a way for me to learn more about IOS XR.

Passed the CCIE SP Lab exam.

Mon, 17 Mar 2014 11:04:11 +0000

Well, a short update. I managed to pass the CCIE Service Provider lab exam on March 14th.

I am quite exhausted from the experience, but very happy 🙂

ESXi Server Build

Fri, 14 Feb 2014 16:52:28 +0000

With the release of the IOS XRv router, along with CSR (Cloud Services Router), its time that I go ahead and build myself a virtualization solution.

To that effect, I have just ordered the components for a home build server, which was the cheapest, not to mention most silent option available.

Short update

Wed, 12 Feb 2014 17:29:51 +0000

Its been a long time since my last update. I apologise for this. It wasnt my intention, it just sort of happened.

In the meantime I have tried the CCIE SP lab and didnt pass it, so I am still studying for my next attempt which is comming up shortly.

ISIS csnp-interval

Mon, 24 Jun 2013 15:02:58 +0000

The CSNP on multiaccess networks

The CSNP (Complete Sequence Number PDU) on multi-access networks is being sent out on behalf of the DIS (Designated Intermediate System), which acts as the pseudonode representing the multi-access network. Its being used as ISIS’s way of making sure everybody on the multi-access network is up to date. If thats not the case, the node which is missing some routing information can use PSNP (Partial Sequence Number PDU)’s to request the missing information from the DIS.

isis retransmit-interval Vs. isis retransmit-throttle-interval

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 06:21:28 +0000

In this short post i want to try and shed some light on a couple of ISIS timers that had me confused at first. I think i got them down now, but please let me know if i have misunderstood them.

Fixing multicast RPF failure with BGP

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 10:40:26 +0000

In this post i would like to explain how you can fix a multicast RPF failure using BGP.

If you take a look at the topology in figure 1, we have a network running EIGRP as the IGP

and where R1 advertises its loopback 0 (1.1.1.1/32). R4 also has a loopback 0 with the 4.4.4.4/32 address.

Another Lab lies ahead, round one.

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 12:43:50 +0000

This morning I booked my first go with the CCIE Service Provider lab exam. The battle is in mid November, so I have some time to study.

That also means that alot of forthcomming blog posts will be about CCIE SP material.

Understanding the “NTP access-group” command in IOS.

Sun, 02 Jun 2013 13:53:28 +0000

NTP has always been one of those things I have found tricky to really lab up. Its fairly easy to setup, but verifying whether everything is working as you expect, can be hard because it takes a while to synchronize (and even unsynchronize).

First take on SDN

Thu, 30 May 2013 11:28:01 +0000

I have been very quiet when it comes to the topic of SDN (Software Defined Networking). However, these days you can hardly go through your day without spotting an article about it.

The reason I have been quiet is pretty simple. I wanted to understand it a bit better before writing anything about it.

The Tech Interview

Mon, 27 May 2013 06:47:40 +0000

Some very smart people have created a new website aimed at the career aspects of the tech world.

In time the site should prove to be a valuable tool for anyone trying to land a job in the tech industry.

Mr. Ferro's "Arse First Method of Technical Blogging"!

Fri, 24 May 2013 08:07:06 +0000

I just had a chance to go ahead and read Mr. Greg Ferro’s ebook called ”Arse First Method of Technical Blogging“.

The book is being published by Leanpub (leanpub.com), an independent publisher and the readers will get free updates to the book as they become available.

MPLS VPN Per VRF Label feature

Fri, 17 May 2013 08:00:04 +0000

In this post i would like to explain the usage of the “MPLS VPN Per VRF Label” feature.

By default, in each VRF, prefixes are assigned a VPN label, used to identify the route within the VRF itself.

This label is the only label that is being looked at by the receiving PE router.

Going to DKNOG

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 10:48:15 +0000

I just ordered my ticket for DKNOG, which will be happening on March 21st in Copenhagen.

Catch me there if you can!

www.dknog.dk

Becomming Zen'ish?

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 18:22:37 +0000

Wow. The other day, someone posted a link to [zenhabits.net]. and I was hooked right away.

The entire idea around being “Zen’ish” really appeals to me on a fundamental level. I like the idea behind it, i like what it entails, i like the discipline and i like the calmness.

Cisco to sell Linksys to Belkin.

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 10:55:43 +0000

Yesterday it was announced that Belkin intends to purchase the Linksys division of Cisco’s hands.

I for one, am very happy to see this happen.

I think that for Cisco to be really great, it needs to focus on its core competencies, which does not include home networking equipment.

Time to put the beans to rest

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 07:56:55 +0000

Yesterday brought with it another Java security breach. It is security breach that doesnt yet have a fix for it (0-day), so short of disabling Java on your computer, you are out of luck.

Im continually amazed that we keep running this piece of software, but I guess I shouldnt be, given people’s track record of running insecure software (think older Internet Explorer browsers on windows).

Looking forward

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 18:35:40 +0000

“All that matters, is where you are going” is a favorite quote of mine.

With that an update as well as a plan to move forward.

I have now finished Narbik’s Volume 2 Service Provider workbook. It took a little while longer than I had planned. This is mainly because i took some time off during the holidays (well, studied less at least 🙂 ).

Done with volume 1 labs.

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 07:04:48 +0000

I have now finished the Narbik Volume 1 labs.

It took about 2,5 weeks to do. Im planning on spending a bit more time on the Volume 2 labs. Maybe about 3-4 weeks. I want to make sure i got all the foundational stuff down before advancing to some more complex labs.

Frame-Relay PVC bundle

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 07:10:15 +0000

In this short piece i would like to show how Frame-Relay PVC bundles work.

A PVC bundle is exactly what the name says. Its a bundle of PVC’s, with each PVC handling a certain Precedence, MPLS EXP or DSCP.

A requirement for the PVC bundle is that all IP Precedence or DSCP values will be handled by one of the PVC’s, so you need to set the “default” PVC unless

Some IOS-XR Training

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 16:00:02 +0000

Just wanted to let you know of a good place to go for some IOS-XR training.

Head on over to FryGuy’s place:

http://www.fryguy.net/2012/11/06/ios-xr-cisco-videos-and-training/

Another great motivational video

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 05:53:50 +0000

Just wanted to share another great motivational video

Recertified & Plan

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 17:10:07 +0000

I have recertified by doing the SP written exam.

Took me a while, but now its done.

My plan is to hit the labs, starting with Narbik’s SP workbook, working my way through that one. That should keep me occupied for quite a while.

Class Based Tunnel Selection

Sun, 30 Sep 2012 16:43:03 +0000

In this post i would like to demonstrate the Class-Based Tunnel Selection feature.

In class-based tunnel selection, we will select an MPLS TE tunnel based on the incomming Precedence bit in the data.

For example, IP Prec 5 goes to TE Tunnel 1, whereas IP Prec 3 goes to TE Tunnel 2.

Node protection using MPLS-TE Fast ReRoute

Sun, 02 Sep 2012 17:30:20 +0000

In this post i would like to demonstrate the concept of a well known MPLS TE (Traffic Engineering) feature, known as Fast Reroute.

Fast Reroute, as the name implies, is used to create an MPLS network, that has similar convergence properties of SONET/SDH APS of about 50 ms.

The saga will continue

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 12:47:33 +0000

Sorry for the lack of contents lately.

I am dealing with some personal issues that put a bit of a pause to my studies.

As soon as I’m fit for it I will put up some stuff related to the SP space.

Why setting goals does matter.

Thu, 24 May 2012 11:59:32 +0000

Today I came across a blog post from a guy which I respect deeply. However, I disagree wholeheartedly with the content in the post.

The title says: “That Setting Yourself Goals is Practising Failure” and the entire post can be found here.

Apologize for the down-time

Mon, 21 May 2012 13:50:05 +0000

I apologize for the recent down-time.

My provider had a glitch which is hopefully fixed now.

ASDM “Unconnected Sockets Not Implemented” Error

Mon, 07 May 2012 09:22:17 +0000

I ran into this error today on an old ASA and i needed a quick fix that didnt involve downgrading any Java versions from the clients servers.

I can confirm that by using version 6.1(5)51 of the ASDM works correctly (as noted in the link below).

Gold Nugget's, courtesy of Arista

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 09:33:39 +0000

I think the video below is worth going through for a couple of reasons.

First off, it explains one networking company’s strategy towards SDN (Software Defined Networking). Its a great academic concept with lots of potential. However there’s no real push for it from customers (at least the customer base of Arista).

Service Provider emulation of a frame-relay network using MPLS.

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 15:30:40 +0000

One of the cool things about MPLS is its versatility.

In this post i will show how its possible for a service provider to support legacy frame-relay installations without actually having any frame-relay switches.

I will establish an MPLS core and show how a customer with three sites, one hub site and two spoke sites, will never even know that the core is running MPLS and not end-to-end frame-relay.

1st Batch of books.

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 11:48:14 +0000

I have ordered the first batch of books for the CCIE SP track.

They are:

I was hoping that you could get them all as eBooks, but as it turns out, i can get some of them as eBooks through Kindle and some through Cisco Press PDF’s and others i could only get as hard copies. This is not the ideal solution.

The cat is out of the bag.

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 13:52:10 +0000

The cat is out of the bag.

I am going for my 2nd CCIE. This time its in the Service Provider track.

For a while i have felt something missing. And what is missing is a clear cut direction on what i want to learn more about in my professional life.

Week on the wire – Week 10.

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 10:09:23 +0000

I think one of the most important things this to happen this week, was a public announcement

from the boss of TeliaSonera.

He announced that they would in the near future, start to charge people for any VoIP calls they would make through their broadband services.

Update on INE's SP track.

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 08:16:24 +0000

There’s news on INE’s Service Provider material.

Updated workbooks for the SPv3 will be arriving “soon”. Hopefully that means within a month or two.

If you are interested, you can read more and even get a peak into a sample lab.

Week on the wire – Week 9.

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 11:03:33 +0000

Its been a rough week. I have been finishing up projects and getting rid of loose ends.

I have also been giving a couple of lectures on IPv6 (Basically primers) to customers as well as some information on basic failover configuration in IOS. The advent of 3G and low cost gives alot of new opportunities for customers.

A picture which is worth far more than a 1000 words.

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 07:48:50 +0000

The picture below should be put into a frame and put onto the desk of everyone in the IT industry.

By day, I am a consultant, so I have quite a few stories that relate to this picture.

CAR – The grand-old man in policing.

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 09:56:23 +0000

Below are my findings regarding CAR. Please be advised that this is work in progress.

CAR is the ancient way of doing policing.

It is not configured using any of the new and fancy MQC style configuration.

It is an interface-based command set.

Week on the wire – Week 7.

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:02:49 +0000

A couple of things i have found interesting this week.

The first one is that Intel is still in the game for making NIC’s. Even though they are doing some good ones in the server space, this batch seems to be targeted at the entry-level.

Redundancy for small sites.

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:41:00 +0000

We are working with alot of customers having lots of small “sites”, meaning that each site range from having 1 to 20 devices. The devices can be a user workstation or it can be some sort of automatic equipment having a VPN tunnel back to the main headquarter.

Cloud enabled task management.

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:34:39 +0000

Finally.

I have been using Things as my task management program for about 5-6 months.

Its been better than not using anything at all, but what has really annoyed me quite heavily is its inability to do “Cloud” synchronization. The only form of synchronization from Things is through your wireless network. And even so, just directly to your Mac, which then syncs to the other devices.

Help the readers out!

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 09:52:58 +0000

I own alot of books.

By books, i mean those paper things, that takes up alot of space and for which we chop down trees.

Recently, i have been shifting my reading onto my iPad. Its easy to carry around, it holds multiple books and pdf files. On top of that, i find its a great reading device. The fonts are rendered fantastically and they are easy on the eyes to read. I have no trouble reading on the iPad.

Great tips for making changes to your network

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 10:05:50 +0000

I stumbled across this blog post which i think most will find very interesting.

At least i think it contains some ideas that should be followed whenever you make a change to your own or your customers network.

Head on over and take a look: http://lamejournal.com/2011/12/07/guide-to-making-changes/

Last post of 2011

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 16:26:40 +0000

This will be the last post of 2011.

It’s been a very interesting year in a lot of different areas.

The most important for me personally has been the achievement of my CCIE. I have worked very hard for this and it finally paid off.

Odd EIGRP behavior

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 09:18:53 +0000

<div id="attachment_928" style="width: 548px" class="wp-caption aligncenter">
  <a href="http://www.packet-forwarding.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/topology.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-928" title="EIGRP Topology" src="http://www.packet-forwarding.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/topology.jpg" alt="" width="538" height="82" /></a>
  
  <p class="wp-caption-text">
    EIGRP Topology
  </p>
</div>

<br /> <strong>Configuration:</strong>

Migrating notes – my documents, not the program.

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:44:34 +0000

I have finally decided to clean up my Routing & Switching notes and more importantly moving them from Microsoft OneNote to Microsoft Word.

I know, I know, its still Microsoft, but even though OneNote has been okay for my needs, the lack of the program for Mac OS is annoying the crap out of me.

Learning something new each day.

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 09:00:53 +0000

Lately i have been making it a goal of mine to watch a TED video a day.

I do this in order to expand my horizon and learn things that i normally wouldnt pay much attention to.

Something as foreign to me as a music conductor explaining how to perform a piece of music, what it takes and why he does it, makes me a more informed human being.

Spanning-tree revisited

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 16:58:51 +0000

In this post i will shed some light on some spanning-tree info that has been floating around. But also an explanation why i choose a non-obvious answer to an IPexpert question.

Specifically 2 things.

The first one is the selection of ports and what _exactly_ selects the root port.

Back from trip.

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 08:12:08 +0000

I am back from our company trip to Dubai.

Dubai is a fantastic place. Its my first time in the middle east and it left a great impression.

The whole city struck me as a proof-of-concept kind of city. They decided they wanted to do something great and they went ahead and did it. Even better, they did it without much red-tape.

Some thoughts on Openflow

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 08:23:32 +0000

It seems that everywhere i look, be it on twitter, google+ or my regular reading list of blogs, Openflow comes up alot.

What is Openflow?

Openflow is an initiative to create a protocol and an API infrastructure to improve overall functionality of your network.

Quick Tip: SPD

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 07:37:28 +0000

One of my friends told me about a feature called SPD and whether i knew about it. I didnt so i decided to read a bit more about it.

SPD stands for Selective Packet Discard. As the name implies it has something to do with discarding packets. Something that is never good.

NAT shows its ugly face in the IPv6 world.

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 13:33:07 +0000

Lately theres been some fuzz in the corners about the need for NAT in the new world order of IPv6.

I think its a poor design choice and ill give my reason below.

One of the reasons why people seem to feel like they need NAT, is accessibility to IPv4 only content. While i agree this is certainly a concern, it is being rendered less and less important each day as more content providers run dual-stack (or some other form of proxying). Either way, you as a user can get directly to more and more IPv6 content by the day.

Thoughts on the SSL/TLS – Beast

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 19:00:00 +0000

It seems like every day, there are some vulnerability or crack announced on the geek news-outlets.

For some reason, the recent publication of an exploit of a flaw in the SSL/TLS implementation in some versions, made me extra curious and it made me think a little harder about this whole security business.

Flex Links

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 11:53:23 +0000

Flex Links, otherwise known as the devil for your L2 network.

In all fairness, lets actually figure out what this feature

is used for.

The most important thing you need to know is the fact that

Flex links disable your spanning-tree process.

Great free multicast lecture by INE

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 11:10:58 +0000

I just watched this great lecture from INE on multicast. Well worth sharing:

Staying informed…

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 11:11:52 +0000

Lately i have been watching a Ted video each day. I find this fascinating as i learn stuff in areas i would not normally be looking.

I can highly recommend this to anyone in order to stay informed on whats going on in our world.

L2TPv3 – A wormhole through your L3 network.

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 07:03:27 +0000

Using L2 tunnel protocol version 3, you can accomplish what so many scientists are working on. A Wormhole!

Granted, this wormhole is just through your L3 network, so it might not raise as many eyebrows, but its still a nifty tool in your toolbox.

The Verify Source command.

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 09:13:31 +0000

In this small post i want to clarify the use of the “ip verify” command.

There has been some confusion on the usage of this command, especially in conjunction with the access-list parameter. I would like to clarify this here.

Time people.. Time…

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 13:14:56 +0000

Being a network consultant means getting access to lots of customers using a range of different equipment.

One thing thats common for almost all of them, is the fact that the time is not in sync throughout their devices. As you may know, this is a real issue when you are trying to sort out a problem.

Some time has passed.

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 18:05:10 +0000

Some time has passed since i got my CCIE number.

I have spent the time reflecting on the time that has passed since starting my CCIE journey. I will write down my journey in more detail later on for those who are interested.

#29189

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 08:24:06 +0000

Hi everyone,

I am happy to announce that this week i passed the R&S CCIE lab exam. CCIE #29189.

Its been a long journey for me. Working full time, not taking any dedicated time off work to do so, has been challenging.

IOS IPS

Thu, 26 May 2011 09:39:37 +0000

In this article i will try and setup a very simple example using Cisco IOS IPS (Intrusion Prevention System).

As before, a simple topology consisting of 3 routers will suffice.

They are configured as follows:

R1 will act as our source host. From this machine i will simulate an attacker trying to gain access to R3 through R2. This means R2 will be the device where we will be configuring the IPS functionality.

Thoughts on the Skype / Microsoft deal.

Fri, 13 May 2011 10:59:02 +0000

My take on the Microsoft purchase of Skype.

Only last week i attended a mandatory briefing of Lync, Microsofts all-in-all wonder for communicating.

Basically its a PBX, IM-server, Video-conferencing, Outlook-Integrator kind of a product.

Basically they have taken alot of code from alot of different half-done products and thrown them into one big pile and put alot of marketing money behind it.

Over selling and underdoing.

Wed, 11 May 2011 09:56:44 +0000

Warning: The following is primarily a rant! You might not find it applicable in your situation, or you might simply not care. You have been warned 🙂

Having been a consultant for a while now, i am constantly amazed at how solutions are made up and what is sold simply because it has a buzz-word in its title or description.

Working through detailed blueprint.

Sat, 30 Apr 2011 12:18:35 +0000

I am going through the detailed blueprint, one item at a time and verifying that there are no surprises. Especially IP services and security is something i havent paid enough attention to in the past.

Anyways, there are lots of items on that darn list and going through them all takes alot of time.

Frame-relay compression and fragmentation.

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 12:50:22 +0000

Link optimization on frame-relay.

Using frame-relay, bandwidth is especially a concern.

It is possible to optimize this bandwidth in several ways.

I will concentrate this post about compression and fragmentation.

First off, with compression on frame-relay there several methods of accomplishing this.

Final Rack Photo

Sat, 19 Mar 2011 09:44:45 +0000

As promised, here is a couple of photos of the final layout.

<p class="wp-caption-text">
  Total Layout
</p>

<p class="wp-caption-text">
  More detailed view
</p>

Final Design.

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 12:01:35 +0000

So I modified the previous layout a bit.

The concern i voiced about the 3640 was enough to make me figure out a way to have that one as the bottom piece of equipment.

This is what i ended up with:

Design Layout

Sun, 06 Mar 2011 17:30:31 +0000

I need to start cabling all of this gear into place. I have made a layout which i think i will try out.

The only thing that concerns me is the weight of the 3640 router. Its a heavy baby.

Beginning of March

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 10:39:55 +0000

I have received the rest of my routers (1841s), I have also received the memory and flash upgrades for them all (256meg memory and 64mb flash). The guy who sold them to me was very helpful and it turned out he had the cables that i needed as well (some Smart-serial to Smart-serial, as well as some DB60 ones).

New setup.

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 12:57:15 +0000

So i have decided to extend my rack functionality.

I have the nessecary switching capacity, but what i need are the “correct” routers.

Because of that, i have so far purchased 4x 1841 + a 2811. I still need 3 more before its in order. On top of that i need more memory and flash for them all.

NTP and modes of operation.

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 16:18:45 +0000

NTP is one of those things that really keeps messing with my head.

To break it down, what does it do for us?

Simple. It provides the correct time of the day.

How does it accomplish this? Now this is where it gets interesting.

Good Read.

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 15:54:25 +0000

I want to point everyones attention at this blog post made by Marko over at IPX. Its a good read and i think you will all enjoy it!

http://blog.ipexpert.com/2011/01/19/old-ccie-myths-vlan-1/

Welcome to 2011

Sun, 02 Jan 2011 06:28:27 +0000

Welcome to 2011.

I hope that you have had time to enjoy the holidays and all the festivities that come with it.

Personally i have been doing alot of work stuff. Moving data centers is no small task when the customers want constant uptime. Of course for some customers this couldnt be done as they dont have fully redundant systems to switch over to. However a large part could be done very fast, but they all needed to be done at night and preferably during the weekends.

Work Work and more Work.

Sun, 26 Dec 2010 10:18:06 +0000

The month of December has been crazy for me.

A ton of work related stuff has been going on. Our HQ move has taken its toll on everybody. Ive been working through every weekend, putting in some 20 odd hours on some days.

IRB – Integrated Routing and Bridging.

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 10:37:18 +0000

My understanding of IRB:

I did another Volume 1 lab yesterday. Again i hit my head against the infamous IRB feature.

IRB stands for Integrated Routing and Bridging. Below is my understanding of the technology. I could be very wrong about this, so please correct me if i state something completely incorrect.

Going forward.

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 17:24:30 +0000

Its been just over two weeks since my lab attempt.

I have basically done no studying at all during that time.

Time has come to get back in the game. I do have alot of work to do in the near future, but i will still try and do all the studying i can squeeze in.

Great walkthrough of the Cisco Documentation.

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 10:49:13 +0000

I had a bit of spare time yesterday, and i stumbled across a great video walkthrough of the Cisco documenation by Internetwork Expert (INE), and i thought i would share it with you in case you hadnt already discovered it:

First shot = Failure.

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 13:48:32 +0000

First shot = Failure.

So i had my first lab attempt on tuesday the 2nd of November.

Boy was it hard 🙂

Unfortunally i didnt pass this time around.

I did very well in the troubleshooting part, but the configuration part, got the best of me.

Latency Madness.

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 13:49:14 +0000

At the bootcamp last week, i was almost out of reach from my lab.

Even though i just got the remote power controller, the network at both the conference place as well as the hotel (especially the hotel!) was pretty bad.

Bootcamp October 2010 and General Update.

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 18:00:16 +0000

This was all written yesterday 🙂

Airport fun!

So right now (im sitting in London Stansted Airport after having attended the last of Narbiks bootcamp. Its going to be good to get home to the girlfriend and my puppy.

He had a guest with him this time around. Rolf Schärer. The guy is a tripple CCIE (R&S, SP and Storage). Very knowledgeable and nice guy. If you have business in and around the Swiss nation, he is a safe bet when it comes to Cisco technologies.

Volume 2 and getting ready for UK bootcamp part 2.

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 07:14:26 +0000

As you may have noticed from my inexcusable lack of posts, ive been very busy.

I have been finishing up IPexperts volume 1 workbooks and now going through volume 2. Still lots of interesting details to learn about. I have also managed to get most of my video-on-demand material onto my iPad so i have easier access to it.

www.gns3vault.com

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 19:16:02 +0000

I wanted to point your attention to gns3vault.com. Alot of students use GNS3 (front end for dynamips) to do alot of their lab work.

Rene Molenaar created this site, which is basically a site with free labs that you can download and practice on. A great idea!

Back from vacation.

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 19:13:11 +0000

Im back from vacation. I can now with convinction state that hotels in Spain are not up to par with other places. I have been to Spain twice now, and they NEVER have an internet connection in the rooms. You had Wifi in the lobby, 2€ for an hour, and it barely worked.

Learning EEM (Embedded Event Manager).

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 07:43:21 +0000

Awesome. Got alot of EEM ground covered today.

Seems like a very powerful scripting engine that stands out, by having the ability to be triggered under certain

circumstances.

Lets check out an example using the topology below:

As you can see, we have our interfaces defined, they are in an up state, we have EIGRP working, we have an access-list applied,

Progress report – Monday 23-08-2010.

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 10:52:50 +0000

I have started doing IPexpert Vol 1. technology labs. They are pretty challeging. They make you think out of the box. Almost none of it is vanilla configuration.

I dont know how closely these labs reflect the real one. Ofcourse these are Vol. 1 labs, but what i mean by it, is especially the wording. Maybe its just me.

Progress report – Saturday 14-08-2010.

Sat, 14 Aug 2010 07:52:37 +0000

Woke up early this morning to get a head-start on the Video-on-Demand courses. I do it by looking at the PDF’s thats covered on each configuration section, and try and replicate the topology as well as solving all the tasks.

Progress report.

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 11:24:18 +0000

Update 11-08-2010: I can now create RMON alarms and events. It seems the command set for RMON is pretty limited. Not much around the net as to how deep to go into this. Hope its enough.

I just looked over the detailed blueprint which is authored by cisco. It had checkmarks, which i used to mark down things i knew i could configure, as well as things i really need more training in. These are the topics i have either forgotten about or just havent paid attention to. Anyways, these are the things i will need to study more in the comming month:

Submarine cables.

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 06:58:41 +0000

Okay these are some really cool maps if you are into networking (and i know you are):

http://www.cablemap.info/

http://www.telegeography.com/product-info/map_cable/index.php

They show submarine communications cables. What a job to lay down those suckers.

I followed the PPC-1 installation a while back. Its the new submarine cable going into Australia. It had its own blog, with info and pictures. Very interesting.

Customers Vs. Service-providers.

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 09:16:36 +0000

I wanted to take the opportunity to pitch in on the discussion thats presented in this article by Ivan Pepelnjak:

http://blog.ioshints.info/2010/07/p2p-traffic-is-bad-for-network.html with the headline of “P2P traffic is bad for the network”.

I agree with the headline… Somewhat… P2P is bad for the network, in the sense that it causes congestion and because of that, it makes using the net a bad experience for everyone else.

NAT on a stick

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 09:54:35 +0000

NAT on a stick.

I ran into this a while back, and then again the other day. Its really a puzzling way of doing NAT.

The topology:

Imagine this scenario (even though its very unlikely as far as i can see):

IOS Study License

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 10:47:40 +0000

I have vented about this topic before and will do so once again. I am doing this because i believe its very important.

Students who are studying for Cisco exams or engineers who are trying to lab up a technology before deploying it, have found Dynamips and used Cisco hardware very useful in the past. However, with the new exam requirements and the new licensing methods for IOS, these tools will not be available to you in the future.

The art of troubleshooting.

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 19:20:25 +0000

Troubleshooting. An artform in itself.

I have been doing trouble-shooting labs for the last week and its not going the way i want it to.

In all fairness, its very good practice! having all the components in one lab, with all sorts of technologies interconnected really makes life interesting.

New site design.

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 18:45:16 +0000

Im trying out a new design layout. Its not quite finished yet, need some tweaks here and there, but im hoping it will be a bit easier to read my posts in the future.

Let me know if you have any suggestions!

Cisco strategy and direction.

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 09:00:56 +0000

Anyone who has been following Cisco products recently (last year or so), must have noticed Cisco’s new products.

This includes the Flip video recorder as well as the new tablet that has just been announced.

On top of that, adding the Linksys brand to their portfolio a couple of years ago, proves they are going in a completely different direction than previously.

Trying to get to another bootcamp

Sun, 27 Jun 2010 17:30:12 +0000

I am in the process of figuring out how to get to another bootcamp (Narbik). Unfortunally alot of classes in Europe have been cancelled due to lack of students. This pretty much leaves me with going to the US at some point.

Links of the week.

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:51:07 +0000

A a couple links that you guys mind find good:

[http://prakashkalsaria.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/pe-ce.jpg

]1 http://lovemytool.blip.tv/posts?view=archive&nsfw=dc

First one is a great overview of some BGP options.

The second one is a page with a list of videos of Sharkfest. All things wireshark it would appear 🙂

Time Time Time or the lack thereof.

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 10:01:52 +0000

My apologies for the huge lack of content lately.

I have been insanely busy with work along with doing lots of labs. Especially IPv6 labs was challenging. I have done 50% of a blog post about my trials with this beast.

CCIE Study

Sat, 29 May 2010 08:28:31 +0000

I wanted to take some time to write up something about the cost of doing the CCIE track.

This is prompted by some recent events in the CCIE training community and some discussion on twitter about studying in an economic downturn.

PVC Interface Priority Queueing – PIPQ

Sat, 22 May 2010 08:27:54 +0000

New technology i just learned about! Its called PIPQ, and stands for PVC Interface Priority Queueing.

As the name implies, its a Queueing method, and its only for frame-relay.

It basically functions in the same way as a PQ scheme, in that it has 4 queues, high, medium, normal and low.

Back in the labs.

Sun, 16 May 2010 12:51:53 +0000

Im pretty much back at my lab practice again. Doing Narbik’s labs.

Last 5-6 labs is all about frame-relay, including FRTS, PIPQ (Which i never encountered before), fragmentation and compression. All good stuff. As someone on twitter mentioned, its really amazing that frame-relay is still on the lab exam. You would think that they would remove that topic and introduce some more MPLS. However, i guess that frame-relay is a good topic to do exam tasks as there are soo many small details.

Queueing Galore!

Tue, 11 May 2010 18:10:02 +0000

Just finished a VERY busy day at work. Virus attack at a customer site + a complete FTP server change.

Anyways. I wanted to let you know of a book i just started which i think will come in handy in the lab.

OEQ = Thing of the past

Sat, 08 May 2010 15:04:24 +0000

This just in, well not really, as the news is a couple of days old. The dreaded OEQ for the R&S lab exam is now a thing of the past.

The news created alot of buzz on the forums, twitter and facebook. It would seem that alot of people have really been fearing these questions.

Warning: Real life post

Mon, 03 May 2010 11:22:35 +0000

It has been an insane extended weekend.

We have been doing 90% physical stuff all weekend long. Most of Friday and Saturday passed, with us painting the living room ceiling. We wanted to freshen it up as we are working on creating a whole new living room. It will be an expensive journey for sure. Sunday we started picking up the new furniture.

What sort of lab do you use?

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:33:52 +0000

[polldaddy poll=3121673]

Just about

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 20:10:44 +0000

So im almost ready to release my first version of my flashcards. I had hoped to reach 200 questions by today, but i havent been able to manage that yet. Lots of real life stuff has been happening today (completely cleaning two cars as well as putting summer-tires on them).

Morning BGP command.

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 05:57:45 +0000

I have a few minutes this morning that i want to use to clarify a special BGP feature which i had misunderstood until a few days ago.

This has to do with the aggregate-address that you use to create a summary address. One of its many options includes the “advertise-map” parameter.

Mid-april update.

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 11:43:27 +0000

Long time since last post. There are reasons for that.

First of is labs. Ive been doing quite alot of labs. I finished Narbik’s Vol 1 workbook. All good stuff, and I learned alot of material that was not covered in the written blueprint. Alot of emphasis on IP SLA, which i really like. It provides a really good tool in your networking toolbox.

Beginning of a new week.

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 10:55:06 +0000

Yesterday i managed to do 2 hours worth of lab time + an hour on my latest blog post about BGP. All in all 3 hours worth of CCIE level stuff. I’m pleased with that after my motivational down-time.

I also managed to do a lot of physical work yesterday, fixing the car up, getting everything cleaned out. Its gorgeous now. So I was well tired, but after drinking Red Bull i simply could not fall asleep. It ended up being about 2:30 – 3:00 before i finally dosed off. Up at 6:30 again, and now I’m smashed 🙂

BGP quest.

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 09:34:10 +0000

In my continued quest through BGP i ran into a couple of things which i wanted to share my thoughts about.

All of them has to do with a non-direct peering between BGP peers.

Originally the BGP protocol was designed to be run between directly connected routers. Then came along these busy times where we might want to have two connections, for redundancy and load-balacing purposes. We also want to have a single peering only. These days we might even have non-BGP speakers in our core, such as with MPLS.

Motivation has been gone.

Sun, 04 Apr 2010 14:37:31 +0000

Lately I have been having a motivational down-period.

I was doing alot of labs all evening/night and I was burned out. So I have been enjoying easter with family and girlfriend. It has been very nice. However, im starting to feel the urge of going back to the labs again which is good. Hopefully i will start tonight or tomorrow again. I have a post regarding BGP in my draft section which I hope to share with you guys tomorrow as well.

Learning new things.

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 13:16:30 +0000

Im learning something new at work almost every day.

We do alot of voice installations, some directly for the customer, others we host.

Voice has always been a strange world to me, and it still is. Basically it boils down to the fact that it doesnt interest me what so ever.

BGP – Inject-map

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 12:09:36 +0000

I want to point your attention to a great article right here: ardenpackeer.com, good stuff, deffinately worth the read.

I am looking this up today, as i ran into it last night doing more BGP labs. Again, just to re-iterate. The feature gives you the ability of taking a network, thats advertised by a certain source, and inject a more specific route of this network into the BGP table (and then to the routing table). When will this be used? For aggregation purposes.

Tidbit of the day: NSSA – External forwarding address.

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:48:30 +0000

I wanted to share a very interesting tidbit i figured out the hard way.

Again, its about NSSA areas in OSPF. When redistributing a route into an NSSA area, how is the forwarding address chosen?

Some say the lowest IP address of any loopback interfaces thats advertised into the NSSA area. Others say the highest. Which one is correct?

Labs again and again and again.

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:40:11 +0000

I havent been very good at updating my blog lately. The reason for this is that i have been really focused on doing labs. Im still doing Narbik’s labs. They are great! They really make you think about what you are doing and contains the nasty 007 tricks 🙂

Archive functionality

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:41:45 +0000

Cool useful functionality this time around. Even though it has little to do with CCIE (in the way i have not encountered it on any blueprint :)), i was asked to implement a functionality to make sure we always had the most recent configuration from our routers.

Study Status

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 06:31:16 +0000

I wanted to give a status update on my study progress as it stands on February 28th 2010.

At the moment im still hitting Narbik labs. There are alot of good ones, and i havent even hit the troubleshooting labs yet. This weekend has completely wasted though. Mainly because of my birthday this friday, and moving my girlfriend back in with me (we had two appartments for her to goto school in a different city). Now back to a single rent!! Put on top of that the fact that im still not over the flu by a longshot. Im coughing, my throat hurts and im constantly nauseaus.

Fallback Bridging

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:05:30 +0000

First off, thanks to the two sites below, i finally learned what this beast was about. Thanks guys!

[Human Modem][1]

[CCIE Candidate][2]

I got around to play with fallback bridging yesterday. I want to summarize its important points here.

To understand it in the first place, it helps to give some information on why its needed.

Studying fallback-bridging

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:19:03 +0000

I had a very long day at work yesterday, but still felt like doing a lab when i got home.

My next lab was about fallback-bridging. Yet another topic i know nothing about 🙂

So today/tonights plan calls for figuring this technology out. It doesnt seem overly complicated to configure, but its more of a task to understand the technology.

Lan QoS – going insane

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:04:37 +0000

I was doing some lan QoS yesterday evening. Specifically i wanted to mark some packets.

As usual, i wanted to create a policy-map, referencing some class-map, and then set the IP precedence value.

I tried to get this working for like 3 hours. I was verifying the behavior using the “sh policy-map interface ” command,

Unexpected behavior with 3560 and snmp.

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 07:45:28 +0000

Yesterday evening I was playing around some more with SNMP and sending different traps.

I was mainly playing around with my 3560 switches. They were running IOS 12.2(35)SE1 (IPServices). What struck me as odd was the behavior when configuring multiple snmp hosts.

SNMP traps and NMS

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:22:25 +0000

I was just playing around with some switching labs.

As i was doing this, i ran into configuring SNMP, sending traps when mac-addresses was added/removed, and all sorts of other things. I could (as in the lab) just set the IP address of the NMS (Network Management System), but i wanted to actually make sure that these were being picked up correctly by an NMS.

Narbik Bootcamp 2010

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:31:09 +0000

I thought i would write a bit about my bootcamp last week. Here’s what I have come up with. I will update this as more thoughts flow into my head 🙂

Day one at Narbik’s bootcamp:

—————————–

What an eye opener. This guy has his stuff under control! We started out with switching topics. Configured all sorts of things. We were told that 60% would be configuration and hands on stuff, while the remaining 40% would be theory (chalk talk). This is a good balance if you ask me. Its not that theory is bad, its just that its so detailed, that you can only grasp so much of it.

Soon….

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 18:00:11 +0000

Just wanted to let everyone know that im working on a post describing the Narbik bootcamp. Just concentrated on labs at the moment. It will arrive shortly 🙂

Done packing.

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 18:43:40 +0000

Im done packing for Narbiks bootcamp next week. I will be flying out tomorrow morning and probably be at the hotel at around 1ish in the afternoon.

I have brought my training clothes, and hopefully ill get to utilize the hotel gym facilities during the day.

Advertise Maps

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 20:27:05 +0000

More Narbik Labs. I have arrived at the BGP section, and its very good. It touches on some more obscure features that are really useful.

One of the things i ran into was the use of advertise-maps, exist-maps and non-exist maps. I have used these before, but very briefly.

Packing my gear – Taking some punches lab wise.

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 22:56:37 +0000

Making up a list of things i need to bring for the bootcamp. I finally want to try and be a bit more organized regarding this

on this trip. I thought id do that best by starting writing all the things i think i will need straight away, and then go back and forth on the list

Distribute-list Fun!

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:08:43 +0000

Last night i was doing some Vol.2 Narbik Labs. I was supposed to filter some OSPF routes entering

the routing table on a certain router. I chose to use an extended access-list because, well, just because i could.

The command i wanted to use, was the router-config mode command “distribute-list”.

A motivator!

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:13:29 +0000

I normally dont post/view/send alot of video clips around. But today this entered my twitter, and i thought id share it. I really find it an awesome clip:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEkz1XK75XE&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Hope you like it, take care!

Closing out on 2009

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 15:46:14 +0000

Short update before the end of the year.

This year has been the worst one for me yet. Mainly because of health reasons. It has also been the year ive accomplished the most in my personal life, obtaining CCNP in the spring, and passing the CCIE written in the autumn.

Narbik Workbooks, VMPS and some random stuff.

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 19:02:56 +0000

I just re-cabled my home lab and setup everything so i could work on Narbik’s foundation workbooks. You can check out more at:

[http://www.micronicstraining.com

These are the workbooks that you get before the bootcamp, to get you up to speed with individual technologies. All in all theres about 600 pages (~300 pages in Vol1 and the same in Vol2).

Bootcamp ordered and random things.

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 10:54:23 +0000

I finally got around to ordering my bootcamp.

I have chosen Narbik Kocharians bootcamp over both IPexpert and Internetwork Expert. I have only heard great things about his classes, so it was a pretty obvious choice for me.

I will be going feb. 1st until feb. 5th.

OSPF – External routes Part 3: Type 7’s in single NSSA area.

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 09:36:48 +0000

Welcome back to part 3 about OSPF and external routes.

In this post I will focus on type 7 LSA’s. These are LSA’s thats created within an NSSA area. An NSSA area is, as you may know, an area which is meant as a stub area (no type 4 and 5’s), but will still allow for external routes to be introduced in the area. Instead of having type 5’s, which is not allowed in a stub area, it is allowed to have a special type of LSA called a type 7 LSA.

Quick post…

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:37:46 +0000

Just wanted to create a quick post.. And the post is: Red Bull still rocks 🙂

OSPF – External routes Part 2: Type 5’s in multiple normal areas.

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 21:01:00 +0000

Welcome back to the 2nd post about OSPF and external routes.

Last time we spoke of OSPF and how it behaves in regard of external routes in a single “normal” area.

By normal, it implies an area that accepts all types of LSA’s.

OSPF – External routes Part 1: Type 5's in a normal area.

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 10:42:25 +0000

I want to create some posts about the actual behavior of OSPF in regards to external routes in different areas and how everything behaves. It might take more than a few posts, but I hope you’ll keep reading them 🙂

The first one, is about redistributing external routes into a normal OSPF area. A “normal” OSPF area is an area which allows all kinds of LSA’s. This means we can have an external source in this area. In a “normal” external routes will be present as a type 5 LSA. This type 5, will either be an E1 or an E2 route. The difference being that the metric associated with the LSA will increase with an E1 and it will not with an E2 route. The default is an E2 route and the default metric is 20.

Some OSPF and some more motivational issues.

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:20:17 +0000

I have been working on some OSPF scenarios lately. These was sparked by a post by Joe Astorino @ IPexpert. They are about the use of the forwarding address in Type 5 LSA’s generated by an ABR because of a Type 7 LSA in an NSSA area.

Remembering…

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:17:03 +0000

The link below is an excellent read from INE that you should really take the time to read.

I am working on a post about the OSPF forwarding address, as well as some MPLS stuff. Stay tuned 🙂

I just wanted to get the link out there.

Lab V4 at first glance.

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:52:06 +0000

The new CCIE lab version is in effect. Called version 4.

The first guy on OSL (Online Study List) has been through it, and there’s certainly some changes.

First up, is the annoying OEQ (Open Ended Questions), these were on the retired version 3 as well. Lots of people have issues with them, so I wont bother commenting on them other than saying they scare me too 🙂

Views and what it can provide for you.

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:51:59 +0000

This small post will be about a little feature called “views”.

This feature is used to create a sort of profile, for which you could have a certain user do certain things. As you might know, the only way to do this previously was to use the priviledge level command. This command would in effect set the command to be available at a certain priviledge level. This can be very cumbersome to maintain, especially if you work in a large enterprise environment or a service provider.

uRPF behavior

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 14:34:10 +0000

I want to show the behavior of the uRPF feature. Unicast Reverse Path Forwarding.

Basically this is a security feature, to prevent spoofed source IP address (very basic). Its function is to prevent a router from processing a packet comming from an unknown source/wrong interface.

Multicast – Designated Router (DR)

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 07:16:21 +0000

The role of the designated router has been bothering me every now and again. I always end up forgetting its role, where its present, and how its elected. So i thought i would post some info on it, maybe to keep my own mind fresh 🙂

Do you trust your social networking site?

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:17:48 +0000

This topic has been bothering me for a while actually. In the last couple of years we have seen a wave of so called “social networking” sites. Those are sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

What these sites are supposed to bring you is a sense of being closer connected to your friends, family and peers. Noone can argue that this goal has not been reached, but i keep asking myself, at what cost?

Landed a new job.

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:23:35 +0000

I have just landed a new job. It is a networking company, doing alot of security, ip telephony and general network consulting. The company can be found here. It is called NetIP. The company is located about 30km from where I live, so a little drive in each direction is nessecary. I will start Thursday the 1st of October. I am looking forward to it. My last day at the previous job was yesterday, and it went by okay. Ofcourse its sad to loose some coworkers, some of which i have been working with for close to 9 years. But life goes on.

Been a while.

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:17:08 +0000

Its been a while, and for that im sorry.

I have been very busy watching VOD (Video On Demand) classes from IPexpert. Scott Morris has done these videos, and he is pretty good at it in my opinion. There are alot of new stuff as well. Things such as Multilink Frame-relay (FRF.16) and PPP over frame-relay. IRB (Integrated Routing and Bridging) was also new for me. Basically you can extend your L2 over a L3 ip routed network. All very interesting stuff.

L2protocol-tunnel

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 19:19:05 +0000

So a simple concept right?

Tunnel your L2 protocols through a switched network? I agree, but as usual, i put more complication into it. Basically a VOD from IPexpert on L2protoco-tunnel used to create a trunk connection. In the video it is shown that you can create a trunk by using a l2protocol-tunnel (STP in particular). Through extensive testing and discussion on OSL, this is possible, but you will only get the native-vlan traffic through.

More VOD – Scott Morris's voice is soothing :)

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:50:21 +0000

I am getting used to hearing Scott Morris’s voice by now 🙂

I am doing Video On Demand classes at the moment. Im starting from the beginning and going through them one by one. Lots of new things to learn and study. Today for example i learned about “real” bridging. Since its not on any blueprint for CCNA, CCNP or even CCIE R&S, its not something ive come across before. It is a pretty cool feature. In the VOD, it was configured over frame-relay over a certain DLCI. You could then have the same subnet on both sides and do ARP request (Well, any ethernet (ieee) stuff) and get a response, and then transfer data.

Trying some video out.

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:40:33 +0000

The lack of posts recently has its cause.

I have been playing around with a screencast. The problem boils down to compressing the video somehow. I made a recording, and unfortunally it was recorded in a too good of a quality, resulting in a pretty big filesize (~300Mb). I then tried several (read: ALOT) of different tools to somehow compress it. I have still to figure it out. But anyways, I uploaded it to youtube because i didnt know where else to put it. If anyone has any ideas for doing a better job, please let me know.

Lab preparation thoughts.

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:46:53 +0000

Here is the brainstorm about the preparation on the CCIE lab I have come up with so far. Remember that this is no final list or any “magic pill” of any sorts, it is just some thoughts I have been having.

Authentication by Radius on a Cisco device.

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:57:09 +0000

Intro:

Authentication is a critical part of administrating your network devices. For the longest time, i know for a fact that alot of companies use a simple authentication mechanism. Namely a either a line password, or at best local user database authentication. The inherent problem of these is that they are static entries, and on top of that, you have to manually do it on all the devices in your network. If a change need to occur, it requires logging in to all of the devices and changing the password (and or username).

Study and flashcards.

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 14:11:26 +0000

I have mentioned it before, and i’ll do it again. Flash cards are great for remembering those pesky little details.

I wanted to share the flashcards I have created so far:

http://flashcarddb.com/cardset/24460-cisco-flashcards

Hopefully you can get some use out of them. Ofcourse they are some of the details I have a hard time remembering, but maybe you’ll have some use for them as well.

Exercising with some work switches.

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 07:38:33 +0000

One of my last tasks at work before I stop, is to create a new switched network for a location in Estonia. It will be a 10 switch network. The company is reusing two 3560 switches which I still need to receive.

Basecamp reached.

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:00:14 +0000

Lately I havent been keeping up my chores on the blog. Theres a good reason for this.

I have really been studying hard to do the written exam again. Done lots of practice tests, a lot of technology focused labs on especially some edge areas where I wasnt 100% sure of things. And especially a lot of Cisco documentation. Every time I reached a snag I looked up the documentation from Cisco and read through what it was supposed to do and how.

Advertising on wordpress.com?

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 08:53:22 +0000

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. I have been very busy with real-life things as well as reading a bunch of stuff.

Does anyone know if it is legal to advertise on wordpress.com? I cant find any guidelines regarding this in the terms-of-service. Also, if it IS legal, how do you do it? I have been searching around and cant find any widgets that allow me to insert an advertisement?

Security topics.

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 10:04:57 +0000

Right now Im working on security topics! This is by FAR my weakest area according to all the tests.

I am approaching this from the ground up. Reading exam certification guide. Taking notes. Try it out on the lab. All the things i get wrong, i read whitepapers/documentation on. This will hopefully get down alot of concepts that i tend to screw up.

Interactive enhancements to vendor material

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 09:56:48 +0000

If you are into the world of CCIE stuff, you know that both the written and the lab exams will change very shortly.

Alot of emphasis will be put onto the task of troubleshooting networks. From the onset this seems like a tricky part to teach anyone, and it is. One company, even how many smart people they hire, can only think up amount of troubleshooting networks and write documentation for them and so on. So what to do?

Lots of practice.

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 12:12:18 +0000

Been a few days since my last post.

During that time, I have taken quite a few practice tests to gauge where im at. I am also slowly progressing through the Exam Guide.

Also, in the near future im switching over to a new hosting service. Need some features which wordpress doesnt allow me to use, such as advertising. I got a friend in germany who has a colocated server which he will provide some access to. Very grateful for this.

The battle for bandwidth.

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:08:10 +0000

So I saw a post over at Ioshints about bandwidth, how we, as consumers come to expect a certain bandwidth, and how ISP’s are dealing with these issues.

It is a fact that ISP’s greatly oversubscribe their networks, and keep selling more access-lines with an even greater bandwidth cap than ever before.

OSPF and some interesting facts.

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:29:57 +0000

Even though my next post was going to be about some enhancements to STP, I found this little nugget about OSPF behavior, that I thought I would share with everyone.

As we know OSPF, when crossing an area boundary, the ABR (Area Border Router), will gather type 1 (router and its links) and type 2 (network information provided by the DR on a transit network) and form a type 3 LSA, which is basically a boiled down version of the two other types of LSA’s. It will send this LSA into the area (assuming its not a totally stubby/nssa area).

Spanning Tree (802.1D) – Part 2

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:17:12 +0000

This is the 2nd post about 802.1D, also known as spanning-tree. In the previous post, I explained alot of functionality behind the selection of ports on both root bridges as well as non-root bridges. (Remember a switch is a bridge).

Spanning Tree (802.1D) – Part 1

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:57:30 +0000

Ive spent the last couple of days playing around with the traditional Spanning-tree protocol (802.1D), which has been used for many years, but is pretty slow to converge.

As most of you know, Spanning-tree protocol (STP), is used to build a loop-free L2 topology. This is done to avoid bridging loops, where your frames gets sent around and around endlessly.

Back on the horse…

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:28:19 +0000

I failed my first attempt at the CCIE written exam this thursday… It really sucks.

I was very close to passing it, but unfortunally it didnt happen. I need alot more practice questions to get a “feel” of whats being asked. Also, protocol mechanics need to be practiced some more.

Weekend roundup.

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:51:29 +0000

So I have started my review process. I have some things on my list that I need an in-depth look into.

Among these are:

IPv6 tunneling types.
Web Cache Communication Protocol (WCCP).
Some Frame-Relay workings, like FRF.12 and FRF.9.
Switching section in BCMSN, particularly MST.
Frame-relay traffic shaping.

These are the big ones I need to tackle. On top of this I need to review the entire exam certification guide. If I have time, I will also try to define all the terms, which is one of the tasks they (exam cert. guide) suggests that you do.

Google Wave

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:42:10 +0000

I am just watching the video of the google wave application. It is really impressive what you can do with the modern web technologies. One thing that really shines through is the real-time updating.

This is a really cool technology that I can envision a bright future. If developers embrace this, and extends it, it can really be a very powerfull tool that will rival microsoft’s version, namely sharepoint, and its integration with different microsoft products. This works much more seemless. I hope that while google still have all their own tools such as calendar and email, that they will provide some integration into other applications, like sharing directly from microsoft word, and openoffice. This would make it really pain-less to work on something and share it with a bunch of other people.

ACL and Wildcard masks

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:54:32 +0000

Been spending the last few days doing some leg-work on understanding different ACL’s to match different networks most effeciently.

Alot of posting on Online-Study List on how to do this, all very valuable. Tyson Scott from IPexpert created a PDF file that was posted, and will also be made available from IPexpert.com in the member section. It gives some good examples of the binary math behind it all.

IPexpert – Training in Europe

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 21:08:06 +0000

Great news for all you europeans!

It would seem that IPexpert is looking into creating classes on european soil. This would be really great to cut down on costs and travel time to attend IPexpert led instructor training. I hope we can get together about 10-ish people that wish to attend these classes. I for one would be one of them.

PIM-SM, part 2

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 08:10:37 +0000

So this is the 2nd part on how PIM-SM operates. Last time I showed how the initial RPT (shared tree) was constructed, and how data would flow from the source to the receiver.

This time, I want to show you how the optimization technique in SM actually works.

PIM-SM, part 1

Fri, 29 May 2009 11:56:59 +0000

I knew it would be tricky before I even started with the multicast section, but not this hard 🙂

So I wrote about PIM-DM and its flooding behavior, and how it would make sure data was flowing from the source to the receivers. I will try to give some information about PIM-SM and also some further information on IGMP.

Brandon's quest for R&S in 90 days..

Thu, 28 May 2009 13:04:03 +0000

So Brandon Carroll’s quest to do the Routing and Switching certification is scheduled to take 90’s days. I think he is very gifted and got the right stuff to do it (he’s a security CCIE). What came to mind, was this hypothesis:

What is it with google?

Thu, 28 May 2009 12:39:08 +0000

I am really wondering whats up with google’s services lately. I have been having huge issues getting my mail. It times out several times, and then all of a sudden it appears, and other times it logs me out. Sometimes I have to periodically refresh.

Tackling the multicast beast.

Fri, 22 May 2009 10:48:40 +0000

Ive started on the Developing IP Multicast Networks book from Beau Williamson. This book is apparently “the” book on multicasting, so I hope it will help me out with this weak area of mine. So far ive read about DVMRP which is not on the blueprint, but it sounded like it would be a good help to understanding PIM modes, which are on the blueprint, so I decided to go through it anyways. So far its a good read, however you can tell that its dated a bit. The overview of the applications running on the MBone is from Windows 95 🙂 quite a few years ago.

BGP in all its glory.

Sat, 16 May 2009 17:42:48 +0000

I am almost done with the Internet Routing Architectures book, and its a great book!! You really get to understand why BGP is the way it is.

Where IGP’s as we know them concentrate on fast convergence, BGP is all about 2 things: stability and policies.

Discipline needed.

Tue, 12 May 2009 06:32:59 +0000

So even though im looking over my journal, and i am doing about 1,5 – 2 hours studying each day, I feel like im lacking the discipline to really make a dent in the thing called CCIE Written. I have not been using google calendar like i should, and it is really bumming me out. I would like to have two 50 mins reading sessions a day, and time to write down my notes at the end of the day.

On the market for a new laptop.

Sun, 10 May 2009 13:45:31 +0000

So after learning that im not employed after september, I am on the market for a new laptop.

This new laptop will be my primary machine, as I very rarely boot up my stationary computer. It should be able to handle quite alot. Right now I have two candidates which are very appealing in their own way:

New blueprint.

Thu, 07 May 2009 19:05:46 +0000

The new blueprint is out for all to see. Its version 4, and includes some interesting things. Alot of people have already analysed it in quite some detail.

The two things thats most obvious to me, is the emphasis on MPLS as more and more dominant technology. VRF’s are explored in more detail.

Shaping and policing

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 16:32:47 +0000

As the topic implies, I will be writing about a few things regarding shaping and policing. Now these are two really hard-to-understand topics for me, but they are also very usefull. To understand what they do, and the difference between them, lets define them as such:

Incomming material and more reading.

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 10:04:02 +0000

Im at the policing and shaping section of the exam certification guide, and its very hardcore stuff in my opinion. Just finished the section on 3550 and 3560 ingress/egress queuing and scheduling methods. Wow, thats really something i gotta get my head around.

Framework and labs.

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:02:24 +0000

Im somewhat in the middle of the CCIE exam certification guide, and still learning alot. I am putting down the framework for more detailed examination of technologies. I have a couple of books on my reading list after this to solidify the knowledge with more in-depth details.

Labs, labs, labs.

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 07:52:11 +0000

I am doing alot of technology focused labs, and I always learn something new, which is really good. For example, I was studying the effects of autosummarization with RIP and EIGRP. A few things cropped up.

RIP will autosummarize routes it receives from other neighbors, where as EIGRP will only summarize those, if it has a locally connected network of the same major net, and it is included in a network statement.

Update.

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 09:48:52 +0000

Im done with my first reading of Routing TCP/IP volume 1. All in all a great book, with lots of information about the various IGP’s. I skipped the IS-IS part simply because its not part of the R&S written blueprint. I made quite a few notes about each chapter along the way, which I am sure will come in handy when reviewing/troubleshooting material.

IPexpert BLS purchased

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:42:55 +0000

So I broke down and bought the IPexpert Blended Learning Solution the day before yesterday. I got great advice very fast from the people there, and they were very nice. Been looking over the workbooks, they seem really good and challenging 🙂 As I have written before, I will take my time and learn as much as I possibly can, so I wont even start those labs until I have a better understanding of the entire scope of this whole CCIE buisness, which in other words means alot more reading and understanding of things and passing the written exam.

IPexpert vLectures

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:27:00 +0000

Im watching some free vLectures from IPexpert here, the one im watching is the one about Spanning-Tree. Its pretty good so far. I do hope however, that their video-on-demand products are alot better quality. Im still waiting to take the plunge and buy their BLS (Blended Learning Solution) until I know where I stand both financially and knowledge wise (written).

EIGRP metrics and best path calculation.

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:42:13 +0000

So im finishing up some troubleshooting exercises in Routing TCP/IP. They are mainly about the metrics used by EIGPR. Here’s a review of the functionality of EIGRP and how it chooses the best path to a destination.

First of, EIGRP is an Enhancement of the proprietary IGRP protocol, which is almost but phased out by now. EIGRP is still a distance vector protocol, since it routes by rumor. Each router does not have a full view of the entire network topology and can therefor not base any decision on

Jared's suggestion to passing the written CCIE exam.

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 07:48:59 +0000

At the bottom of this post is a link to a small article by Jared over at IPexpert about the books he recommends for the CCIE written exam. Anyone who looked at the recommended book list from Cisco is blown away. I believe theres 21 books on that list, most of which, I suspect is no less than 600 pages. Jareds list is only one third of that. This is a guy with 3x CCIE’s under his belt, so I take his words as the definite truth :

EIGRP and DUAL

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:41:04 +0000

So im reading about EIGRP’s DUAL algorithm, and how it works, and MAN, its confusing. After the example in Routing TCP/IP, even they mention it might require several readings. Basically it boils down to the fact if a router being notified of a bad link has a feasible successor or not. If it doesnt, it goes into an active state and sends out queries to all of its neighbors. It will stay in active until it has received a reply from all of its neighbors it has queried. However, if it does have a feassible successor, it will switch to that one, and notify its neighbors of its change.

Using flash cards.

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 18:05:09 +0000

I wanted to post a link to a great site which I have started using called flashcarddb.com, what it does is pretty simple, but it does its job in a slick fashion.

There is a system called the leitner system, which in all its simplicity is making you remember things by repeating them in periods with different intervals. If you miss a question, it is scheduled to be repeated more often, until you get it right every time. This I think will come in handy with some things I simply cant remember. I will be using this along with normal note taking procedures. I want to enter in as many as required. Right now reading through Routing TCP/IP Vol. 1, I am entering in some must-remember facts, which I can then later on practice. So its not a replacement for notes, but a supplement to make sure you get facts straight.

Fun with static routes.

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 08:32:52 +0000

Im having some “fun” with static routes. Its an okay topology, 4 routers connected. The task asked for having some floating static routes, along with some load-balancing routes. Since they are CEF based, it will be load-shared by default to destination load sharing. Note to self: if incomming interface is CEF, what is the output switching method going to be? — Thats right, CEF.

Clear study path for CCIE certification

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 16:28:25 +0000

So like many others finishing their CCNP’s, ive been looking at the CCIE R&S track. There are two obstacles to become one of the prestigious ones with CCIE digits. One is the written exam, and the second is the lab exam. Of these two, the lab exam seems to be the big one of the two. I would like to add a third however. That one is the study path to passing the other two.

Troubleshooting BGP problem.

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 09:06:32 +0000

So yesterday I setup a BGP scenario which you can see below:

I am doing mutual redistribution on both R1 and R3, between BGP and EIGRP.

I am advertising a couple of routes from R4 (AS 65001) to R1 (AS 65000).

Fighting anxiety/generalised fear

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 19:09:48 +0000

This week I will be spending alot of time at various of doctors unfortunally. I still suffer from fearing everything is physically wrong with me. Im having it all checked out. I would really like a blank sheet to start a new life from. However, a blank sheet requires a total checkup. I hope everything works out! I am also going to a hypnotist, to see if she can somehow tweak my mind into something else than thinking about my physical state constantly. This dominates my life, and it shouldnt be.

Some lab pictures.

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 21:16:14 +0000

Thought I would share some lab pictures:

General state of things – and books.

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 19:17:28 +0000

I just emptied my shopping basket on amazon again. This means I ordered what was in it 🙂

I got some CCIE books, but this doesnt mean anything except I am interested in whats in them. Also got a few other non-technical books. Among other things I ordered Brian Tracy’s book: Goals! which I saw mentioned on Chris Bryants site. Maybe I can pick up a few tips and tricks. Also got a book on anxiety and how to combat it without the use of drugs. I am interested in learning how other people cope with this, and for me, that means reading about it.

ONT done.

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:00:22 +0000

I am finally done. ONT was passed today, and with a pretty good score as well. I am very happy. Now it is time for some relaxing, and get on with my training schedule. I really wish we had a testing center somewhere closer that was actually worth going to. It is a 2 hour drive for me to goto each exam, which I think is a long time.

Labs and review.

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 08:17:01 +0000

I am in the process of reviewing and labbing from the lab portfolio. I need to have the verification commands down, so I can troubleshoot different QoS scenarios. I find it very hard to do much configuration though.

Also, the wireless section is kind of hard to get good hands-on experience with since I dont have access to any WCS (Wireless Control System). At work, we only have WLC (Wireless Lan Controllers) that I can get some practical hands-on experience with. How does everyone else go about getting enough “dirt-under-the-nails” with these technologies? Buying them is obviously out of the question, since I dont have that kind of budget to do these things on. I have already used all of the strings I have to borrow equipment, so I doubt my hands-on experience will get much better than it is.

Good hardware on Gnu/Linux

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 18:56:22 +0000

I just purchased a Linksys USB ethernet adapter to try out with Gnu/Linux. I have tried it with both 32 and 64bit, and it works like a charm. It was just an experiment to see how I could create a box with a large density of LAN ports. Since im on a budget and only have dual NIC’s available, I was looking at different motherboards with lots of LAN ports. Only two I could find were Asus P5Q Premium and Gigabyte DQ6, which both had 4 onboard LAN ports. Both of them only offered 2 PCI slots. That would give me a total of 8 ports – 1 for management. That means only 7 ports. With this option, and a standard of like 6 USB ports (I havent tested an USB hub yet), I get at least 13 ethernet ports.

Wireless and onto labs.

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 07:15:57 +0000

So I am almost done with the wireless section, but alot of things still needs to click in, especially regarding the security aspect of it all. Some more reading on that is needed next. QoS in wireless is done by basically lowering the back-off time in CSMA/CA for higher priority traffic. The Wifi Alliance released an interim solution based on 4 categories. Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze. Platinum is used for voice, Gold for video, Silver is best effort, and Bronze is “background” stuff, I guess thats your typical P2P applications along with random non-categorized stuff.

Wred, compression and LFI

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 07:33:20 +0000

I am finishing up on chapters regarding WRED and LFI.

WRED is a congestion avoidance mechanism. What that means, is that when congestion occurs, you try and avoid filling up the buffers completely by dropping some packets. Normally the standard queueing for fast interfaces (>E1) is FIFO, with the congestion avoidance of tail dropping. That means whenever the buffers are full, any new packets to the queue, gets dropped. This has a nasty habbit of producing TCP synchronization.

Congestion management and queues.

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:24:48 +0000

So im studying about congestion management, namely the use of queuing and the different discplines of queuing.

FIFO = First In First Out. This is a straight forward queue which doesnt take any priority, delay or bandwidth into account. This is the default on Cisco equipment for interfaces > 2.048 Mbps (E1 lines or slower).

Voip codecs and bandwidth calculation.

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:43:33 +0000

So today I have spent some time reading up on voip codecs, and how to calculate bandwidth requirements for a single call with a certain codec.

Take for example. G.711 (PCM), which is uncompressed voice data. Its specification says 64kbps raw data output from the codec. We want to use a packetization period of 20ms. That means two digital voice samples pr. voip packet.

Nbar is a pretty nifty feature.

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 21:29:25 +0000

So today I watched some material on nbar (Network Based Application Recognition), which is a feature originally used for classification of data, used in QoS to mark packets.

It uses very deep packet inspection, to figure out what data is being transfered over the network. It goes up to Layer 7 to figure out what is truly being transfered. This is especially useful for many new applications which uses protocol tunneling to “get through” a firewall. An application that uses this is Skype, which uses port 80, which we all know as web traffic, to carry voip packets. In this case, a regular ACL will not prevent this type of traffic, since we might only block the “skype” port.

ONT = QoS? – I think so

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:02:51 +0000

So, so far ONT seems alot like its brother-acronym QoS. Watched a few videos today, solidifying knowledge from BCMSN about CoS only being for L2 trunk links and ToS/DSCP being for Layer 3. Figured out the DE bit provides a somewhat rudimentary QoS for frame-relay. Throw away, or dont :). It is used when CIR (Commited Information Rate) is in effect. You can basically use it to determine on your own which packets to be Discard Eligible or not. This is better than just leaving the decision to your service provider.

Changes in the CCIE lab and written exam.

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:59:35 +0000

As reported on cciepursuit, cisco has announced changes to both the lab and written parts of the CCIE certification.

On the written, the normal “style” of cisco exams will take place, where you cant go back and forth between questions, and no review. On the lab, some questions will need answering, which will take a certain amount of time. This is done to verify the CCIE candidate to verify the correct skillset in order for CCIE certification.

ONT – Whats the deal?

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 13:30:27 +0000

I skimmed over the ONT blueprint, and it sure seems like alot of voice. I am not quite sure howcome theres that much voice material on there. It bothers me quite frankly, because I dont find the voice part particularly interesting. But alas, I digress, theres just one way to the CCNP, and thats through ONT.

Added Goal

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:20:40 +0000

So I havent posted for a while, because i have been admitted to the hospital. I am suffering from anxiety attacks, and its something I need to do my best to combat in order to live a normal life again. So ill use this place to hold my thoughts regarding this goal as well.

ISCW Passed.

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 06:35:04 +0000

I just passed ISCW. Im really glad this one is over with. But I have ALOT of reviewing for the material in this one, when i finish the rest of the CCNP track. I could especially feel that not having access to the FW and IPS parts really hurt me. Unfortunally I cant afford any of the very pricy IOS images, for any of my devices, that will support the FW and IPS feature set.

Need a get-ready-for-iscw pill, anyone?

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:09:27 +0000

I really wish I would feel more ready for this one. On top of things, I feel sick again… Never ending story. I wish someone could just cure me once and for all. I have been somewhat sick for the better part of 3 months now, and its really starting to take its toll. I feel really depressed and down at the moment. What to do? I have no idea. Neither does the doctors.

Xmas is over, and so is ipsec.

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 23:37:06 +0000

Okay, Xmas is over and so is new years as Im writing this.

Im behind regular postings, I know, which is frustrating.

I am done with the preliminary reading and lab work for ISCW, but I dont feel prepared for it at all. Its even worse than it was for BCMSN. I think the lack of an official study guide really got me off track. I will have to investigate further how to create a study plan on the topics on the blueprint and then come to a full understanding and assurance I got the topics down. The way im doing it now is spreading it too thin, thats my feeling at least. Also, motivation has become a factor at the moment. Maybe its because its the holidays, and you are “supposed” to relax, chill out, I dont know, but I need to get it sorted. Its cutting into my focus.

IPSec VPN’s – Part 2

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 21:06:08 +0000

So today I have read a couple of more chapters about IPSec and GRE (Generic Routing Encapsulation). I have also watched quite alot of CBT on IPSec VPN’s, which really helped clarify somethings.

But I also really think its a hard topic to get to grips with, especially since you only get “half of the story”. The rest is most likely left out to “protect” the CCSP track, and all the stuff thats going on in that track. Even though I dont have any issue with that, it helps to understand the entire picture if you know the reason behind everything. Guess this is just something I need to get used to.

IPSec VPN's.

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:10:52 +0000

Im studying IPSec VPN’s at the moment. There’s alot of terms, protocols and exchanges taking place, and they all use names thats really hard to tie together with what they are doing 🙂

Isakmp for example, what does that do? well, it stands for Internet Security Association and Key Management Protocol. Its the first phase of the IKE (Internet Key Exchange). Basically its sets up a baseline (encryption, hashing (authentication), Key-material, and Diffie-Hellman group), for management traffic. DH uses assymetric encryption to make a secure channel, to send a symmetric key through, which is used for the isakmp SA (Security Association).

ISCW started

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 22:48:43 +0000

So I just started work toward the ISCW. The lab book for this is huge, so I think its going to be alot of lab work, and alot of lookups on Cisco’s doc site for further information. My reason for this thinking is the lack of a self-study guide for the ISCW exam. Its a shame really, since Ive enjoyed the self-study guides so far.

Passed BCMSN

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:43:43 +0000

Thankfully I passed BCMSN. Thank god. It was driving me nuts.

Passed with an 864, which im satisfied with.

I am thinking about my study technique for the ISCW. I need to see if I can structure it somewhat better than BCMSN, where I ended up reading some topics over and over again. I think one of the things I will do better is to lab every chapter out more throughly to get it under my nails. Security has not been my strong side so far, and I need to ramp that up for the ISCW.

Trying some reading.

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:25:43 +0000

I am trying to get some reading done, even though its extremely hard when im still sick.

However, I only got about 5 chapters left in the examination guide. hopefully I can finish them soon, and do some of the last case studies in the lab book. I really want to get this BCMSN out of the way, its starting to get on my nerves. I dont feel prepared enough for the exam though, I dont know why. Ive read almost all the material available, and can sketch out switched networks and stuff. I guess there are just some details thats missing here and there.

Sick at the moment.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 08:48:39 +0000

Sorry for the non-posts. I am quite sick at the moment. Some stomach issues that apparently takes its time to settle. I was hospitalized 10 days ago, but got out the next day. Since then, I have not been to work or been doing anything at all actually.

Done with the self-study guide for BCMSN.

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:42:20 +0000

I now need to do the remaining labs in the lab portfolio. There are especially some case studies that bridge all the knowledge together (or so it looks like, we’ll see). I do know however, that wireless is a huge area in and by itself.

Wireless – A forgotten topic on BCMSN.

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:49:14 +0000

I have a sneaking suspecion that I better pay alot of attention towards the wireless section of the BCMSN. It seems like its “out-of-scope” of the BCMSN, but Im quite confident that Cisco will really smack me on it for some reason. The whole gain/loss/radio frequency stuff is not a topic I have paid much attention to in the past, so its quite new for me.

Lack of the right equipment.

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 10:33:23 +0000

Lately I have been in the need of the right equipment for quite a few labs.

What I really need is some equipment that is able to do both Dynamic Arp Inspection (DAI) and IP Source Guard (IPSG). The dynamic arp part is supported on 3550’s as far as I can see, but IPSG is not. It is only available on 4500’s and 6500’s, and I dont think playing on the core 4507R’s at work would be a wise choice 🙂

L2 security…

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 21:34:35 +0000

Been reading the study guide about L2 security. You can really mess up a whole network very simply, and you can basically take down the whole thing pretty easily if your switches are not configured correctly. There was also alot of things about IP spoofing and ARP spoofing. Pretty nifty stuff, and you can all secure your network alot by making some pretty basic choices, and execute them all over your network.

The need for redundancy becomes clear…

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 19:19:24 +0000

Well, I broke the spanning-tree topology at work today. It was not one of my proudest moments 🙂 I was playing around with the very delicate portfast command, which states in all its glory:

“%Warning: portfast should only be enabled on ports connected to a single

Gateway Redundancy.. Awesome

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 08:07:14 +0000

So im studying redundancy features, especially gateway redundancy features. I think this is some impressing technology. Basically there are three versions, HSRP (cisco proprietary), VRRP (IEEE Standard) and GLBP (cisco proprietary). HSRP was introduced in 1994, and VRRP in 1999, GLBP is alot newer, introduced in 2005.

CEF – A topic in disguise

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 10:51:02 +0000

Been reading about CEF yesterday. It doesnt take up much of the exam blueprint, nor CBT nuggets coverage of it. However, it seems that theres more to this than what meets the eye.

I also need to figure out what CEF is doing in routers. My assumption is that its being implemented in IOS and where support for hardware is available, it downloads the FIB and adjacency tables from the control plane to the data plane for fast switching. I doubt all routers have asic hardware, capable of CEF operations, and i know CEF is running on some of my IOS 3640 dynamips boxes.

Inter-Vlan connectivity and enhancing switch features.

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:59:04 +0000

Today I have spent about 2,5 hours studying different features that enhances the switched network. This includes labbing up BPDU guard, Loop guard, UDLD Aggressive mode, BPDU filtering. Also I find the automatic error recovery feature very interesting.

You can set certain causes to put an interface into the errdisabled state. For example if you enable BPDU guard, and a BPDU is “heard” on the interface, it puts the interface into errdisabled. But you can set a timer to “wake” the interface back up again, so its not a permanently state that an administrator must take action to remedy, namely sh/no sh the interface.

Spanning-tree issues.

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 18:38:55 +0000

I have been working my a** off trying to understand STP just fairly well. Its a hard topic, especially with Rapid STP. I have struggled with the synchronisation/proposal/agreement thing. It has helped seeing it on the equipment though.

An alternate port can be switched to immediately. If the root port goes down and the switch has a designated port, it performs the proposal/agreement bit, and another switch becomes a designated bridge for it. Nifty stuff.

Server has been down, and BSCI is down.

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:27:14 +0000

Sorry about the lack of posting/progress reports. Also the server has been down for a while.

In the meantime, I’ve passed the BSCI exam with an 833 score. Really got my ass kicked on some topics I didnt expect (IS-IS), and ofcourse multicasting which has turned out to be my arch-enemy. I should have done some more labs on ISIS, but I didnt since it didnt take up too much space according to the exam blueprint.

IS-IS is very confusing..

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:01:47 +0000

Well, at least some of it. Adjacencies and how IS’s update other IS’s is the thing that nobody can give me an answer to. According to all the material IS’s maintain adjacencies to all others, but still elect a DIS.

(3) EIGRP – Labs

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:43:08 +0000

So yesterday, I started with all the lab exercises that has to do with EIGRP. I did the one in the self-study guide, and one (2.7.1) in the lab portfolio. I also started on 2.7.2.

So far, the labs in the labportfolio are far better written than the ones in the self-study guide. Today, I have snuck in a few practice scenarios regarding default route propagation.

(3) EIGRP – Note taking

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:55:44 +0000

Alright, I am done with reading about EIGRP. I am now skimming through the chapter, and taking notes. I have an okay understanding of how EIGRP works, and I am looking forward to the labs to nail out unknowns.

I am not 100% convinced about taking notes, or rather doing it in the order im doing (reading first, then skimming and taking notes, then going to the lab).

(3) EIGRP reading – continued

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 08:30:32 +0000

Today, I am continuing reading about EIGRP.

My goal for today is to get at least 40 pages of EIGRP reading done. Lots of nitty gritty details such as unequal-load balancing and route authentication.

To understand and process the material, 10 pages takes up 30 minutes of reading time. This includes reading the material, looking at the topologies being presented and thinking it through (in case of metrics and bandwidth calculate a bit to see where the authors are getting at).

(3) EIGRP Reading

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 19:44:39 +0000

Chapter 3, EIGRP.

Started reading about the inner workings of EIGRP today. EIGRP is an improved distance vector protocol provided by Cisco themselves. It is an improved distance vector protocol, because it passes updates directly to its neighbours. It is more advanced than traditional distance vector protocols, because it supports VLSM and it does not use periodic updates. It uses hello packets like link-state protocols.

(2) Routing principles – BSCI selfstudy

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:54:35 +0000

Okay. I will try and document some information regarding my study to attain the BSCI (Building Scalable Cisco Internetworks) exam.

This is by many considered the hardest exam on the CCNP track (1 of 4 exams). I will tackle this one first, and then continue forward to the other exams knowing they will be easier.

Long time since last post

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:30:05 +0000

Okay, so its been a while since my last post.

Been having some issues to deal with, which has taken quite alot of energy.

I am going for the CCNP, starting with the BSCI exam. Ive got the books for it, and started studying. There’s alot of detailed information, and lots of labs to do. Chapter 2 is 40 pages long, and its taken me two days to reach the end of the information in the book, now im starting the labs in the end of the chapter 🙂

CCNA completed :)

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 06:31:24 +0000

I am happy to report that I managed to pass the CCNA exam yesterday. What a relief.

Here it is:

Hopefully Maibrith passes her exam today as well!!

Update: She did pass it!

Giving it some thorough looks before tuesday.

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 08:15:35 +0000

So, test is scheduled for tuesday, and im looking through and updating my notes. My plan is to look through all of my notes on the morning, trying to pick up on anything I might have missed during my studying.

What a smock!

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:16:24 +0000

I read on Slashdot today, that a “Jack Thompson“, walked out of court, apparently because he was being disbarred for 10 years. I couldnt quite remember who he was, but then it dawned upon me, he’s the smock thats been trying to ban what he thinks are violent games, because he’s of the opinion they are bad for society.

Bought a rack.

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 19:44:11 +0000

I just purchased a Rack from Dantrak UK. I need some sort of solution to mount the gear I have and will be getting. I cant have it all lay around the floor. They (Dantrak UK) is basically a reseller of Dantraknet.

Getting warmer.. warmer.. hot!

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 19:59:54 +0000

I like sunny weather when its moderate, but temperatures in the 25+ Celcius range is a bit too much for me. Especially when I need to spend time in front of my computer. I will need some kind of cooling solution this summer for sure.

Video about gas prices and the trophy in the middle east.

Mon, 26 May 2008 07:29:07 +0000

Interesting indeed.

rettighedsportalen.dk – a place for all things copyrighted

Thu, 22 May 2008 21:37:38 +0000

I was checking piratgruppen.org (A place in favor of sharing things online) the other day, and found that a new site, rettighedsportalen.dk had been started by a former spokesperson of piratgruppen.org.

The site aims to shed some light on immaterial “rights”. This is a good idea and I for one welcome it.

HP, stop making bad laptops!

Thu, 15 May 2008 11:32:28 +0000

Im writing this on my 3rd HP laptop in 2 years. This is a company owned laptop, because if not, I would never have purchased another laptop from Hewlett Packard.

My first HP laptop was a so called NC8430, which is in their line of business laptops. It replaced a T20/T21 (I have forgotten), which was 3+ years old, and still working fine. The NC8430 has a 15″ display, 256mb graphics card, comes with 1 gig of ram (which I had upgraded to 2gig right away), and as far as i remember, a 60 or 80 gb harddrive. It also had a 2.0 ghz Core 2 duo processor from Intel. Pretty nice machine from reading just the specs. And thats where the story takes a turn for the worse.

What I was thinking a while back..

Tue, 13 May 2008 10:37:47 +0000

This is cool, a p2p program based on real life trust.

Alliance is a program that everyone has seen before, but with a twist. Instead of searching everybody and their uncle’s stash of bits, you only search a much smaller circle of people whom you already trust. This makes it virtually impossible for the RIAA/MPAA/ to catch you in the act (if you were doing something illegal with the technology in the first place).

Learning – Howto?

Wed, 07 May 2008 21:21:46 +0000

Since starting my now almost infamous Cisco course, I have become very interested in ways to learn new material.

How do you plan out a semester, how do you organize a study schedule, where do you study? what kind of tools do you use to get you through it all?

Republicans owning the election so far

Wed, 07 May 2008 06:32:46 +0000

This is another great strategic move by the republican party. Let the two democrats fight against each other all they can, while taking focus of John McCain.

Then when the real election cycle begins, they can put credibility behind a claim that the democratic candidates are focusing more on getting elected than the real issues, and they dont have a clear focus on solving the problems that the United States faces.

iPhone + dent

Sun, 04 May 2008 21:49:23 +0000

I watched an iPhone get a dent yesterday. Not a pretty sight. It was my girlfriends iPhone. She dropped it on the floor, and unfortunally it landed on the edge of a doorstep, causing it to get a dent. Nothing wrong with the glass surface or function of the phone at all.

12.000.000 is a very large number

Fri, 02 May 2008 21:27:32 +0000

But it is still the number of peers The Piratebay had sometime during the past week.A peer is defined in the bittorrent world as one who connects to download/upload some part of a file.

The number 12.000.000 is also about twice the amount of people living in Denmark at the moment. Just think about what that means for a second. It means that a website to share information has twice as many people using it as a small country has inhabitants.

Lack of posts have a cause

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:13:21 +0000

Been having alot on my mind lately. Ive been writing down the topics I want to give my opinion on, but just havent gotten around to actually elaborating on them. I will try to rectify that over the comming days.

Trip to China cut short.

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:02:51 +0000

Trip to China cut short.
For some reason I fell sick in Amsterdam and had to go back to Denmark. Im out sick until friday where I will get to see my doctor.
Im quite convinced that what I experienced was a panic attack that just wouldnt go away for some reason.

Going on a trip.

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 18:37:01 +0000

I will be leaving for China tomorrow. Will be going with my favorite coworker, along with my boss, his boss and bookkeeping guy. We will travel from Billund to Amsterdam, and then from Amsterdam to Shanghai. Alot of flying. I will be back friday night.

Aggrevated with myself when i dont comprende.

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 18:07:50 +0000

So Ive hit a snag in my learning process. There is a question on one of the chapter tests, that I simply cannot work out. I know the answer, but I simply cant figure out how to that answer. It is really pissing me off.

Annoyance with bad teachers

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 20:05:43 +0000

In recent months ive re-experienced what its like to have a bad teacher.

Im currently taking a CCNA certification, and anyone who has taken one, know there is ALOT of material to go through. To have a good teacher help you with questions and problems would be a huge help. Unfortunally I am not in a position to say I have a good teacher.

The proposed legislation for criminalizing internet users has been twarted — This time at least.

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 21:10:04 +0000

But it was a close one:

“The vote was close, with 314 MEPs (Members of the European Parliament) voting in favor of an amendment to scrap what many consider draconian and disproportionate measures to protect copyright over the internet, and 297 voting against the amendment.“

Depression and Anxiety

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 22:47:49 +0000

Another attack.

I suffer from depression along with anxiety/panic attacks. When I was 21, I all of a sudden felt like I couldnt breathe, and everything around me seemed to blur and sound funny. I was at work, and was forced to leave work and drive to my parents house, since I knew that, at the time being nobody was home. Unfortunally my mom was not home from work yet, so I lay down on the living room floor and waited, still feeling really really bad. When she came home, she was ofcourse very afraid of what was wrong with me, and called my doctor immediately. Because of Danish rules, unless you call for an ambulance, you cant really goto the emergency room before being sent there by your doctor. So we took a taxi to my doctor, who was nice enough to see me right away, and he saw me and listened to my heart right away, and sent us to the hospital, which at the time was still open to heart cases, which my condition was thought to be. I was then admitted to the reception room, where they put me on an EKG machine, along with taking a blood test, my heart rate was very high, but within an hour it stabilized alot. When they were sure I was not going to die on them right there and then, I was taken to a more permanent room, where I had to stay in my bed, since they dont want heart patients running around so shortly after an attack. At about dinner time, they came to take another blood test, I was also told I could goto the smoking room if I wanted to which was a nice relief at the time. They were all very nice to me, and they all knew me because of my mom working at the hospital for a very long time. She has been making sure the hospital has always been clean as an tablespoon for as long as I can remember, and she is very well respected, and with good cause, she’s the best and most caring person you will ever meet. Alas, the next time, the doctor was making his rounds and checked me out, along with the answers to my blood tests. They revealed that I had indeed not suffered a heart attack of any kind, but his best bet was that I might have a strained chest muscle which could be why I still felt like someone was sitting on my chest. He sent me home, where I still felt like crap.

Will you explain it this way to your children?

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 08:17:04 +0000

My complete disregard for crappy tv-shows

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:48:55 +0000

Okay, so Im fed up.

I dont like Idols. I dont like Can you dance. I dont like The stage is yours. I dont like complete ripoffs, and basically reruns of the same old, same old. It is simply not something you can call a classic, and keep watching over and over again. It lacks creativeness and any innovative thought processes. So stop it!

Filesharing: Filesharing as a technology.

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 09:57:31 +0000

Filesharing, as I define it, is a way for people to share files with one and another.

Filesharing programs, are programs that enable people to do so.

The programming instructions which perform the transfer of bits from one computer to another is a technology.

This sums it up quite nicely.

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 08:27:25 +0000

What do you think?

Creative's Crappy (C)oundcards and support

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:57:15 +0000

A fellow by the name of Daniel K has been supplying Windows Vista users with a usable Audio Driver on his own accord. He has been doing this work because Creative has been unable to support this platform which, apparently, quite alot of people are using. A company like Creative really should supply decent quality sound drivers from day one for their customers, especially since they figure their cards to be “professional” grade.

This is exactly what the white house feels about the environment – Devastating

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:49:28 +0000

This is what the white house looked like during Earth Hour:

Earth Hour – An hour where alot of citizens around the world turned of their lights to save electricity, and thereby showing their concern for the environment.

I was right.

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 19:38:23 +0000

There was no Internet connection at my second hotel, that actually worked. I really do think its a necessity to have a good and reliable Internet connection for your visitors.

Watching TV and reading books used to be what you could do in a hotel-room, now however, the Internet is the main source of information for many people, so why not give your hotel an edge and use it as a selling point?

Hotel Rooms? What do you do?

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 20:06:51 +0000

I am sitting in a hotel room once again, and I am going to be sitting in one until thursday. How do you feel about hotel rooms, and what do you do in one of them?

I normally spend most of my awaken time by my laptop, which it is critical for me to have an internet connection. I am quite concerned that the hotel I will be staying at tomorrow, does not have an internet connection, in which case I will be spending the evening watching movies I suspect. I always bring a portable harddrive or two with me with interesting stuff loaded onto them.

Arthur C. Clarke has begun his journey toward the stars

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 20:17:25 +0000

Arthur C. Clarke passed away today at his retreat in Sri Lanka. Besides fighting the nazi’s by helping develop radar facilities, he is also behind many of the conceptual ideas behind space travel and sci-fi in general. He was always very philosophical about mans role in the universe, advocating space splunking whenever possible, and was of the belief that we would reach Mars by 2000. Alas, not everything worked out the way he had hoped, but he was a great thinkerer in the area nevertheless.

Local support being one sided and commercialised?

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 19:53:46 +0000

I just learned that a local handball team (HF-Mors), apart from being sponsored by various sponsors the normal way, by having their expenses and training gear taken care of, also got their mortgage/rent paid. I think this is crossing the line for a small time handball team. I think the sponsorships should cover broadly for more exotic things as well, not just the mainstream stuff like handball/football.Â If the sponsorship is primarily to gain revenue, then it should be seen that way, but these sponsorships are being pushed to the public as being good for the local community. I disagree.

16 year old beaten to death…

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 19:48:49 +0000

A 16 year old kid was recently beaten to death for no apparent reason.

Senseless violence an indication of a worse society? I think so.

I have no more to say about this than whats already been said.

We should all be ashamed.

Another win for the really bad guys, and a loss for the rest of us.

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:24:56 +0000

A plane from Copenhagen to Amsterdam, was cancelled yesterday, because of fear of terror.

A group of middle eastern men (all of whom are airline pilots in an Iraqi airline), was the cause of the fear to a Dutch man. One of the middle eastern men, had to use the restrooms, and, like me, you and everybody else, left his luggage (carry-on-bag) with his friends. This apparently was a cause for alarm, the police was called, the plane cancelled, and all for nothing.

Kiss my a*s all of you… The World is going crazy!

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 14:10:38 +0000

America’s war on tourism: airlines to foot the bill for fingerprinting foreigners as the leave the US

Scotland Yard wants DNA samples from 5-year-olds in case they grow up to be criminals; Oyster card records to become part of “war on terror”

This is not the way which you want to get cable upstairs!

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 08:44:37 +0000

Please dont try this at home, but if you do, id like to see the outcome:

Quote to ponder about!

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 19:33:34 +0000

“we think a life without internet may be worse than one without money.” — Gizmodo

Update on small things.

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 16:09:31 +0000

Been doing alot this week. Mainly been studying some more. Couple of important chapters, I need to get down really well.

How do you get hard information into your brain, and get it to stay there, and understand it for good? Im not sure, but Im starting to think that writing down things manually really helps me personally.

What you dont want to see when you come to work as a sysadmin!

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 18:32:53 +0000

Help fight global warming!

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 21:57:09 +0000

Take a look at this little picture helping you, fight the biggest problem facing humanity – global warming:

European petition against copyright extension – Please sign

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 11:39:26 +0000

Please sign this petition if you are against the European copyright term being extended. It is bad enough as it is, so please take action.

And also, please remember to support EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation), with donations, advocating and educating people about the importance of online freedom.

Net neutrality explained

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 07:47:37 +0000

A link on Digg pointed towards a YouTube video explaining Net neutrality. This is an important subject, not just in the US, but everywhere. The Telco’s might own the pipes, but they shouldnt get to decide what gets to flow through them.

Great summary of what type of man Barack Obama really is.

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:05:58 +0000

Reading Marc Andreessen’s blog I came across his endorsement of Barack Obama. He writes of a meeting in early 2007, which basically shapes his opinion about Barack Obama. Without meeting the man, this is the impression I have as well.

Why you should enjoy life to the fullest

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 08:42:59 +0000

Watched a short video clip on Digg today, about a guy who knew he only had a few months to live, and yet he choose to make the most of it. This should really be a lesson to alot of us, to enjoy life!!

This really sums it up in my book

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 08:04:01 +0000

‘

So simply, and yet so effective.

Macbook Air is really really thin.. And summary of my weekend.

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 21:35:42 +0000

Yesterday I went into a Humac apple store in Aalborg (Denmark… Its in Europe… Across the water.. anyways), to see the new Apple Macbook Air.Â Oh dear, thats a sweet little laptop. It really is as thin as you hoped it would be. You really really want one when you are holding it 🙂

How will peace be established when…

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:09:36 +0000

How will peace ever be established between the large parts of the muslim world and the west, when young kids are being taught to kill for depicting a god in a way you dont like?

Well, thats exactly what a children show stipulated a few days ago, regarding the now infamous Muhammed drawings.

Picture > 1000 words?

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:16:48 +0000

This is a pretty cool billboard hack. I like it alot. “Evil Death Star” anyone?

Bad HD Crash

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:55:15 +0000

These Quantum Fireball harddrives was the bomb back in the day, this is what it looks like when one crash:

Unfortunally I dont have any more of these laying around, and if I did, I would probably replace them after seeing this 🙂

Another notebook is about to bite the dust

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:42:17 +0000

It would seem that another HP NC8430 is about to bite the dust. It has been running its fan constantly for the last couple of months, and using coretemp.exe i can see that both cores are extremely hot all the time (75+ degrees Celcius).

Great Quote:

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 08:31:25 +0000

Lessig08 not going to happen.

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:29:44 +0000

So Larry Lessig has decided not to run for congress. The decision comes mainly because of time and fear

it might damage the entire “Change Congress” campaign. I can understand that position. I would very much

like to see a game plan on how this campaign will gain momentum.

Lessig considering congress – I agree

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:52:59 +0000

I have given some thought about Larry Lessig’s possible candidacy for congress. I have come to the conclussion that I would agree with it, for the following reasons:

Exposure.
Rally the right people.

For starters, I believe that by running for congress, Lessig will create some exposure about the corruption in American politics. Everybody knows its there, but nobody is willing to change it. Lessig is out to change it, and for that very reason, all exposure is good exposure.

Lessig considering congress.

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:06:22 +0000

Just noticed that Lessig is considering running for congress this year. I am not quite sure how I feel about this yet. I have great admiration for all his work so far, but i guess i just have a bad feeling about all politicians in the beginning. Will Lessig be able to change anything from within congress, and does it really matter if he makes it or not, as long as he makes enough noise about the issues, in doing so? or will people see a failure to win, as a failure to the cause of creating a corruption free congress?

Parents meeting each other – What to cook?

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:11:42 +0000

Okay, so this sunday evening, my folks and the like of my girlfriend aren meeting for the first time, and a heavy debate is under way, concerning what to serve them. What do you serve on such an occasion, and how do people with limited dining room make something nifty anyways?

Destruction of property

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 17:49:14 +0000

Anyone ever thought about how the destruction of property is getting worse and worse?

This weekend, alot of lamp posts got thrashed close to where I live. A few weeks back somebody actually stole a car and ran into the exact same lamp posts, busting them completely.

Collision in the streets – Freedom of speech Vs. Islamic Fundamentalism Part II

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 21:40:41 +0000

Dont know if you heard, but at this very moment Denmark is experiencing alot of riots in the streets of major cities.

Once again, pictures of the prophet Muhammed, are being displayed on major newspapers. This time not as a simple journalistic interest, but because members of the Islamic community has put forth deaththreats on the person is behind them. Police have judged the threats as to be very real. As a support, and to get this public knowledge, major Danish newspapers have all re-printed the pictures. Hence the riots.

How to explain Bittorrent?

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:38:49 +0000

How do you explain how Bittorrent works to people who have never heard of Bittorrent before? I actually find it quite hard to explain the fundamentals of it.

Clinton supporter goes Obama

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 07:45:43 +0000

Yesterday I read about a Clinton supporter going Obama. However, it was the way in which she changed her support that was interesting.

She wrote a piece, a great piece to be exact, outlining the reasons why she believed that Clinton should step down, and offer her full support to Obama. Her point was spot on in my opinion.

Funny Quote

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:14:07 +0000

Fun quote from jokes4all.net:

_– What do you call an intelligent man in America?

– A tourist._

There are alot of smart people in America. There is also alot of really stupid people.

Guess which group is in power at the moment?

Hello world!

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 08:45:28 +0000

This is a project. Take it or leave it. Add to it, or discard it. Basically its my space, only working as… MySpace.

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This is my first post to hugo using CI/CD pipeline