StaticNAT

It is funny how things cycle. We have been doing a bunch of Cisco 4500 installs ranging from 4506′s through the 4510 and even a few 6500s in the mix. And no matter how hard we try we have power issues with them every single time. We either are in a hurry and spec the wrong cables, the client requests the wrong cable, we don’t have the correct power to stage the equipment in our office or the client doesn’t have the right power for the unit. In many cases we temporarily fall back to using 110 power with NEMA 5-15/20T cables and then force the power supplies to combined mode in order to get enough power to bring up the entire chassis.  I should point out that this is usually only good for temp fix and that you should fix your power issue (usually installing bigger circuits) and move back to redundant mode.  But for that quick fix here is the command on a 4500 or 6500 chassis to combine the power supplies:

power redundancy-mode combined

This command should be ran from config mode and once your config is saved it will return to this state after reboot.

And for a bit of extra fun scream out BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL as you type this in.

Well the picture to the right shows exactly where they are.  In the past we have dealt with 1Gbps interfaces on supervisors that had both RJ-45 and SFP slots and it was an either/or decision if you wanted to use them.  In those cases you had a config entry that required you to state SFP or RJ-45 in the interface configuration.  No matter what you chose it was always shown Interface GigabitEthernet Mod#/Port#.  So when I dove  into the Sup720 I was configuring I decided it was supposed to be the same way because why would Cisco ever let me use all the ports on the front of my hardware?  Being the all knowing geek that I am I also ignored the config file that I have seen at least 30 times in the last hour and I just started typing Interface TenGigabitEthernet 5/1, and I kept getting this; Read the rest of this entry »

One of my clients has had their web server exposed to the wild world of the internet now for several years. Up till about a year and a half ago many systems on their network actually had IP ANY ANY statements cut through from the Outside of their Firewall to the Inside. However it has been one of my many jobs since I started with them to eradicate these problems and start securing their infrastructure. The firewall changes have been easy for the most part and any problems that remain are policy issues that we are working to eliminate. However their web server sitting outside of the firewall has been an ongoing issue and due to some anomaly’s on the server they are deploying the recommended DMZ and migrating their web server there. Read the rest of this entry »

Led Zeppelin said it best I guess.  This past week Ohio along with lots of other states got hit with the remains of hurricane Dean.  So far it has been the most damaging storm for my clients in my short consulting career.  The first call came on Tuesday morning August 21st.  That call was from one of our account managers who indicated a client had sustained catastrophic damage to their 6509 when water rushed into their core network closet.  My first two thoughts were how quickly can we get replacement hardware and how long should it take for me to get them back up and going? Read the rest of this entry »

I am sure that at this point most of you have had some sort of experience with VOIP. My personal experiences are very mixed. On the Enterprise side I have worked on a multi-million dollar install of Cisco VOIP on a new all Cisco Network and it was less than spectacular. As a consultant I have worked with Cisco’s Call Manager Express in it’s home waters of the small/mid sized business and again I felt that it was lacking. However on the personal side I have been an off and on user of Skype for quite awhile as well as other come and go lightweight VOIP apps over the past seven or eight years. Read the rest of this entry »