Labbing

nice addition to recent IOS-XE images is the info in BGP view when the peak number of prefixes was received: rtr-edge#sh bgp ipv4 unicast summary [...] 6807 received paths for inbound soft reconfiguration BGP activity 1126906/107856 prefixes, 1337822/171863 paths, scan interval 60 secs 878960 networks peaked at 15:02:09 Jan 29 2022 CET (22:53:01.065 ago) [...] rtr-edge#sh bgp ipv6 unicast summary [...] BGP using 102467162 total bytes of memory BGP activity 1126898/107856 prefixes, 1337806/171843 paths, scan interval 60 secs 140720 networks peaked at 05:46:19 Jan 29 2022 CET (1d08h ago) [...] while logged in over CLI you may glance at this info without needing to check your monitoring systems (you have them, right?). ...

one of the very old tricks, that’s even documented is how to simulate ctrl-break on newer PCs to break into ROMMON during router/switch boot. instead of fighting with SecureCRT on MacOS, I just used it recently. basically, you: disconnect terminal from the device turn device off set terminal to 1200 (yes, you read this right), 8N1 and no flow control turn device on press SPACE for 10-15 seconds (basically, until your terminal drops out some unreadable characters) reconfig terminal to 9600 8N1 and you should be in ROMMON yes, I’m old. ...

if you’re not accustomed to reading release notes for your favorite platform (Nexus NX-OS in this case), probably you already overlooked that starting with 10.1(2) there’s 2-stage commit system, known from IOS XR. what does that mean, really? that doing changes over CLI, directly in the parser, you can edit/add/remove whole blocks of configuration before committing them to running/actual configuration. so in case when you edit interface IP addressing (always touchy moment, specially for devices you’re 300km away for example) the session could look like this: ...

as I get old, seems I’m missing obvious signals. my logs were screaming about it, friends made touchy comments… and nothing. after moving to hugo, despite the fact it has built-in RSS feed support, I somehow missed that completely. fortunately, it’s enough to add template to your page definition and… it works. and that’s about it. that’s all. RSS works now. hurray.

one of the most common, but at the same time easiest problems to solve, when you’re working with FreeBSD system installed on too small disk is rebuilding the system. in my specific case, it was very old i386 system initially installed around release 6 on a 20GB HDD. at around release 11 I ran out of tricks to pull and still make it, so had to finally add a disk. fortunately, just before that, the machine was moved from physical box to virtual machine. ...

after I decided to save you and myself from spying eyes of Google Analytics, I don’t really look at my blog web statistics. just glancing over logs shows you’re reading - and that’s about all if you ask me. I noticed however, that for some mysterious reason (the doc is almost two decades old!), my very old article about connecting the switches together still gets downloaded like 30-50 times a month (I’m counting only non-bot downloads), and sometimes even more often. ...

FreeBSD just migrated to git, and while handbook is being updated, you can do the migration yourself. first of all, move original src directory (if you’re synchronizing over SVN) away, along with customized kernel config file. for my deployments I do: mv /usr/src /usr/src.old then, let’s install git - it’s not (yet) installed by default: pkg install git last, but not least, you need to invoke git to clone the source repository. I prefer to track latest -STABLE version of the tree, and in such case you should execute: ...

if you happen to have more than one internet connection and they have different usable bandwidths - which is no longer a rarity today - it becomes interesting element in network design. how would you use these links optimally? i have to admit, that i was provoked to sit down and write down this series of post by Marcin Ślęczek post on ccie.pl forum. Marcin is CEO of networkers.pl but by heart, he’s network engineer and sometimes fights with interesting problems. although I already had in my head something like solution to the problem I was struggling with in my home network, the inability to solve Marcin’s problem immediately provoked me to describe the problem and potential solutions from the inside out. ...

Raspberry Pi 4 that comes originally without any case, or can be bought with original case, can bring you headaches. it’s absolute great and genius computer (never ask me how many I own… ;) ) in version four has really very fast CPU - Broadcom BCM2711. it contains four ARM Cortex A72 cores clocked with up to 1.5GHz and dedicated GPU complex. problems people all around internet report problems however with overheating of this little beast, and what’s more - problems with getting stable 4k 60Hz video output (just remember, there are two video outputs, but 60Hz is only achievable on the socket next to USB-C power supply). ...

…but tools have to be used responsibly. first of all, short disclaimer - I’d like to make it perfectly clear before we go into this long piece, that I’m a: …big fan of discussing merits of technology and technology overall. I love technology. I believe having opportunity to create networks, solutions that really connect people and give us chance to exchange information is something I could do for the rest of my life, with full focus and commitment. ...