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VTP: Why I hate it (and you should too)

Stuart Fordham — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 13:11:39 +0000

I made a stupid, stupid error this week. The task was simple; replace a misbehaving switch with something a little newer and more robust. How hard could that be? Background With our head office closing (to be replaced with something smaller and with fewer servers in it), we migrated (over a long weekend) our hardware to a new data center. The move went well, but we had a switch that would drop packets. Because the head office closed, we took all the hardware that was left over (and anything shiny that we liked the look of – I’m looking at

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Learning SD-WAN with Cisco

Stuart Fordham — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 18:56:50 +0000

The latest book has now been released! Learning SD-WAN with Cisco takes you through the creation of a complete SD-WAN network, comprising three sites (one HQ and two regional offices). You will learn: Why SD-WAN came about and the technologies it replaced How to set up EVE-NG and create the Smart account you will need to get the software How to deploy vManage in single and clustered mode What the overlay network is How to deploy vBond, vSmart and the edge devices Why templates are great How to perform routing across the SD-WAN Implement QoS and policies How to perform

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IGPs update

Stuart Fordham — Fri, 24 Jan 2020 10:20:16 +0000

The IGPs book is well underway, and I am really pleased with how it’s shaping up. I have finished the first draft of the chapter on RIP and am deep into EIGRP at the moment. Here’s a look at (part of) the topology, if you are interested: The above topology does just cover RIP and EIGRP, it will expand as OSPF and IS-IS are added. I still reckon the book finished around the summer. So, here is a question to you guys and girls. Would you be interested in a Kindle eBook presale? I can’t do a printed presale but

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CCNP Data Center reading list 2020

Stuart Fordham — Thu, 19 Dec 2019 11:50:07 +0000

As of February 24th, 2020, the old Cisco exams go bye-bye and we herald a new era of examinations. This is across every track. Some of these changes are quite welcome, such as CPE and the fact that three professional-level exams can renew a CCIE. So, for those of us looking to start studying now and continuing past this change, what options do we have for the CCNP Data center reading list? Old style CCNP Data Center reading list Currently, the exams are:300-175 – DCUCI300-165 – DCII300-170 – DCVAI300-160 – DCID300-180 – DCIT. In terms of official certification guides, there is

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High Availability configuration on Palo Alto firewalls

Stuart Fordham — Thu, 12 Dec 2019 16:12:43 +0000

In this post, I will be walking through configuring Palo Alto High Availability. I will cover setting up failure conditions in a separate post. We have a pair of Palo Alto VM-100 devices running in EVE-NG. Check out this post on how to get the images running. These are connected to each other using ethernet 1/3 (HA1) and ethernet1/5 (HA2). Firewall 1 High Availability settings The first step is to set the interface type on the two interfaces (Network > Interfaces > Ethernet) to a type “HA”: The next step is to go to Device > High Availability > General

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Eve-NG, Windows, Qemu and multiple CPUs

Stuart Fordham — Wed, 11 Dec 2019 21:32:52 +0000

I am working on a data center refresh at the moment, with brand spanking new hardware. We are also shifting vendors for some things, and collapsing some of the tiers. We also only have a few hours in which the datacenter can be offline. Even if it is the DR datacenter. Thankfully, EVE-NG offers me the ability to lab up quite a large amount of this. I did hit a snag though, with a very slow running Windows Qemu guest. So I shut it down, added another CPU and some more memory, then powered it back up. Still only one

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Back studying, back writing.

Stuart Fordham — Fri, 06 Dec 2019 11:16:40 +0000

I can’t say I have been in a melancholic funk or anything when it comes to studying, or writing, I just decided to take some time out to have a break and enjoy my free time more. I did that. And I feel better for it. I have been playing guitar more, and spending more time with the family. These are good things. But here we are now, and here I am ready to learn and do battle once more. So, why the change of mind? Well, we are prepping up to refresh all the hardware in our data centers

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Normal service is resuming shortly.

Stuart Fordham — Wed, 04 Dec 2019 21:09:23 +0000

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OK, let’s do this

Stuart Fordham — Tue, 16 Apr 2019 19:54:38 +0000

About three months ago I received the dreaded email from Cisco: “CCIE: You need to recertify in six months”. This set a few alarm bells off, but as I was studying for my AWS exam, I figured I’d concentrate on that. After all, six months is a long time, right? Yesterday, I received another email: “CCIE: You need to recertify in three months”. Those three months flew by. I don’t remember time going past so quickly when I was a kid. I think the speed at which time passes is somehow linked to my height, as I get taller, time

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Go home packet-tracer, you’re drunk.

Stuart Fordham — Sat, 02 Mar 2019 20:31:59 +0000

It’s not been a fun week. Last Monday, I started to make some changes to our firewalls that would allow me (this coming Monday) to move some equipment from one part of our network to a new, locked-down part of the network. Because PCI. Little did I know, I would enter the hell that is “no valid adjacency”. As I was not actually moving the equipment that day, I could only use Cisco’s packet-tracer on the ASA to test whether or not the traffic would work as intended. It should be noted that this is in a remote site, and

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