tips .. come on in.

Two Default Gateways

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 05:33:00 +0000

A Default Gateway in most cases is a router, which possibly knows where to route every packet, if it doesn't know where, it will drop the packet.

--->A situation where you might knowingly/unknowingly configure two default gateways:

Using a desktop PC with two NICs or a laptop with a Wireless NIC and a LAN, you try to configure a brand new network device or change already configured network device like a Access point, Switch, Router, Wireless Bridge etc at your work place or at home. You would be on your corp-network/Internet through your primary card i.e. say NIC1. You will connect the device to your laptop/PC using a cross-over cable if a router or a Straight-through cable if a switch to your second NIC, and then you put in IP, Netmask, Gateway info on this card, say NIC2. With this setup you will have network connectivity issues. This is due to fact that, your PC/laptop's routing table has two default routes with two different EXIT INTERFACES causing confusion as to which one to use to send packets. Below is routing table of one such example from a Windows PC.
Here Corp-network is 10.10.100.0 and the Network device is on 192.168.2.0 Subnet.

IPv4 Route Table
===========================================================
Active Routes:
Network Destination       Netmask          Gateway       Interface          Metric
          0.0.0.0                  0.0.0.0      192.168.2.1    192.168.2.104     30
          0.0.0.0                        0.0.0.0      10.10.100.1        10.10.100.5    30
    127.0.0.0                255.0.0.0          On-link                127.0.0.1    306
        127.0.0.1 255.255.255.255         On-link                127.0.0.1    306
127.255.255.255     255.255.255.255         On-link                127.0.0.1    306
      192.168.2.0             255.255.255.0         On-link        192.168.2.104    286
    192.168.2.104       255.255.255.255         On-link        192.168.2.104    286
    192.168.2.255       255.255.255.255         On-link        192.168.2.104    286
        224.0.0.0                       240.0.0.0       On-link        127.0.0.1    306
        224.0.0.0                       240.0.0.0         On-link        192.168.2.104    286
255.255.255.255     255.255.255.255         On-link        127.0.0.1    306
255.255.255.255     255.255.255.255         On-link        192.168.2.104    286
===========================================================

From the above table we can see that there are two default route entries and so the PC would be confused which interface to use as its exit interface.

Solution:

Solution to this is to leave out the Default Gateway entry blank on the NICs of the PC, like in this example: -------------------------->

With this setup you wouldn't have any network issues reaching your corp-net/internet. Per the example in picture PC now has only one route entry for 192.168.2.0 Sub-net whereas it had two entries before, one for 0.0.0.0 i.e. "any" and another for "192.168.2.0", Notice this as highlighted in the route table above. Now the your PC knows to only send packets destined for 192.168.2.0 Sub-net on NIC2.

If you want to be more granular and tell your PC exactly which NIC to use when sending packets with certain destination subnet, you can do so by manually adding a route entry like below.

C:> ROUTE ADD 192.168.X.0 MASK 255.255.255.0 192.168.X.1

Description: route ADD “network” MASK “subnet mask” “gateway ip”
What this is saying is anything with destination IP in 192.168.X.0 subnet send it to gateway 192.168.X.1

With this setup you should have no issues reaching your Corp-Network/Internet as well as the 192.168.2.0 network simultaneously.

Comparison of Network Video Recording (NVR) Surveillance Softwares

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 21:36:00 +0000

IP Cameras or Network Cameras have ethernet interface to deliver video and PTZ(Pan/Tilt/Zoom) control to a standard PC whereas DVRs i.e. Digital Video Recording require analog to digital capture cards in the PC to deliver video and PTZ control. In many ways IP Cameras with NVR software is a better surveillance system compared to DVRs. Main advantages are easy-installation and cost-effective. For more differences between DVRs and NVRs please check this page
This post is about NVR surveillance system, a comparison of performance and prices on few surveillance software that I tried. I used Axis 214 and Vivotek PZ6112 network cameras to test.

ZONEMINDER

This is a free Linux-based open-source surveillance application.
Installation is rather tedious and may require dealing with quite a good number of errors before you can really use it. But the good news is you can get it pre-installed on a liveCD at zoneminder.com in the downloads page. or a Virtual appliance which is a VMWare Virtual Machine based off of Ubuntu from Viktor Petersson. I tried Virtual appliance
After downloading the Virtual appliance I had to use VMWare's Vcenter to convert .vmx file to .ovf and chose to upload the VM to my ESXi datastore.
To open zoneminder application's home page where I can add/remove cameras, I opened a browser and typed in http://localhost/ or I could've typed in VM's IP address in any of the LAN machines like http://x.x.x.x
I clicked on "add monitor" and added my two cameras but only saw black screen. After matching the screen resolution on zoneminder's camera settings to that on the camera itself which was 352 x 240 I saw the video.
Axis was working fine but Vivotek PZ6112 is flapping. If I open vivotek camera settings on the zoneminders page and save it even without making any changes it comes back up but only for a while and then it goes black.
All-in-all zoneminder was not ideal in my case, I did not like the user interface but you can't ask much for free.

Argus Surveillance
Next I tried argus surveillance. I tried this on windows 2003.

Installation is pretty simple and adding in cameras was fairly easy. I don't have to point the exact path where the video is on the camera, just put in the IP address of the camera, authentication info and port no. which by default is 80. And it picked up both the cameras, very nice user interface, you can view and control all your cameras at one place. No flapping on the Vivotek PZ6112, however, the video is not as smooth as it is for Axis. The software did excellent on Axis only, but on PZ6112, the frames are jumping, sudden transitions, like when a person walks and then disappears. On the Axis its really like a video.
Load on CPU is not high and price for 8 channels/cameras is $118 which is good deal.
Definitely worth trying if you have IP cameras other than PZ6112.
Here is their website http://www.argussurveillance.com/

VisionGS
Finally, VisionGS worked for both the cameras Axis 214 and Vivotek PZ6112. Axis as with any other software worked without a problem but this software handled Vivotek PZ6112 as well. Video is very smooth, user interface is simple and neat, you can view and control all your cameras at one place like in seperate windows, nice motion detection. There is a huge list of supported cameras and the software is quite updated. Check out the features:

Short feature overview of VisionGS BE and VisionGS PE

Real multi-cam support with own profiles.
Live streaming video and audio using the latest streaming technology (e.g. WMV8 and WMV9).
Support for a large number of video devices and webcams, dv/firewire included.
Support for a large amount of network cameras (IP-Cams).
Configurable motion detection to monitor your desk, house, children etc. (also ability to capture video in realtime).
Most storage location (local harddisk, NFS, FTP, USB-Stick etc.)
Ability to run as true Windows Service.
Remote control your PTZ camera.
Logitech Quickcam Orbit- and Logitech Quickcam Sphere Pan Motor control.
Ability to include file-contents (e.g. latest weather information) in your webcam image.
Include an overlay image like your company logo.
Comes with configurable Java Applet for your website.
Support for Dynamic DNS Service, e.g. DynDNS.com
Archive images in chronological or reverse chronological order.
Send live picture by Email to a friend.
Multi language support (English, German).
Comes with a configurable HTTP Server.
HTTP password protection.
IP Upload Feature to automatically update your website.
Automatically creates thumbnails of your webcam pictures.
Comes with lots of html examples.

Surprisingly price is quite low, its $29.95. It doesn't say how many cameras but from the comparison chart of Private Edition which is free with lots of limitations and Business Edition we can see "unlimited operation with network cameras." Check out the comparison of features below from their website.

Description / Feature	VisionGS Private Edition (PE)	VisionGS Business Edition (BE)

Unlimited live stream streaming.	-

Can run as true Windows NT service.	-

No VisionGS PE banner added randomly to the webcam image.	-

Unlimited operation with motion detection.	-

Access to the latest beta releases and information.	-

Unlimited operation with network cameras.	-

Access to commandline-parameter.	-

EyeSoft

This is a bit expensive than others but you get a lot more than what you pay for. I would say this is excellent, user interface is absolutely fabulous, lots of features like storage indicator which would tell if you're running out of storage space, storage recycling which allows you to choose to delete old recorded video files etc. It was able to handle both the PZ6112 and Axis 214.
Price for 8 cameras is $264.
Compared with other expensive surveillance software out there I would say the price is nothing for what this software offers.
Installation and adding cameras is fairly simple, not at all a hardware resources hungry application. There are youtube videos on how to install and add cameras which should be more than enough to get you started. Check out the screenshot of main window HERE
Here is their website - http://www.bikal.co.uk/network-surveillance/ip-software.html

To Sum up:
There are quite expensive surveillance software out there like Milestone XProtect, GeoVision, VideoInsight, BrickHouse Security etc. I haven't tried these just because they're way expensive, costing atleast $500 for only 4-channels. If you're budget is under $300, you may decide one among the four I tested. Although PZ6112 is the only model I had trouble with in Zoneminder and Argus Surveillance I am sure they'd cover most IP Cameras.

If Argus Surveillance would've supported Vivotek PZ6112, I would've gone with that and pay $118 for 8 cameras.
If I am running low on budget and prefer something free then Zoneminder is the option.
If I want some nice user interface, control, simple installation and configuring I'd go with VisionGS for $29.95
If I want something real even if I had to spend $264 for 8-channels then Eyesoft is the way to go.

Linux TOP command and Startup Scripts explained

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:17:00 +0000

Unix/Linux TOP command Fully explained here. Very good information. Kudos to Prabhat Kumar. Check out comments too.

http://adminlinux.blogspot.com/2009/06/how-do-i-use-linux-top-command.html

A short and informative explanation on Linux run levels and startup scripts. Thanks to Joshua Erdman.

http://www.networkclue.com/os/Linux/run-levels.aspx

A Detailed look at the boot Process
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-9-Manual/ref-guide/s1-boot-init-shutdown-process.html

Inside the Linux Boot Process
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-linuxboot/

Internet time sync at windows 7 startup

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 08:50:00 +0000

Reason I needed to do this is whenever I boot into Fedora 12 and then later boot into windows 7, it shows wrong time. Not Fedora though! So I needed to find a way I can sync with a Internet time server at windows startup.

Click the windows start button or open the Run window and type - taskschd.msc and hit enter OR type "task scheduler" in search field of the windows start button and open it.
Expand - Task Scheduler Library, Microsft, Windows and you'll see - Time Synchronization, almost at the bottom.
Click that and all you need to do to set the time synchronisation at windows startup is self explanatory from the figure below (In step 2 Rt click and select properties).

Base system device - Upgrade to Windows 7 from vista HP dv2700

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:43:00 +0000

After replacing windows vista with windows 7 ultimate, things worked pretty fast like in XP but with features of vista. First thing to do after installing, however, is to install the drivers. On HP support I saw that there are no drivers under windows 7 32 bit OS, but the drivers under Windows vista section worked great. Everything went smooth except that in Device manager there are two "Base system device" with unknown device symbol. Here's what I did to get rid of that after searching online in google.

I found that it was the card reader which had no drivers to support, so I went here
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-69983
and downloaded the files and then installed it and Voila! It worked.

If you upgraded from vista to 7 on dv2700 you might as well be missing the same drivers. However, its good to find out what exact drivers are needed for your particular hardware.

How to find and install drivers for your computer's hardware:

Right click your My Computer and click properties , in the window click "device manager" from the left column.
Right click on the device for which you're trying to find the drivers for and then click properties.
From the properties window, click on Details and from the Property drop down list choose "Hardware Ids." In the Value section i.e. in the white area take note of the 4 numbers right after VEN or DEV as highlighted in the figure:
From the figure vendor or VEN would be 8086 OR DEV or device would be 4229.
With that info go to http://www.pcidatabase.com/ and enter either your VEN or DEV value and it will bring up very interesting information about your hardware. You may find direct address for drivers of your particular h/w or you can search google now that you know whats your hardware.

Thats all.

Installing Windows 7 and Fedora 12 (USB) to dual boot on HP notebook

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 01:01:00 +0000

This post is about how I installed windows 7 and Fedora 12 on my HP laptop / notebook DV2500 / DV2700 and how I partitioned the disk.
Most of you already have some version of windows pre-installed and windows 7 doesn't need any guide on how-to-install. Its that easy. Anyway, this are the partitions I made on my 160GB hard drive.

Windows 7 (C drive)- 30GB primary
System Reserved - 100MB primary (i didn't create this one, windows 7 did that )
Fedora 12 - 13GB extended
Data - The rest of the Hard drive (yes, /boot for fedora 12 is on extended partition)

After installing Windows 7, hardware drivers, essential software like antivirus, adobe acrobat etc I am left with approximately 15GB of the C drive. Thats pretty cool compared to vista which took around 45GB but it included all the pre-installed HP stuff. I am sure 30GB is going to be quite sufficient for windows 7. With windows 7 laptop stays cool and the fan is on most of the time but very very low and it doesn't bother. So, for HP laptops known for heating issues, this is definitely a very good improvement.

From with in windows I created the 'data' partition leaving about 13GB for fedora.

Fedora 12 and its partitions:

Download the Fedora 12 DVD ISO image from HERE
Fedora's Live-USB-Creator from HERE and install it.
Plug in your 4GB USB drive and open the live usb creator, you can see 'use existing live CD', click browse and point to where the ISO image file is and then click 'create live USB'. It takes some time.
Once that is completed, your USB is NOT yet ready! with this USB when we reboot our system we can go up to partitions and then it throws an error. This just did not work for me.
So, open the USB drive and from the folder 'packages' delete everything, this folder contains all rpms.
Now, copy your Fedora-12-i386-DVD.ISO image file into your USB drive, not into any folders with in the usb drive but directly under the drive.
You now may reboot your machine with your usb still plugged and it will take you to fedora installation.
Just follow the onscreen wizard until partition, choose 'custom layout'

Partitions in Fedora 12:

After selecting custom layout you'll see two hard disk's: /dev/sda - system harddrive and /dev/sdb - usb drive.
/dev/sda already has three primary paritions -
/dev/sda1 30GB,
/dev/sda2 100MB,
/dev/sda3 109GB(data).
We now need to create the 4th partition /dev/sda4 and this is going to be our extended partition by default from fedora installation wizard. And we'll slice /dev/sda4 according to our preferences.
/boot is a required partition, so select /dev/sda and click 'new', mount this on /boot, give a 200MB for size. This is our /dev/sda5 within our /dev/sda4 extended partition.
Now, with in our /dev/sda4 we still have unallocated space which we can slice. I'd suggest like this:
Swap partition - 1GB atleast
/home - 3GB or 2.5 GB and the rest to /

With the above settings we have these partitions in summary:
/dev/sda1 - 30GB windows C drive
/dev/sda2 - 100MB system drive
/dev/sda3 - 109GB and
/dev/sda4 - 13GB, this is further divided into
/dev/sda5 - 100MB for /boot
/dev/sda6 - 1GB for swap
/dev/sda7 - 3GB for /home
/dev/sda8 - Rest of the drive for /

After the partitions make sure to choose to install the bootloader to /dev/sda, by default it'll be /dev/sdb. Do not forget to change that.
And then continue with the rest of the installation.

Fedora 11 was very bad on my HP DV2500 laptop, heat was way too much. After googling and going through forums I came to know that the culprit was firefox, for some reason. Then I tried opera in fedora 11 and the heat was definitely very low.
Well, Fedora 12 improved on that, laptop stays absolutely cool. Like in windows 7, fan stays on most of the time but it does't bother and is very very low. And its the same when I used firefox but I got used opera and its a pretty good browser.

Install Packages offline from Fedora 12 DVD/ISO image

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:15:00 +0000

Did you choose to install openoffice later to save some time with Fedora OS installation? Now, instead of downloading openoffice or any other packages from internet we can point our yum repo file to use repository from the Fedora DVD ISO file or from the USB if you have the image file on USB. Let's assume the ISO file is on USB:

First, loop mount the ISO file to a temp directory

mkdir /opt/temp
mount -r -o loop /media/Fedora/Fedora-12-i386-DVD.iso /opt/temp (your path to ISO image will be different, wherever is the ISO give the absolute path to it after 'loop')

Lets go to /etc/yum.repos.d

cd /etc/yum.repos.d

Create a 'old_repfiles' directory and move all files into it from /etc/yum.repos.d

mkdir old_repfiles
mv * old_repfiles/

Note: We moved all the files from /etc/yum.repos.d to /etc/yum.repos.d/old_repfiles, we're gonna leave them untouched and restore them once we're done so that system is back to its normal settings.

Create a file named 'fedora.repo' in /etc/yum.repos.d

vim fedora.repo

Copy and Paste the following into the fedora.repo file

[fedora]
name=Fedora $releasever - $basearch
failovermethod=priority
baseurl=file:///opt/temp/
enabled=1
metadata_expire=7d
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-$basearch

Save and Exit by typing

:wq

Now, install whatever you wanted to, in this case openoffice, lets try the writer

yum install openoffice.org-writer

Now, once you're done

delete the fedora.repo file that you created from /etc/yum.repos.d
And you gotta restore all the repository files we moved into /etc/yum.repos.d/old_repfiles back to /etc/yum.repos.d

Becareful with the 'mv' command, you might loose data.

CCNA guides comparison: Todd Lammle Vs Richard Deal

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 01:51:00 +0000

Which guide are you using for your CCNA preparation? I will compare the famous book by Mr. Todd Lammle with Mr. Richard Deal. Everyone suggests Todd lammle for sure and I think it depends how far one can absolutely love it. I did not like it as much as everyone else.

Well here are the things you should know about Todd's guide:

1.He talks about stuff you might have never heard of, yet he promises to tell you about it later in the book and he tells that in a friendly way, this is frustrating.
2.The book covers over and above CCNA objectives, its good in a way but if our priority is becoming CCNA, those extra topics would kill your time.
3.His style of teaching is OK but not so good on few topics, actually waste of time and energy.
4.For configurations the book rocks, thats for sure. He uses a topology throughout the guide and implements different configurations like RIP, Eigrp, OSPF, interface configurations, IOS etc etc.
5.The book doesn't cover wireless topic effectively, you might get 3 or 4 questions from wireless in the test.
6.Whats beyond CCNA in this book: CNA for switches, IP telephone configs etc. If you've decided to use Todd Lammle's book, its very important to check his website for updates - www.lammle.com

What about Mr. Richard Deal's guide for CCNA?

1.The book is not so famous as Todd's but absolutely rocks!!!
2.You'd just read it like a story, yet the guide does not use informal way of explaining.
3.This guide is near to perfection, starts from the very basics of what a "network" is. So if you're completely new to networking, you will definitely appreciate this guide.
4.There are "Exam Watch" notes in between and they're direct questions from CCNA.
5.You complete a chapter, complete the "inside exam" section and take the "two minute drill"and then take the test, you will nail the subject and will not forget.
6.Configurations are not as good as Todd's but definitely NOT bad.

What now?
If you're confused which one to go for, go for Richard Deal, you won't regret it and if you have enough time you can through the configurations from Todd's guide. Like, after you're done with RIP, EIGRP, you take a look at the configuration section in Todd's guide. But this is redundant cos your labs are already covered in Richard's guide. And use GNS3 for your lab practice.

If you want to do a mixed study from both guides, you might wanna study these topics from Richard's guide for sure to be on safe side:

Layer 2 Technologies (all about cables and layer 2 protocols)
VLANs and Trunks(dot1q, ISL, EtherChannel etc)
Switches and Redundancy (STP, PVSTP+, RSTP etc)
WAN - Frame Relay, VPN
IPV6
NAT
Wireless

Reminding again, the 'Exam Watch' notes in Richard's guide are answers to direct questions from CCNA.
And for the rest Todd's guide did pretty good including:

OSI Model but take a look at Richard's on Data Link Layer (LLC and MAC)
Subnetting, VLSM, troubleshooting TCP/IP
IOS and SDM
Managing Cisco Internetwork
IP Routing - RIP, EIGRP, OSPF
Security

Softmaker Office 2008 for free - worth $80

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:08:00 +0000

If you want to try something new or if you do not already own microsoft office or even more if you like charity then this is for you.
What it has to offer:

1.TextMaker - equivalent to word, take a look at screen shot below.

2. PlanMaker - equivalent to Excel
3. Softmaker Presentations - equivalent to Power point ( screenshot below )

Whats nice: you can work on all your Microsoft docs, excel, ppts without any converter in between. ex: when we try to open docx(MS 2007) in MS 2003 word it needs a converter to open the doc.
This is what it says on their website:

Christmas is coming early this year...
Between today and December 31, SoftMaker gives away full versions of SoftMaker Office 2008 for Windows – permanently usable and upgradable to future versions.

But there is more: For every download on www.loadandhelp.com, SoftMaker donates € 0.10 (ten Euro Cents) to charity and development projects worldwide on www.betterplace.org.

credits:
Thanks to Kaushik(www.instantfundas.com).

Implement NAT in GNS3

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 11:27:00 +0000

What is NAT?
Network Address Translation translates your local or private IP addresses to public IP addresses so you can communicate with the internet world.
Why NAT? Because its expensive to buy public IP addresses to each and every computer in a network.

Types of NAT:
Static NAT: This is like one-to-one i.e. your one particular private ip address is always translated to one dedicated public ip address.
Dynamic NAT: This is like many-to-many. Your list of private ip addresses are translated to a pool of public addresses, a public ip dynamically picked from that pool for your private ip addresses.
PAT-Port Address Translation: This is like one to many. Your list of private ip addresses are translated to one public ip address. This uses source port no. of your local network to differentiate individual hosts or computers in your local network. This is also called NAT Overload.

Lab:
Local router:
f0/0 - desktop
f0/1 - vpcs1
s1/0 - border router

Border router:
s1/0 - local router
s1/1 - isp router

Isp router:
s1/1 - border router and f0/0 - vpcs2

Local router configuration:

Border router configuration:

Isp router Configuration:

Vpcs Configuration:

Desktop( MS Loop back Adapter) gets 10.0.0.2 255.255.255.252, GW: 10.0.0.1, DNS: 10.0.0.1
We will use EIGRP in Local and Border routers for routing protocol, so that desktop and vpcs can communicate with Border router via Local router. We will configure them both routers in Autonomous system no 10 so they become neighbours and exchange topology database.

local(config)#router eigrp 10
local(config-router)#network 10.0.0.0

Border router should be able to communicate with both public and private networks. With Eigrp, border router is already communicating with our local networks. In real world, all local computers connect to border router and border router knows how to get to ISP router, these settings are given by ISP provider. For this lab, we will need to configure border router ourselves, it needs to know the routes. We can use any routing protocol but because we only have one network 99.0.1.0 to be included in the routing table, since 99.0.0.0 is directly connected, lets use static routing.

border(config)#router eigrp 10
border(config-router)#network   10.0.0.0
border(config-router)#network 99.0.0.0
border(config)#ip   route   99.0.1.0    255.255.255.252     99.0.0.2
border(config)#ip    default-network    99.0.0.0

I also used 'ip default-network' command so EIGRP can adveterise it to local router.
With all the above setup we should be able to succefully ping within our local network and within our public i.e. 99.0.0.0 and 99.0.1.0 network. But we can not ping from local network to public network and thats where NAT comes into picture. NAT will translate our local ip addresses to public ip address so we can communicate with our public networks. We are going to implement NAT overload or PAT in our border router.

border(config)#ip   nat   pool   test   99.0.0.1   99.0.0.1 netmast    255.255.255.252
border(config)# access-list   10   permit   10.0.0.0    0.0.255.255
border(config)# ip   nat   inside   source   list   10 pool   test   overload

First line creates a pool called 'test' with a range of public addresses. In this case only 99.0.0.1 because we're implementing NAT overload i.e. many-to-one. However, we can use more than one public IP.
Second line creates a list of our local addresses identified by no. '10' with 'permit' option.
Third line tells NAT to translate inside addresses that are specified in list no. 10 to addresses in pool named 'test', the 'overload' tells NAT to use port no.'s to identify a particular host in the local network.
Now we're left configuring interfaces as belonging to inside network or outside network in our border router. In this lab, s1/0 of border router belongs to inside network and s1/1 to the outside.

border(config)#int s1/0
border(config-if)# ip nat inside
border(config-if)#int s1/1
border(config-if)#ip nat outside

Verification:

References:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk365/technologies_tech_note09186a0080094374.shtml

CCNA discount - $190 only, save $60

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 01:04:00 +0000

Yes thats true, save yourself some money if you're planning to write CCNA on/before this dec 1st. However if you're planning to take the test after dec 1st, keep yourself updated with www.gercertify4less.com, plan your preparation and watchout for discounts.

Note: This offer is valid until Dec 1st.

Now, make sure you click the right one below..

For test centers outside USA/Canada please go HERE

Test centers ONLY in USA/Canada please go HERE

Universities to choose in USA

noreply@blogger.com (freeman) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:40:00 +0000

What kind of university are you looking to get into do your masters?

Financial AID?:
1.Californian universities DO NOT OFFER any kind of financial aid to international students. They're not even eligible to apply for aid, period!
2.If you want to study in california no matter what but still don't want to pay too much of tuition fee, you might want to consider -
HGU - Herguan University : (tuition fee less than $3000, lowest in california, quality wise not as good as SJSU but better now)

ITU-Internation Technological University: (tuition fee a bit high for 1st sem, think around $4000+ but around $3500 or less after 1st sem, quality wise not as good but OK)
NPU-Northwest Polytechnic University: (tuition fee is between $4000-$4500, quality OK, not bad)
SJSU-San Jose State University: (tuition fee is around $5000+, quality is excellent, no doubt about that, its a reputed university, very good for VLSI)
SCU- Santa Clara University: (tuition fee is around $6000+, quality is excellent, reputed university)

And there are others in california but thats the core list above.

Other Universities not in california, that you might wanna consider that offer financial aid for international students are:

Eastern Illinoi University (offers only computer science, no electrical engg)
Texas A and M commerce
Temple University

Well, there are others as well but this is a short list to get you started. Good luck.

Flash photo slideshow creator - Free

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:45:00 +0000

Grab it before the deal expires. Excellent software, installed like a breeze on vista, made a photo slideshow within minutes, cool templates. check it out... Thanks to www.giveawayoftheday.com. To Download go HERE

Here is the story from the site -
iPixSoft Flash Slideshow Creator is a unique flash slideshow software to help you turn digital photos into flash slideshow, thumbnail gallery, flash album and flash presentation with professional designed templates, transition effects, text captions, background music, etc. It enables you to output SWF movie, Executable File, HTML file and screen saver or even send by email directly. Enjoy it on this holiday season!

Features:

Drag-n-drop to create flash slideshow/photo gallery
Add up to 500 photos
Add your background music
35+ Free Pre Designed Template
70+ transition effects include swift and push effects
Enable and set Intro & Credit Movie
Decorate with 130+ cliparts and 100+ sounds
Share your flash movie with your family and friends on Internet

Microsoft Loop Back Adapter - GNS3

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:50:00 +0000

How to install MS loopback Adapter:

Open Control Panel, double click 'Add Hardware'
In the 'Welcome to add hardware' wizard, click 'next', choose 'install the hardware that i manually select from a list(Advanced)' and then 'next'
In the 'Common Hardware Types' list choose 'Network Adapters' and then 'next'
Select 'microsoft' in the 'Manufacturer' section and 'microsoft loop back adapter' in the 'Network Adapter' section and then 'next' and 'next'

Open your GNS3 with administrative privilege i.e. right click on it and 'run as administrator'

Add a router and a cloud or a computer (computer symbol if you have configured its type as cloud)
Rt. click on cloud/computer symbol, 'configure,' in the 'Node Configurator' window select appropriate cloud in the left column (C0). In the 'NIO Ethernet' tab, 'Generic Ethernet NIO(require administrator access)' select 'MS Loopback Adapter' in the drop down list and click 'Add', Apply, OK.
Now in the GNS3 window, connect router's fastethernet(f0/0) to the computer/cloud's interface which is our loop back interface.
Start the router, console it and enter commands as shown in the below picture.

Change the speed to 10mbps using 'speed 10' command cos MS loopback adapter network type is 'ethernet' which is 10mbps. Thats how it worked me.

Now lets go to - Control Panel->Network Sharing center->(left column) Manage Network Connections.

Rt. click on your MS loop back adapter, select properties.
Select - internet protocol version 4(TCP/IPv4), and then properties.
Fill in the details as show in fig.

Verification:

ping your router ( 10.0.0.1) from windows command prompt.

ping your loopback adapter ( 10.0.0.2) from GNS3 router.

OR you also could check mac addresses by 'show arp' in command prompt and router console.

P.S. I "disabled my firewall" totally, this is "Must" OR you could also change your firewall rules to accept ICMP requests instead of disabling it totally.
Making this work wasn't easy but I finally found the solution and it worked, you should be able to get this to work too.

Insanely Super Fast Web Browser

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 04:36:00 +0000

I loved firefox for its features, ease of use, keyboard shortcuts etc etc. I am sure you appreciate firefox too. I use it a lot with about 8+ tabs opened everytime. But I honestly was not happy with the time it takes to load and I decided to search on the internet if there is any browser that is fast just for a backup to firefox.

And I found K-meleon. This is a open source and absolutely free. People on internet said it is fast and best browser out there and they said it right.
It definitely is very fast, opens up and loads websites in a blink of an eye. I just cant say enough how fast it does things, you gotta try. I wanted to have this as a backup but it replaced my firefox totally.

Take a look at screen shot. I customised the appereance, hid all the toolbars, menubar, bookmarks etc etc. Just so I can have more room for the page. I can access all the options using keyboard shortcuts anyway. This broswer can fit a lot of tabs than firefox.

You wanna try, here is the direct download.

Check out its speed in the video. Both firefox and k-meleon are compared with about 8 tabs. If k-meleon were to be loaded with no tabs at all it just loads in no time, its like a dry leaf, very light weight.

VTP in gns3

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:38:00 +0000

To use your router as a switch:Right click on router, configure and in the slots tab select NM-16esw for slot1 as shown in fig.

This is a simple topology to verify VTP. topology is as shown in the picture. I also used VPCS as pcs.
I used routers as switches in gns3, please be aware that gns3 does not support all of the switch commands ex: port security.

Topology details:
-sw1 - f1/0 is connected to      sw2 - f1/0 which is our trunk link.

-sw1 - f1/1 is connected to Vpcs1( Local port: 30000, Remote host: 127.0.0.1, Remote port:20000)

-sw2 - f1/1 is connected to Vpcs2(Local port: 30001, Remote host: 127.0.0.1, Remote port:20001)

-sw1 - VLAN 1 IP Address is    172.16.1.1    255.255.255.0

-sw2 - VLAN 1 IP Address is    172.16.1.2    255.255.255.0

-Ping 172.16.1.2 on sw1 and Ping 172.16.1.1 on sw2 to verify connectivity.

-After creating VLAN 2 in sw1's VLAN database it should appear in sw2 as well due to VTP.

-Assign port f1/1 to VLAN 2 and give a 'no shutdown' command on both switches.

-Vpcs1 - IP Address is   10.0.0.1/24, GW-10.0.0.250 (just for syntax).

-Vpcs2 - IP Address is   10.0.0.2/24, GW-10.0.0.250 (just for syntax).

-Ping 10.0.0.2 from Vpcs1 and Ping 10.0.0.1 from Vpcs2 to verify connectivity.

VLAN 1 is in its own subnet 172.16.1.0/24 and
VLAN 2 is in its own subnet 10.0.0.0/24

Note:

Each and every interface must be manually turned on by 'no shutdown' command.
We have to set a VTP domain name and ofcourse, same on both the switches. Only then, we will see the Configuration Revision Value and others parameters being updated in the switches.

Now that the topology is ready, please watch the below videos to see how VTP worked.
Please watch in full screen for clear view. Videos are playing rather fast, you might want to pause in between to help.

Part One

Part Two

Do not forget to..

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 03:38:00 +0000

Two things I would like to suggest not to forget.
1. When you travel within USA, do not forget to check out prices on southwest airlines at Southwest.com.
We always check out prices on
kayak.com, priceline.com, orbitz.com, cheaptickets.com, etc etc ( If you're not already aware, there you have the list!)
Anyway whats the point here is, none of these sites list southwest airlines. And I always found southwest offering the best rates, moreover YOUR BAGS FLY FREE!!! with southwest. Otherwise you'd be paying about $15 for your 1st checked bag and about $25 for your 2nd one. You'd save $40 with southwest if you have two bags. If you do not have bags at all then you have more options to consider, I would also suggest to check FrontierAirlines.com in that case.

2. When you buy stuff online, especially electronic stuff do not forget to check amazon.com(good for californians) and buy.com. Also, note that Amazon does not tax except KS, KY, ND, WA. So if you're not living in one of them states, you'd pay flat rate, the list price and mostly free shipping if your purchase is above $25. Buy.com taxes only these CA, MA, NY, TN. I am not excluding other sites well known sites out there, it is always good to check prices on deals2buy.com, pricegrabber.com etc search for your product.

Total guide: free mp3 player for your website.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:31:00 +0000

There are many mp3 players out there for your blog/website like xspf player, flourish player, mixpod etc etc. Some work in firefox only, some work in both firefox and internet explorer but don't playlist. Anyway, with this post you'll be able to setup a working mp3 player for your website/blog.

1.First, you'll need a file hosting service, where you can store files(mp3 files in this case).
There are many free file hosting services out there. I will go with www.skydrive.live.com
Capacity: 25GB
Max upload size: 50MB
Sign in to www.skydrive.live.com with your msn, hotmail or any live ID and upload your mp3 files into your public folder.

2.Right click on this link and save link as/save target as and save it to your PC... PLAYER_MP3_MULTI.SWF and then upload it to your skydrive public folder.

3.We need permanent links for your files in skydrive so they're accessible over the internet all the time through the same links.

4.Now, as with the most of the file hosting services skydrive doesn't give out a permanent link for a file, so a file which is accesible through a link today may not be accessible tomorrow through the same link.
But don't worry! Thanks to Tim Acheson, he found a solution for us. Go ahead and get your permanent links to your files HERE

NOTE: You have to encode your link to use with Tim Acheson's API. From your skydrive copy the "web address." as shown in the figure and go to this SITE TO ENCODE .

5. You now have the permanent links for your mp3 player and your mp3 files.

Sign into your blog and click on customize at top right corner
Click on "Add a gadget", that opens a window, in that look for HTML/JavaScript and click on it.
Title: mp3 player, in "Content" copy and paste the following code:

<object data="http://yoursite.com/player_mp3_multi.swf" 
width="200" height="100" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">
    <param value="http://yoursite.com/player_mp3_multi.swf" 
                     name="movie"/>
    <param value="#ffffff" name="bgcolor"/>
    <param value="mp3=http://yoursite.com/song1.mp3 | 
http://yoursite.com/song2.mp3&amp;title=song1 | song2 
&amp;autoplay=0&amp;showvolume=1" name="FlashVars"/>
</object>

In the above code, replace the "http://yoursite.com/player_mp3_multi.swf" and "http://yoursite.com/song1.mp3" with your actual permanent links of your mp3 player and your mp3 files.
Click on save button and you're done

This mp3 player both in firefox and internet explorer, unlike xspf player or any others I tried and it is tiny and simple. I have this working mp3 player in my blog-footer, you should be able to have one too.

Free calls to USA

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:04:00 +0000

Do you have a metroPCS or Boost or any other service with unlimited plan? If yes, this is not for you :)
However, if you don't have one of them and would like to save some minutes on your phone this post will help.

Many of us forget about yahoo messenger! which actually lets you make free toll free calls within USA, you also have a number pad with that, so you can respond when asked to press a number. Type the toll free phone no. that you'd like to call in the space provided and hit ENTER. That will place your call. Call quality is excellent.

As I said yahoo is good for only toll free no.'s unless you want to pay! If you do like to call regular US phone no.'s for free you can go to www.callingamerica.com, that lets you call for 5 mins or 15 mins if you sign up an account with them, Call quality is ok.

English Words Pronunciation

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 03:39:00 +0000

Mispronouncing a English word is the last thing you wanna do. Ever ran into situations like that leading to embarrassment? Well not to worry.
I prefer UK pronunciation over US, I don't know why, but that's me.

Anyway, if you're looking for a English word meaning and pronunciation, then you wanna go to www.thefreedictionary.com/. They have both US and UK version of pronouncing, but they are a bit computerised voices.
If you're looking exclusively for pronunciation and that of real human voices, then you wanna go to www.forvo.com. This one has such a huge database, not just english but many other languages. The pronunciation are from real people from all over the world. Whats cool is you can record your pronunciation for words of any language. When you register with them you also can keep track of and can go on adding your unique pronunciation! Help them people out there who are trying to learn your language.
You can even request pronunciation from a member for specific words.
This is so helpful, you get to listen to multiple accents on a word, the website also shows the region on a map from where it was recorded. Check it out.

A must have...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:32:00 +0000

Hello all,

ESWORD: what is better than having a fully comprehensive Bible in your laptop or your desktop? Of course you can find one online but trust me it is way better to have one installed in your laptop and meditate anytime offline. You can have study notes, commentary, english dictionary and index right in one window. And they are all synchronised, i.e. when you click a verse in Bible, corresponding commentary is displayed, also the word meaning on which you clicked is displayed in the dictionary. You will find more as you use it, its a one stop bible study software. Take a look at the screen-shot below.
Here are the steps

Download e-Sword v9.5.1 from here, save it and then install it by double clicking on it from the place where it is downloaded to. (This is GUI i.e. graphical user interface ).
Now download and install the Bibles, from HERE

Modern King James version
Kings James Version

Download Commentaries from HERE; save and install them

Mathew Henry's concise commentary
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown Commentary

download and install Noah Webster's english Dictionary HERE

Note: Those are only what I chose out of many add-ons available on their, you can go to their site and see other stuff that might interest you. Their site is http://www.e-sword.net/

Any questions through comments please.

lowest calling rate to india

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:56:00 +0000

How much are you paying to call india?
indiaLD
Do you know that indiaLD is offering a free 60 min to india? sounds good, doesn't it? well you have to be lucky though, chances i think are good because they're offering this free 60 mins to 2 million accounts. So it will a FCFS(first come first serve) basis. Also, you have to lucky enough to be one of those 2 million.
OK lets take a look at their price chart below

I'd say only if you sign up for $27.00 or $29.95 you'd be paying lowest call rate to india and if you're lucky enough you might also get the free 60 mins.
Also, as a token to that you get to Send Free SMS to India. NOT BAD.

Who else is in the race?
NYMGO

Especially those who make to hyderbad, nymgo is offering lowest rate of 1.6cents. Take a look at the price chart above.
I don't think it would go any cheaper than that. Ofcourse, if you're ok in buying in bulk. like buying 27 or 29.95 bucks worth talktime from indiaLD.
This is pc to phone thing. So, if you make lot of calls to andhra pradesh and are ok with making calls from your laptop or desktop and dont'like to buy in bulk then Nymgo is your option. Call quality is excellent, let me throw that out.

Actionvoip
well, I am using actionvoip to make calls to india. They charge in Euros and the minimum you can buy from them is 10 Euros. lets take a look at their call rates to india--

India (Landline)	0.010	0.012
India (Mobile)	0.010	0.012

Anyway for 10 euros altogether I was charged, $15.5 and I got 23+ hours of talktime. Actionvoip
is a very close competitor to Nymgo and Nymgo wins the race for sure if you're only making calls to "Andhra Pradesh." This is a pc to phone thing too like nymgo, and I enjoy it for the fact that I don't need to worry about my cell phone mins during weekdays in daytime. Call quality is not bad at all.

Hope this was helpful to you. have fun paying less!

crazy VPCS!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 22:14:00 +0000

For a complete tutorial on how to use vpcs in gns3 you can check out Chris's blog here
This post will only help if you're having issues with connecting your vpcs to your routers in gns3.
Did you get this message when u tried connecting router's ethernet port in gns3 to one your vpcs?

206 - unable to create UDP NIO

steps to solve this

Start a new project if you're working on a simple one.
Otherwise, go to the "working directory" ----> where you save your projects and delete your project while your gns3 is still open with the current project.
Now you CAN connect the router to your vpcs, check that and save your project.
Try to avoid switches in between vpcs and routers when verifying communication between the router and vpcs.
Once you're connected and made sure vpc and router communicate, by pinging from either of them, you can add a switch in between.

WATCH!

Careful with the Lport and Rport entries: vpc1 gets Lport: 30000, ip: 127.0.0.1, Rport: 20000
If Lport: 30000, Rport:20000 doesn't work try with different values, you can go up to vpc9 Lport: 30008, Rport:20008

With the " 206 - unable to create UDP NIO " you'll not be able to connect your router directly to your vpc but you can connect them through a Ethernet switch in between but there won't be any communication. Thats why, to be sure, connect your vpc to your router directly and if it connects, well and good if it doesn't then you wanna start a new project altogether or do steps 2, 3.
I dont think it really matters if I open vpcs first or the gns3 first. In my video i started vpcs after gns3, so.
Watch the video below. Its a simple topology, one router and one vpcs. you'll see how the error shows up and how we can avoid that.

Configuration:
router:
f 0/0 - 192.168.2.1 255.255.255.0
vpcs
ip 192.168.2.2 192.168.2.1 24
(gateway: is the router's f0/0 192.168.2.1).

I will try to help , ask questions in the comments please. Thanks.. video here( Big screen ) or right below.

Connect your real PC into gns3 topology

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 20:59:00 +0000

Of all the features of gns3 the one i like is to be able to include my real PC in the topology I created. Lets see how we can do this:

Prereq: You have to run gns3 as Administrator for this. How? type 'gns3' in the windows start menu bar, right click on the 'gns3' program, and then 'Run as administrator.'

Now drag your router in the main window, right click on it start it, then right click choose console. keep it like that.
In the gns3 main window, click edit, symbol manager, from 'availabe symbols' select computer and click on the '>' the right arrow button. Now on the top right of the symbol manager type name as 'computer' and SELECT TYPE AS 'CLOUD' from the drop down list, then click OK. you should see this computer symbol in the left panel of gns3 main window.
Drag that computer into the work space, right click on it, choose configure, select 'c0'( this may be c1 or c2 .... ) under the clouds section.
OK now you should see bunch of tabs, first one is 'NIO ethernet'. In this tab, under "Generic ethernet NIO.. bla bla" choose your network adapter and then click on ADD, Apply, OK.

Note: If you have only one network adapter you're fine. But if you have more than one like on my laptop( wireless and lan) you wanna make sure you chose the one that is active.

OK now your router and your real PC is in the picture, lets connect them and test communication:

In the router console lets configure any of the fastethernet ports first.

router>enable
router#configure terminal
router(config)#interface fastethernet 0/0
router(config-if)#no shutdown
router(config-if)#ip address 192.168.1.222 255.255.255.0
NOTE:choose an ip address that would be in the same network as your pc. ex: my pc has 192.168.1.105

Alright, the ethernet is interface is ready on the router and the active network adapter on your pc is ready, now we need a ethernet cable to connect these two.

click on 'add a link' button on the top front panel, choose manual.
Now click on the router, it displays a list availabe interfaces, we've configured fastethernet 0/0 so lets choose f0/0.
Click on the computer, it will show the only availabe interface which is your network adaptor. so, choose that and we are done with connecting the router to your real pc.

Lets check if the connection is working:

In the command prompt
C:\>ping 192.168.1.222

Pinging 192.168.1.222 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.1.222: bytes=32 time=63ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.1.222: bytes=32 time=22ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.1.222: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.1.222: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=255

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.222:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 2ms, Maximum = 63ms, Average = 22ms
In the telnet console of your router do the same
Router#ping 192.168.1.105

Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 192.168.1.105, timeout is 2 seconds:
!!!!!
Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 4/21/40 ms
Router#

OK... so that shows we achieved what we wanted! Have fun.

free GNS3; why packet tracer?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 19:37:00 +0000

Hello people,

why look around for a pirated packet tracer. download the gns3 all in one, it is very beautiful and works like a charm in Vista. All your CCNA lab practice, building complex topologies and experiments can be done in GNS3 with drag and drop features. GNS3 works with a real cisco IOS image, so you get to practice each and every possible command.

Prereqs:

->First get a Cisco IOS image file from any of your friends who own a cisco router.

Install Telnet client:

->Open control panel/Programs/programs and feature OR just type "appwiz.cpl" in the RUN window and hit enter, that will open the 'programs and features' window
->In this window, on the left panel click on 'Turn windows features on or off'
->That will open 'windows features' window, in that tick mark the 'telnet client' and then click OK. It'll take some time to install the telnet client. Done with telnet client.

Now lets make sure if your telnet client is working: (courtesy: www.thundernews.com)

->open command prompt.
->type "telnet news.thundernews.com 119", hit enter, if you see 'welcome or connected' your telnet client is working.
-> If that didn't work you can try with these different port no.'s instead of 119, they are 119, 7000, 8000, 9000, 23, 25, 80, or 3128.

Now the stage is set, lets move on to installing GNS3:

Download the gns3 all in one here
Click on the downloaded file and run it (installation)
I'd suggest to choose 4 options in the "components to install"
After installation, type 'gns3' in windows start menu bar, click on it, opens gns3
You get two options, click on 1
In the window provide a working directory path, then click on 'test' button, you should see 'dynamips successfully started', then click apply and then ok.
Now click on button 2, you'll get "IOS images and Hypervisors" window, in 'image file' section provide the path to Cisco IOS image on your computer. Then click OK and then apply. Depending on the IOS version, the platform and model fields gets automatically populated. Take note of the model. we're done.

Now we're at the GNS3 main window, lets make use of it.

Now, press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open 'windows task manager' and minimise it.
In the left panel you can see all kinds of network devices. Drag a router model which your IOS supports, right click on it, click start.
From the 'windows task manager' you'll notice that your CPU usage goes upto 60% or even more. To fix this, right click on your router, click 'idle pc', let it calculate a value, choose any one from the list with '*' mark, see if your CPU usage drops down to somewhere around 10%, if not repeat this until it drops and dont forget to be patient for it is possible!
After that, right click on your router, choose 'console', that opens a telnet session to your router. This is as good as telnetting any real router so now you can use what you learned or do whatever.