tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-92170456281498803902024-12-18T22:28:05.279-05:00A networking and security junkie documenting life in the lab. The views expressed on this blog are my own unless the source is cited.Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.comBlogger69125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-30225090721286037972019-02-16T10:00:00.000-05:002019-02-16T10:00:01.533-05:00

When I took over the Firepower system at work, we had a long standing issue relating to a couple of users. Everyone in Security Operations is an admin in the FMC, however, one of our SecOps guy could not see all the events in the FMC. He can see everything in the SIEM, just not in the FMC, verifying that this is indeed a FMC issue.  2 separate TAC cases had been raised before, neither of

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-66903486885353442612019-02-09T10:00:00.000-05:002019-02-09T10:00:07.142-05:00

A quick tip for Firepower when you have a database error.  This seems to come up a lot especially if you're manually importing snort rules from an outside source such as Emerging Threats. Every once in a while you'll get a database error that will cause an operation to fail. In my case, it's the scheduled backup. The web page doesn't give you a lot go to on at first glance, but under your

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-33615128938671365652019-01-19T10:00:00.000-05:002019-01-19T10:00:04.255-05:00

Chicken Chicken Chicken Chicken. https://isotropic.org/papers/chicken.pdf

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-76334241457683339032019-01-12T10:00:00.000-05:002019-01-20T13:55:11.933-05:00

And by favorite, of course I mean least favorite ever. This one has been a thorn in my side for a while now. In the User Password Policy (Administration > Identity Management > Settings > User Password Policy), under Password Lifetime, there's a setting called "Disable user account after ____ days if password not changed." This setting is enabled by default, with a value of 60 days.

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-25422832539372697082018-12-29T10:00:00.000-05:002019-01-18T14:05:59.238-05:00

After tiring of the trips up and down the stairs dealing with a physical 3750 switch and Windows 7 workstation testing 802.1x, I decided to give it a shot virtually. And I'm pleased to report that it works like a champ.  This post is not a how to guide on setting up 802.1x, it's to show another complex configuration topic that can be done exclusively in the virtual domain.  And while

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-26157322214235101302018-12-22T10:00:00.000-05:002019-01-15T14:42:00.862-05:00

Early one morning last week I attempted to RDP into my lab to test something out I was looking into at work. Access to my terminal server was fine, but from there, I was unable to access any other system on my network. Every system that I attempted to RDP into came back stating that my user account was unauthorized for RDP access on that system. The user is a Domain Admin so there should be no

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-18644063301344059102018-12-16T10:00:00.000-05:002018-12-21T13:10:53.086-05:00

If you're a Windows 10 user, you might want to think twice about clicking on the Check for Updates button. http://disq.us/t/39kbbzc

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-24664861279049241572017-08-12T10:00:00.000-04:002018-12-21T13:27:33.939-05:00

1. What kind of Questions should I expect to see on the CCNA exam? All the information that is known about the exam is available on the Cisco Certifications pagerelating to the exam in question. The Cisco NDA forbids us from telling you anything more. This includes how many of each type of question we saw, whether or not a specific topic is covered heavily, and what specific questions we were

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-91750994601939789362017-07-22T10:00:00.000-04:002019-01-08T09:48:34.040-05:00

While reading through a discussion on Slashdot today, someone linked a thread from 1999 as proof that the Slashdot community has always been pretty dumb collectively.  The thread was on the upcoming release of VMWare, a class of products that clearly hasn't been heard of on PCs at the time. The thread can be found here.  It's amazing how a concept so ingrained today appears to be so

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-93165247454646902017-05-03T10:00:00.000-04:002018-12-21T13:11:04.927-05:00

IPv6 is one of those technologies that I've been wanting to dig into further.  I know enough that I can get through the certification exam of the day with a little book time to refresh, but I don't know it well enough.  It's not something I've been avoiding, just something that I've kept putting off because something was more pressing, more interesting, or potentially more useful. &nbsp

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-64608383448563585442017-04-26T10:00:00.000-04:002019-01-08T09:48:33.929-05:00

Tokelau is a self-governing territory of New Zealand consisting of three coral atolls in the southern Pacific Ocean. It lies north of the Samoan Islands, east of Tuvala, south of the Phoenix Islands and northwest of the Cook Islands. It's believed that the islands were first settled approximately 1000 years ago. Tokelau is a free and democratic nation with no political parties, holding elections

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-23510930804029715642017-04-19T10:00:00.000-04:002019-01-08T09:48:33.820-05:00

Saturday afternoon, I took the CISSP exam and passed.  Not only is this a sweet certification on my resume, it's the final requirement for my Masters degree.  So all in all, a pretty awesome weekend, even though it was quite stressful leading up with so much riding on this exam. So the first thing that stands out on this exam is just how long it is.  250 questions long and by far

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-35827793077790906152017-01-28T10:00:00.000-05:002019-01-08T09:48:33.886-05:00

Here's  just a quick little blurb about a problem I ran into this morning.  The cables for my SAS controller FINALLY arrived yesterday, so I installed them last night.  With the additional storage now available, I moved a couple VMs over to give the existing datastore some breathing room. It's not a very intuitive process, you have to browse the datastore, right click on the

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-76786478293489208512017-01-21T10:00:00.000-05:002019-01-08T09:48:33.995-05:00

Because I'm currently focusing on the CISSP exam, I'm going to create a new list in the spirit of my most popular post so far, the Free CCNA Resources 2.0 list.  Because I want to share it with the rest of the class in my Masters Degree Capstone course, I'm going to go ahead and post it now while it's still a little rough around the edges.  With that being said, I will not include

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-91669948245733458942017-01-14T10:00:00.000-05:002019-01-08T09:50:40.168-05:00

Like most people, I get an occasional call from an unknown number on my cell phone.  Most of the time I ignore it, especially if they're calling while I'm at work.  But if I'm bored, I may Google the number later.  And it seems like every time that I do, it's a different group of 5 or 6 "who calls me from" databases that show up in the top hits on Google.  It appears that

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-39858293739952052812016-12-24T10:00:00.000-05:002019-01-08T09:50:28.504-05:00

As I've mentioned a few times in the past, I act as an admin for one of the largest, if not the largest, Facebook groups dedicated to CCNA study.  You can find that group right here, or through the Facebook button in the top right corner of any page on this blog.  The group has a few other admins spread out through the world (so that our eyes would be on the page at different times

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-15843303844243937422016-11-26T13:11:00.000-05:002019-01-08T09:50:28.246-05:00

Here's a quick and dirty post for something that came up recently in the lab.  I was setting up an Office Web Apps server, and was getting the following error: Can't create new Office Web Apps farm: The server must be joined to a domain. Seeing this error message was a bit frustrating to say the least, because the server was indeed joined to a domain.  After a bunch of searching with

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-52992437182406957462016-11-12T10:00:00.000-05:002019-01-08T09:50:28.760-05:00

Just a short post for this week, as I've done recently.  This exam has completely consumed my time lately.  Because I had yesterday off, I scheduled my second attempt at the SENSS and nailed it this time with a score of 910.  Exams are a lot easier when you know what you need to know, aren't they?  This isn't a knock against Cisco's exam topics, I just didn't have a good idea

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-57584605893709505952016-10-08T10:00:00.001-04:002018-12-21T13:13:32.363-05:00

This week, we had an open ended question that covers a lot of areas.  This is a take on a question that was asked during the phone screening for my first I.T. job.  As with all questions in this series, do not make assumptions, and do not answer a question that was not asked. Just answer the question as completely as your knowledge allows. Your computer was just started and you just

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-5144339844159006312016-09-10T10:00:00.001-04:002018-12-21T13:13:32.234-05:00

Group Rules: 1.This is a network for the network associate. All legitimate things CCNA related, as well as most other I.T. topics may be discussed here.2.Things that may not be discussed here include (but is not limited to): Brain-dumps, any other form of copyright infringement, any illegal activity, spam, politics, and personal attacks. It doesn’t matter if it’s legal where you live,

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-64541915946320325182016-08-31T07:00:00.000-04:002018-12-21T13:13:32.406-05:00

In the following image, you'll see a network topology.  In this topology, the routers are running the RIP routing protocol.  As is traditional with these questions, I'm going to strip out all the irrelevant information.  We're not going to see any router configuration, IP addressing, or anything else that would distract from the question at hand.  The key thing we're going to

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-52711082291453926492016-08-25T07:00:00.000-04:002018-12-21T13:13:32.277-05:00

Group member Donovan Bone posted this question in a discussion, and I thought that it would be a great "Question of the Week" for the group.  So a new thread was started for just it, and a lot of members attempted to answer the question. I didn't expect the majority to get it right, but only one got it right in the three hours I watched the replies.  Not surprisingly, the one person who

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-89883280190074818532016-07-20T10:00:00.000-04:002018-12-21T13:13:32.580-05:00

I've been one of the admins of the group for a few years now, and there's a handful of questions that I see repeatedly posted.  I'm talking about the things that somebody asks at least once a week in the group.  So I've started compiling this FAQ for the group that can be posted as a response to any question that falls within this list.  As with many posts relating to the Facebook

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-14506810876511773052016-07-16T10:00:00.001-04:002018-12-21T13:13:32.063-05:00

In the CCNA group, an often posted question is "what books should I be reading?" or the less inspired "What is the best networking book?"  Well, it's never quite that simple.  What are you looking to learn?  Do you want to become proficient in networking in general, or are you looking to become proficient in Cisco related networking?  Yes, there is a difference.  Do you

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9217045628149880390.post-50566879052747392012016-07-13T10:00:00.000-04:002019-01-08T09:50:28.675-05:00

One of the big topics currently in Cisco's security track is Netflow.  According to Cisco, "NetFlow provides valuable information about network users and applications, peak usage times, and traffic routing."  With all of it's known, and yet to be discovered uses, it's no doubt that NetFlow will continue to be a big part of Cisco's security exams for the foreseeable future, as well as

Alanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07734115663963822725noreply@blogger.com0