Archive for July, 2008

AppleScript to SSH to my bastion host, then telnet to a remote host. Works best if you have RSA/DSA public-key authentication and an ssh-agent configured. Could probably use some better error handling.

set myBastion to "public.example.com"

tell application "iTerm"
  activate

  display dialog "Enter hostname:" default answer "none"
  set theResult to result
  set theHost to text returned of theResult

  set aTerm to (current terminal)

  if (count of terminal) = 0 then
    set aTerm to (make new terminal)
  end if

  tell aTerm
    set aSession to (make new session at end of sessions)

    tell aSession
      set name to theHost
      exec command "ssh -t " & myBastion & " telnet " & theHost
    end tell
  snd tell

end tell

What I Did:

• IEATC-RSv4.5 Day 6 Parts 1-2 – Catalyst Security
  Port security, storm control, 802.1x, Q-in-Q tunneling.  Other than Q-in-Q, mostly simple stuff that is minimally-covered on the R&S exam but heavily on the security exam.  DocCD stuff, in other words.

What I Did:

• IEATC-RSv4.5 Day 6 Parts 4-6 – Advanced Spanning Tree
  Great coverage of STP by Brian McG. I especially liked the detailed examples of path manipulation, showing the effects of changing local cost and port priority on the upstream and downstream switches’ root port selection. Interestingly, he didn’t really cover the designated port selection process, probably because he was working from the IE lab topology (a full mesh). IPExpert’s STP material used a basic “square” network, which made it much clearer how the DP was selected vs. the blocking ports.

Received my paper copy of the Cisco Press exam guide, and started reading through the basic Ethernet and L2 switching material. I still need to go back through and update my study outline based on the book material; right now it’s only based on the IE class lectures. Once I finish the Catalyst Security lectures, I’m basically done with the switching side of things, so that’ll be a good opportunity to update my notes before diving into layer 3.

Note: I’m going to number my “CCIE days” based on when I actually study, not on calendar days.

Received my printed IE workbooks in the mail yesterday, along with IPExpert’s “hard drive of fun” containing their VoD and audio content. My mountain of study materials continues to grow.

Ordered a paper copy of the Cisco Press R&S exam guide to be able to study offline when I just have to get away from the computer for a bit. Even with my Macbook Air, sometimes it’s just not convenient to read on a laptop.

What I Did:

• IEATC-RSv4.5 Day 1 Part 4 – Layer 3 Switching and EtherChannel
  This was a lot of review, as we do a large amount of both at work. Good review of PAgP vs. LACP, though, which we mostly don’t use.
• IPExpert Video-on-Demand Day 1 – Bridging and Switching
  Quite a contrast to IE’s class-on-demand, and only a 5-day format instead of 10, so it was a bit less in-depth. Touched on several new points, though, that weren’t covered by IE. My first impression is that I prefer the IE format where the slides or consoles stay on the screen full-time, vs. switching back and forth to Scott Morris’s smiling face.

Up Next:

• IEATC Advanced Spanning Tree lectures
• more CCIE LAN Switching and CCO review of switching content
• onward and upward to layer 3!

Got no studying done today, since I spent 6 1/2 hours in line to get a new iPhone 3G.  It is very awesome.

• Amazon.com: CCIE Routing and Switching Exam Certification Guide (3rd Edition) (Exam Certification Guide): Wendell Odom, Rus Healy, Naren Mehta: Books
  The bible for CCIE R&S written exam studying. I have the electronic version from Safari but not the paper version yet.
  (tags: books cisco certification ccie)

• Aaron’s Worthless Words: How screen can change your life
• CCIE Candidate: Unicast Reverse Path Forwarding Tutorial
• Scribd: Federation at Flickr: Doing Billions of Queries Per Day
• Cheat Sheets for Front-end Web Developers
• Five Runs: Introducing DataFabric

What I Did:

• IEATC-RSv4.5 Day 1 Part 2 – Ethernet
  This section was mostly about trunking and DTP. Learned quite a bit, since we generally hard-code all of our trunks, so I was a bit rusty on the negotiation options.
• IEATC-RSv4.5 Day 1 Part 3 – VTP
  Lots on pruning, but mostly stuff I’ve worked on before.

Started an OmniOutliner document containing my class notes and notes from my expanded research. Need to find a clean way to mark up questions that I want to turn into flash cards.

Tomorrow is building on the Trunking and VTP class information using the CCIE LAN Switching book and CCO. Next up in the IE class is Layer 3 Routing and EtherChannel, followed by Frame Relay.

Resources:

• InternetworkExpert Advanced Technology Class On-Demand (IEATC-RSv4.5)

• CCO: Cisco Guide to Harden Cisco IOS Devices
• CCO: Cisco IOS Image Verification
• Cisco Blog: CCNA Voice exam debrief
• NIL Wiki: QoS Policing in Cisco IOS

What I Did:

• IEATC-RSv4.5 Day 1 Part 1 – Introduction
  This was mostly just “how to prepare for the exam” material. Started a bit late in the evening, so I didn’t get much of a chance to dive into the technical content yet.

First day, starting fresh, so this is a bit light.

Resources:

• InternetworkExpert Advanced Technology Class On-Demand (IEATC-RSv4.5)