I hate LAX.

I hate LAX.

If ever there was an airport that sits on the edge of a land the $Diety forgot, this is that airport.  I'd call it Hell, but it's more of a special type of Purgatory where people go to be forgotten, wandering between terminals having to go out of and into security between flights, where you sit in armpit terminals waiting for your aircraft for hours while watching the delayed time increment by 15 minute intervals every 15 minutes.  Best of all, even once your plane finally gets to the gate you're informed over the amazingly unintelligible PA system that there are mechanical issues and they're getting a mechanic to come out and look at the problem.

And that about sums up my afternoon sitting in the American Eagle terminal.

When Dreams Die (Or at least get put on hold)

On February 21st, 2013 I failed the CCIE R&S lab for the 5th time.

I've been working towards the CCIE for about 2.5 years now.  I passed the written in Jan 2011, and I've been working on the lab ever since.  I've put nearly my entire life, both personal and professional, on hold while I've chased this dream.  That's been a luxury that has caught up with me finally and now my attention must be focused in other areas.  I am no longer able to spend weekday evenings, and the majority of my weekends in my den, with my rack, furiously typing away on the CLI.

I'm hoping I can still get a hour or two here and there to at least keep things fresh in my mind.  Maybe come late fall or winter I will be better prepared to ramp up again for another attempt.  But in the meantime I need to look at buying a house, move to a new city, focus on work and some partner related certifications that my employer would like me to get, and deal with a couple neglected customers.

I still plan to post up here as much as I can.  I had always intended to keep this going post CCIE.  I even have a few ideas about some things I'd like to do in making this more of a full site beyond simple blog posts.  Maybe this hiatus will allow me to do some of that.

Thanks to everyone who stops by here and reads what I put out.  And thanks to everyone who's helped me along the way so far.  With a little luck I can be back on the trail sooner rather than later.

50,000

Thanks to everyone who has ever been here, and those of you that keep coming back.  Somehow this blog has managed to rack up 50,000 page views in the time it's been online. Sure, it's a small number compared to an actually big Internet site, but to think that my blog has been looked at 50,000 times is pretty amazing to me and I certainly don't take it for granted.

So here's to all of you! You people kick ass!

Jason

Mind Your IPv6 PIM Designated Routers

IPv6. Multicasting.

Anyone still here to read this?  There is?  I didn’t scare all of you off?

:)

While labbing last night I managed to configure myself a perfectly non-working IPv6 multicast configuration that appeared to have nothing wrong.  In fact, under certain circumstances it did work, but the one specific test I wanted to do to prove reachability just simply wasn’t working.  I eventually managed to sort it out, though it took a bit of brute forcing PIM parameters to get it to work, and to then sort out why it worked.

Broken Network's Quick and Dirty Guide to Traffic Shaping

This is a very brief look at Generic Traffic Shaping (GTS), Frame Relay Traffic Shaping (FRTS) and Class Based Traffic Shaping. Nothing more, nothing less. You won’t learn the finer points of traffic shaping from this post, but you will see configuration examples of all three so that you’ll know the difference between them when you see them in a config, or if you’re asked to configure a specific type.

Assigning Addresses over PPP using DHCP

This topic is something that seems to kick my ass every time I need to configure it.  For some reason I can easily remember how to set up PPPoE, and I can remember how to dynamically assign addresses to the clients using IPCP without issue.  But for some reason I have a real mental block when it comes to using DHCP instead.  To that end, it’s time to blog it!

Spoofing Source IP's with a Fortigate

Something new for the blog: A Fortinet post! 

I work for a Fortinet partner, and in the last few months I've been doing more and more work with their Fortigate line.  Tonight I just discovered a really handy "feature" that has allowed me to test a change that $Provider made to their routing that I wasn't able to test directly.  Details after the jump.

OSPF NSSA External LSA: Type 7

Still with me?  Good stuff!  We’re almost done.  Last up is the OSPF Type 7 NSSA External LSA.

OSPF External LSA: Type 5

Welcome to the OSPF Type 5 LSA!

The Type 5 LSA is used to advertise routes that are external to the OSPF domain within the OSPF domain (hence the External moniker). There are two types of Type 5 LSA’s: Type 1 and Type 2 (seriously?).  We’ll be looking at both here.

OSPF Summary LSA's: Type 3 & 4

And now for everyone’s favourite LSA, the Type 3 LSA!

Combined with everyone’s least favourite LSA, the Type 4 LSA!