IOS — My EtherealMind

My Way of Selecting a Cisco IOS Release With a Bug Scrub

8th March 2012 By Greg Ferro 14 Comments

Cisco is known for shipping products early to deliver new features quickly. But this leads to a reputation for buggy code which has customers report bugs (and Cisco fixing them). This means that you should never buy a newly released Cisco product unless you are willing to take this risk. This post looks a my process for analysing this risk and then selecting an IOS version by performing a bug scrub. In this case, I’ve been asked whether the Cisco C3750-X switches are ready for live deployment.

Filed Under: Blessay, Blog, Cisco, Design Tagged With: Cisco, IOS, Operation

Basics: Cisco IOS Native VLANs

9th June 2011 By Greg Ferro 10 Comments

Cisco IOS and Native VLANs – some brief notes to myself.

Filed Under: Basics Tagged With: Cisco, IOS

Those Non-IOS Files on the Flash. Are They Useful ?

8th June 2011 By Greg Ferro 4 Comments

When you first receive a router from a Cisco warehouse, it comes with a complete collection of IOS add ons. A common question is whether these files are used for anything ?

Filed Under: Blog, Cisco, Operation Tagged With: IOS, Operation

IOS Memory Tables Removed From Documentation

28th May 2011 By Greg Ferro Leave a Comment

From IOS 15.1M&T release notes at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/ios/15_1/release/notes/151TFEAT.html Memory Recommendations The memory recommendation tables have been removed from the Cisco IOS Release 15.1M&T release notes to improve the usability of the release notes documentation. The memory recommendations that were provided by these tables are available through Cisco Feature Navigator. So the only way to check the [...]

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Cisco, IOS

Show Ip Eigrp Topology All

22nd May 2011 By Greg Ferro Leave a Comment

Once upon a time the command was “show ip eigrp topology” to show EIGRP topology, now it’s “show ip eigrp topology all” and the old command show only Feasible Successors.

Filed Under: Cisco, Operation Tagged With: Cisco, cli, IOS, Operation

OSX: Shortcuts for Subnet Masks With TextExpander

9th March 2011 By Greg Ferro 4 Comments

I’m always looking for ways to improve my writing speed and accuracy. One way is to use specific keyboard shortcuts for tasks that are repetitive and prone to inaccuracy. So, using Cmd-C / Cmd-V for for Copy and Paste makes a whole load of good sense as it’s faster & more accurate than using the mouse to click through multiple menus, and put the cursor where it needs to be.

However, keyboard shortcuts are kind of limited. A more flexible approach is to use a program that can substitute short sets of text into much longer pieces. To do this, I use a program called TextExpander to keep a library of ‘snippets’ for expansion into a range of useful actions.

For example, I have a text snippet etmd and whenever I type these four letters, it is automatically expanded to EtherealMind.

The possibilities are endless, and I’m hoping to share a few different ideas and get feedback from you to help me build my collection of useful shortcuts.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: IOS, osx, worklife

Cisco IP Traceroute Characters

25th February 2011 By Greg Ferro Leave a Comment

Note to self about Cisco Traceroute characters and what they mean. Directly from the Cisco IOS user documentation.

Filed Under: Blog, Operation Tagged With: Cisco, IOS, Operation

Cisco IOS Emulator Petition – Reloaded

11th February 2011 By Greg Ferro Leave a Comment

Due to popular demand I have restarted the IOS Petition. The last petition got to nearly 1200 signatures before something caused it to crash. Either way, it’s time to signal to Cisco that we remain serious and committed to getting proper access to testing and learning emulation software.

Remember, if you are using Dynamips you won’t be able to test IOS Version 15.0. What will you do when they come for you ?

After all, Cisco’s share price dropped 12% this week, maybe they will be listening a bit more closely to their customers instead of ignoring us.

Head over to the petition and sign up. The system has protection against blind and double voting – I’ve activated the email confirmation. I won’t abuse your email address but you will need to use a genuine email or your vote doesn’t count.

Cisco IOS Petition – Reloaded

Filed Under: Blog, Featured Tagged With: Cisco, Dynamips, IOS

Cisco IOS CLI Shortcuts

6th February 2011 By Greg Ferro 17 Comments

Mostly for my own reference. I really need to practice using the Delete Buffer commands and Ctrl-R Refesh as part of my muscle memory.

Filed Under: Basics, Blog, CCIE, Cisco, Featured, Operation Tagged With: cli, IOS

Three Ways to Fix the Cisco IOS Translating “Xyz” Domain Server

27th January 2011 By Greg Ferro 10 Comments

Fixing the Cisco IOS Domain Lookup – three different options.

Filed Under: Blog, Cisco, Operation Tagged With: IOS