Networking

Administrative Tools

Install GNS3 v1.4 on Windows 10

Hello world! It has been quite a bit of time since I last wrote a post here. In my defense I have been insanely busy with family, work, and especially

Bandwidth

Language Used in Discussion about Net Neutrality and Peering

**< Please see my disclaimers at the bottom of this article. >**A great deal of the discussions about net neutrality and the Netflix peering deals have me concerned because of the language people have chosen to use when discussing these topics. I fear

Networking

Network Connections Unavailable for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS or 12.10 virtual machines in VMware ESXi

I created several virtual machines in my VMware ESXi 5.1 host whose OS was Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. The installation was smooth and fast, but after they booted up for the first time there was no available network connections on any of the

2600

Using a Cisco 2600 Router at Home

Hello everyone. I thought I would share my latest success with the world which was to set up my Cisco 2621 router running iOS 12.3(22) as my primary home router. Yes, I know the 2600 routers are older (most are end-of-life and

2012

More issues and solutions for DirectAccess in Windows Server 2012, Notes from the field

Tonight, I have some more DirectAccess 2012 woes and solutions to share. These are more or less some notes I jotted down while setting up DA2012 for a customer. Note #1: The following case occurred both with my customer’s DirectAccess 2012 server, as

Networking

Duplicating an Enterprise Network in a Home Lab using VMware ESXi and Vyatta Network OS

Virtualization and software-based networking has opened up a world of possibilities not only in designing and consolidating enterprise infrastructure, but also for personal training.  I like to verify my current knowledge and and trying out new technology all the time. However, it is usually

Meraki

Notes on monitoring Meraki access points with SNMP

Originally, I was confused about how to correctly set up direct SNMPWALK access to MR access points. But after some research, trial-and-error, and some dialog with Meraki support, I finally got my act straightened out. There are a few details that you need to

Meraki

Meraki MX80 Router, Meraki MS22 Switch, and VLAN tagging

There is a serious lack of blog content on Meraki troubleshooting and experiences from I.T. pros in the world. So I figure why not write one of my own articles? This post is all about one specific problem my colleagues and I had

Free

Free TFTP Server from SolarWinds

I am borrowing a 2600 Cisco router from a good friend of mine so I can start setting up my Cisco test lab at home. After firing up the 2600 for the first time, executing SHOW VERSION showed that it that had v12.0

Cisco

Cisco Nexus 1000V Resources

I was having a very difficult time trying to find some whitepapers and trial download links for the Cisco Nexus 1000V but I found an excellent forum post in the Cisco Communities with exactly what I was looking for. User “Scaywood” put together an

Networking

How to upgrade Solarwinds ORION software

Solarwinds makes some excellent networking tools and their flagship product, ORION, is no exception. However, Solarwinds does not have the best skills when it comes to documentation. Last week, I was attempting to find out what the process is for upgrading ORION on one

Advise

Improve your internet surfing speed with Google Public DNS

**The instructions in this post are for your home computer(s) only. If your computer is owned by a business or is managed by a Systems Administrator or I.T. department, then I do NOT recommend changing your DNS settings on your computer. Please

Advise

Cable modems and Y-Splitters

Over the years, I have slowly learned that your common 3-way cable coax splitters and cable modems just do not mix well. See that picture to the right? That is a common 3-way cable splitter. In fact, this is the exact model that you

Dns

An Interesting DNS Issue

Ready for another networking lesson?! Great! Lets get started… A customer called in today asking for help because they were unable to access our website or their webmail. Everything, such as e-mail or the employee web portal, is accessed directly from our website and

Advise

How to set up your printer so that you can print to it without cables

The Question: How do you make a printer wireless? Is it even possible? Or do I need to buy a new printer? I just went from PC to laptop. My Answer: Ah, yes. Wireless. It is nice to have wireless freedom with a laptop

Advise

Does your internet connection drop out from time to time? Here is an explanation of why it happens…

I was sitting at my desk last night doing my college homework and listening to streaming music (yay for Spotify I connected my desktop PC directly to the modem and reset it. After doing an ipconfig /renew from the command line, I had Internet

Administrative Tools

Change the Windows Workgroup Name from the Command Line

I have been tasked with changing the WORKGROUP name to something different on several computers. Unfortunately, it can take upwards of 10 minutes to do this manually. It is time to use an administrative script to do the job for me! Make sure to

Advise

Don’t know the default password for your router? Search www.Default-Password.info!

One of the things that I need to do from time to time is to fix a networking issue on a wireless router, or find what a network printer’s IP address is from DHCP, and find other critical network info. One of the