Category Archives: General

For non tech related post (personal stuff)

OK back for another shout

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Well work still busy, and still struggling to find the time to study for my ROUTE exam. But that does not mean I have been doing nothing.

Work sent me on my ITIL Foundation course last week and please to say I passed, so thats one more string to the bow. I was suprised it was a lot more intresting that I thought, and while it still was in my view ‘common sence’. seeing it all togather with all the termonology, does mean I can now look back on some conversations I have had in the past and make some sence of them. For any one looking to get in to the managed service side of things, or wants a foot in the door for such company, it going to be a good cert to have.

The other thing that has been keeping me away from the CCNP is learning scripting and c#. I have already talked about writing some VB scripts to control Secure CRT. but of course to do this you need CRT installed on the PC in the first place. So taking it one step further I started looking at SecureCRT client pack, this is a instulation, that once installed on a PC, you can then call the functions when programing in any .net language, such as VB.net or C#.net This gives much more control over the application and gives the end user a much cleaner interface to use. However you still need to have the client pack installed and this costs money and the hassle of instulation.

So my next stop was Sharp SSH , this is a free SSH libuary with some simmler funcanality to the SecureCRT function pack (for what I want) and allows eaiser distribution of the final aplication.

So after a few steps, and lots of playing around, I now have the core understanding I need to start creating my vision. So as well as working on my CCNP, looking after my Daugher, and atempting to move house. Not forgetting the extra hours that come from managing at work. I am working on creating an application that will allow you to create a libruay of scripts you wish for CISCO IOS/CATOS devices. Including any pre / post checks you require and how to ack on there out comes, Plus allow you to define any varibles that will change between runs. Then allow you to feed in the varibles at run time (either manualy or via a bulk method), and carry out the work completely automated.

Really this is jsut a project for me to learn some more in depth scripting / programing, but as people who carry out mutiply changes, this can often be a repetive job, so I am hoping once complete I will end up with a tool that is very useful for my current postition.

So if you wondered where I was thats about sums it up. Life is great just very busy, and just waiting to get our house sorted, then I will be setting up a nice quiet area to study and getting stuck right back in to CCNP and getting back in to updating and adding to this blog.

night all

DevilWAH

PS. Oh and Miss Lilith is now walking, from bum shuffling to walking has taken less than 10 days, and not only is she walking but climbing to!! she is very proud to show how she can climb on to the couch, and thinks it is very funny to give Mum and Dad heart attacks by almost falling. But its a great time and wonderful watching her grow. being waved good bye to in the mornings, and greated with a huge smile and laughter when I get home, make life very special at the moment. 🙂

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Where have I been….

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Well I’m still here, started the new job and while I having great fun it has been 6 days a week. But really getting in to it and looking forward to the next few months. Nice team to work with and lots of new things to learn and discover.

The new job plus the little one are meaning not much time to study, but I have decided to purchase an android based tablet so I can read and watch videos on the way to work (travel by train).

But hopefully over the next few weeks I will get back to the studying again. got a list of things to cover, and want to update my Flash cards..

Also just saw that CBT nuggets have released the SWITCH videos, you can find the link to there site over to the right. If you are getting in to studying CISCO I strongly recommend you look them up. Not cheap the courses but they are extremal good.

Well must go to bed now but will be back soon to post more about STP enhancements and ROUTING topics.

DevilWAH

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Why No Route Posts

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I know I have been a bit lapse on Route posts lately. New job, sleepless baby and some other things on, have meant that I haven’t had much time to study. Much less write up posts and write new flash cards.

But hopefully over the next week things will settle down and I can start posting again 🙂

DevilWAH

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Removing old keys from the SSH known host file

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When connecting to a device via SSH using Linux (Unbuntu), you may come across the following error message.

The fingerprint for the RSA key sent by the remote host is
fd:1f:3d:fb:2e:ad:f4:f4:35:2e:03:f4:xx:xx:xx:xx.
Please contact your system administrator.
Add correct host key in /xxxx/xxxx/.ssh/known_hosts to get rid of this message.
Offending key in /xxxx/xxxx/.ssh/known_hosts:15
RSA host key for 192.168.45.82 has changed and you have requested strict checking.
Host key verification failed.
lost connection

This happens when the device you are connecting to has changed it’s SSH keys, but the client you are connecting from has the original key saved. By default Linux does not update these changes (assuming a security exploit) and will just drop the connection .

Stored SSH keys are by default saved in the /home/[user]/.ssh/known_host file. So to connect to the device you need to update this file.

You can achieve this a number of ways, including using the information above and manually editing the file to remove the offending key. However it can be difficult to work out what entry in the file you need to remove.

However I came across this the other day after having use the manual method for ages. In the error message it give the line number of the key you need to change. In the case above it would be 15.

(Offending key in /xxxx/xxxx/.ssh/known_hosts:15)

You can use the following command to delete that line with out having to manually open and edit the file.

sed -i 15d ~/.ssh/known_hosts

or use

ssh-keygen -R 192.168.45.82

Both will delete the line from the known_host file that relate to the error message above. (might need a SUDO, or run as root)

Now the next time you connect to the host device, your system will behave as if it is the first time it has seen the host and ask if you want to add the key in.

It is also possible to disable key checking, however I would not suggest this as it is a security risk.

DevilWAH

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New Job,

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Well the reason I haven’t been posting as much, and have moved the blog to an on-line host. Is that in a few weeks I will be starting a new role working for Dimension Data.

Seems like the hard work over the last few years is paying off now, and really excited to be moving to such a well respected company in the networking field. Hopefully with a bit of hard work I will be achieving many things over the coming years. I think this will be a great opportunity, and goes to show that working hard, and taking your time to look for the right openings does pay back in the end.

So my plans for the next moth or two go some thing like this..

Move house, buy new car, carry on raising the devil child (I mean my gorgeous daughter), start the new job, and carry on studying for my CCNP. I have decided that until I am settled in the new house and new job I am not going to think about taking the exams. But hopefully by Christmas or early next year, I will be ready to take both the switch and route exam close together, with trouble shoot following shortly after.

So if posts seems slow for the next month or two that’s the reasons. I have a list of posts I want to cover, including about 3 or 4 more on EIGRP before moving on.

Hopefully I will get a few more completed over the weekend.

DevilWAH

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Back on line…

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OK that was a bit simpler than I imaged it would be!

If any one wants to move the hosting of there wordpress let me know, but to sum up you copy the files over, dump the sql database and reimport it to the new hosting solution.

What I expected to take hours actually took about 30minutes.

And now that it is back up and running, I can get back to studying and posting some study stuff.

DevilWAH

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Time to move!

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Well you might ask why so quiet for the last few days.. Truth is I have just accepted a new job offer and this means that I will lose my current hosting for this site. As I am now moving house and work, I have decided I will move this site to a on-line hosting solution for now. Hopefully this should be up and running in the next few days and I can get back to posting again, with more info on what I will be doing in my new job, and more CCNP stuff.

Please bare with me during the move.

DevilWAH

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A Pirate’s reply.

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Hollywood actors, self-centred, stuck up and caring more about there next surgery, drink or fix than any one else. That seems to be the common held view of many of them, and 99% of how they are portrayed in the news.

However this is one of those occasions where a star gets in the news for all the right reasons. Why don’t all actors answer there fan mail like this?

A Pirate Reply

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