Author Archives: DevilWAH

Spanning Tree enhancements (Backbone Fast)

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Last time I look at the spanning tree enhancment I covered uplink fast, this is for detecting when a directly connected root port fails and switching over to a back up in the shortest time possible. But what happens if the link that fails is not directly connected. When a switch loses its link back to the root and needs to find an alternate path back. In the digram below switch B is blocking its port to Switch A to prevent loops.

The question is what happens if the link between Switch A and the Root fails? Well with out backbone fast the following sequince takes place.

When the link fails Switch A will no longer be receiving BPDU’s from the root, the direct link is down and the port on switch B is blocking so not forwarding BPDU’s.

Switch A will assume it is the new root and start to send BPDU’s towards Switch B declaring it is the root. However Switch B will see these are inferior BPDU’s to the on it has stored for the port connected to Switch A and ignore them.

This will continue to happen until the BPDU on the port times out, after which the port will go in to the listing and learning state before starting to forward. This is 20 seconds (max age timer) plus 2 x 15 seconds for the listing and learning stage. so a total of 50 seconds.

The idea behind Backbone fast is to cut this by 20 seconds by bypassing the max age timer. The idea is that if Switch B can confirm it still has a link back it’s current known root switch, then it can ignore the max age timer and start the listing and learning process on a port immidatly it receives a inferior BPDU.

Once backbone fast is enabled, when a switch receives a inferior BPDU on one of its ports, it will send a RLQ (root link query) packet out all it’s non designated ports including its root port (so all ports that lead back to the root). If it receives a RLQ response (these are sent from the bridge) then it knows it still has a link to root. It can then age out the port it is receiving the inferior BPDU’s on and start the listing learning stages. If it does not receive any responses then the switch has lost connectivity to the rest of the network and needs to start recomputing the whole STP.

Either way the max age time has been eliminated and 20 seconds have been shaved of the re convergence / fail over time.

Just like Uplink fast Backbone fast is configured on a switch level with the following command.

Switch(config)#spanning-tree backbonefast

and it needs to be configured on all switches on the network.

CISCO’s document HERE explains it in much more details and more examples.

DevilWAH

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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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CCNP ROUTE (Part 10 EIGRP Over NBMA)

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In what I think will be the last post on EIGRP (I will save redistribution between routing protocols for another time), I want to look at what is needed to insure EIGRP runs smoothly over NBMA (non broadcast multi access) networks such as Frame Relay.

As I have covered before EIGRP relies on multicast hello messages to form its neighbour relationships, but NBMA network by default do not forward any broadcast or multicast traffic. So this is the first issue with getting it up and running.

To achieve this you have two choices. First you could if you wished manually set up the neighbours. Going under the EIGRP AS process you can issues the command

router#(config-router)#neighbor <IP ADDRESS>  <INT ID>

This need to be done on both ends of the link, and will change the interface from sending out multicast hello messages to directed broadcasts, so you need to enter addition neighbour statements for each neighbour you want to connect to.

For some NBMA networks (such as frame relay) CISCO has added in a command to allow the router to forward the broadcasts over the link. It does this by sending a copy of the multicast/broadcast packet to each neighbouring router. This is needed for multipoint networks

#router(config-inf)#frame-relay  map IP <neighbour IP>  <Local DLCI>  broadcast

Now rather than using the neighbour command the router will forward any EIGRP hello’s across the to any routers configured with the broadcast command in there mapping.

Either of these two methods will allow the formation across the NBMA.

However there’s is now the issue of split horizon. Imagen you have a central router connected to two remote routers, each with there own routing tables. Split horizon says that a route update received on an interface will not be sent back out that same interface.  This means that if one of the remote routers sends an update to the central router, it will not then be relayed over to the second remote router.. To allow this to happen you must manually disable split horizon (it is disabled by default on a physical interface but enabled on sub interfaces). The command is as follows

router(config-inf)#no ip split-horizon eigrp <AS>

So recapping there is two parts to this, first allowing the hello messages across the NBMA, and then insuring the updates get copied to all routers.

These problems mainly occur when using the multipoint method, using point to point (although requiring more IP addresses and subnetting) avoids both the split horizon issue and the non broadcast issues, and is generally the recommended option.

DevilWAH

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Simulating PC’s in GNS3

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One of my main issues with GNS3 for studying that there are no end devices (PC’s) by default. Ok you can set up loopback interfaces, or add in an extra router and just configure one interface with an IP to act an an end device. But loopbacks don’t really show well when looking at the topology on screen, and adding a whole router (or creating a Qemu host) seems to be a bit much when all you need is a device that can reply to and send pings and/or run trace routes.

However the other day I came across VPCS! There is actuly a down load for this at the bottom of the GNS3 site (here), and it is so simple and easy to get up and running that I suggest any one who uses GNS3 has a look.

Simple unpack the zip file to a folder and then run the VPCS.exe file. this will by default create 3 PC’s with various IP addresses. However it is simple to configure it to create up to 9 separate simulated PC’s with either static or DHCP assigned addresses. These can then be easily added to GNS3 topologies by adding a cloud (see later in the post for how to make them look pretty), and configuring a NIO_UDP port. Really it takes all of 10 seconds to get it up and running. Then you have a simple CLI interface to the “virtual PC’s” where you can run Pings and Traceroutes.

There is only one thing to be careful of. You may find the cygwin1.dll file is a different version in GNS3 as to the version that comes with VPCS and this can casue issues. I find the simple way around this is to delete the cygwin1.dll file from the VPCS folder, and then copy the one form the GNS3 program folder in. (even better copy it to a system path such as c:\window\system32, and then delete it from both folders, and just keep a single copy they both can use).

The following is a link to a blog post on www.firstdigest.com with a video tutorial of how to set it up. (GNS3 and VPCS Video)

Now your GNS3 topology’s can actuly look and run like proper topologies and with our the overheads of emulating entire routers of operating systems. OK if you really need more complex hosts then there are other ways to do that, but for simple end devices that can ping and be pinged it is GREAT!!

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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Spanning Tree enhancements (Uplink fast)

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In my last job, I jumped straight in to configuring Rapid spanning Tree, I mean what is the point of running Standard STP with its 50second fail over times, when you can enable Rapid-STP and gain sub second fail over??

Well if you want to pass your CCNP SWITCH you need to know it, and you need to know how to configure the enhancements. Actually having read through them and labed them up. They do help in understanding how STP works and how the original protocol was improved in a number of way, before CISCO took all the enhancements and came up with Rapid-STP.

Over the next few post I will be covering all of the basic enhancements, including uplinkfast, backbone fast, portfast, loopguard etc..

Uplinkfast.

This is normaly configured on access switchs that have two links back to the root, in these cases after the initial STP algrothem has run, one of the ports (lowest priority back to the root bridge) will be designated as the root port, while the other will be blocked. See digram below.

Now with standard STP, if the active link fails, the switch sees the root port link has fail and as it is receiving root BPDU’s on the backup blocked port it starts to bring this up. However with out uplink fast enabled this requires the port to go through the listening and learning stages. By default this is 30 seconds of outage, and even with best STP tuning it still results in a 14 second outage.

However with uplink fast configured the switch keeps track of the blocked ports that point back to bridge and forms them in to an “uplink group”. Now if the primary link goes down the switch can pick the next best root port and immediately places it in the forwarding mode as this will not be creating a loop. This creates an almost instant fail over of the primary link. However switch CAM tables will now be out of sync, which could result in frames being sent down the wrong links. To sort this out, the switch creates dummy frames with source address from its CAM table, and destination of multicast address. this updates the other switches on the network.

Now when the link comes back up, the switch waits twice the forward delay + 5 seconds before it switches back over. This allows the core switch at the other end of the link to have time to run through STP and start forwarding on the port.

And that’s Uplink fast. Providing a method to allow instant fail over of directly redundant links towards the root.

Configuration is very simple and is carried out in global config mode.

Switch(config)Spanning-tree uplinkfast

DevilWAH

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Upgrading Redundant Supervisors on 6500’s

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I need to know how to upgrade the IOS on CISCO 6500’s, So here is the outline along with a download of the official PDF from CISCO.

First confirm what IOS image is running, which supervisor is running as active and the redundancy mode that is active. This can be achieved with the following commands.

Router#show version
Router#show module
Router#show redundancy

You should now know the current IOS version and the module numbers of the supervisor units and which one is active.
Now we need to set up the boot variable (so the correct IOS boots) and copy the new IOS over if necessary.

Router#show bootvar  (Find out the current IOS booting)

Router#copy start tftp (copy the current start up configuration to TFTP for safe keeping)

Router#copy tftp disk0:          (Copy the new IOS to the two supervisors)
Router#copy tftp slavedisk0:

Router#no boot system disk0:old_IOS.bin
Router#boot system disk0:new_IOS.bin   (set up the new boot variable on the active supervisor)

Router#copy run start  (syncs running configuration on both supervisor units)

Now the boot variables are set up and the new IOS images are on the supervisors we can upgrade each in turn, starting with the one currently set as the standby.

Router#hw-module module  reset  (chose standby supervisor to reset)

Standby supervisor will now reboot and restart running the new IOS image. During this time the redundancy mode will fall back to RPR mode due to the mismatch in IOS images running. You can see this by running the “show” commands above.

Once the standby is fully back up and running you can now update the active module, this is done by forcing the standby to become active, this will result in a reload of the current active supervisor.

Router#redundancy force-switchover (switches standby to become active and reloads current active)

(you will need to swap console cables over to the standby supervisor as only the currently active one can be consoled in to.)

Again use the above “show” commands to check the modules have reloaded correctly, both supervisors are running the same IOS version, and the correct redundancy method. Now the original active router will be the standby. If you wish you apply the last command above to force a second switch over back to the original.

And there it is, upgrade of IOS with out taking the switch off line. Although it is suggested it is done out of hours as there may be some minor traffic interruptions during the switch over.

Here is the CISCO PDF, with more detail and outputs of the commands..

DevilWAH

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CCNP ROUTE (Part 9 EIGRP Authentication)

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Seeing as we just finished up a simple EIGRP lab, it seems a good opportunity to add one more simple thing in to the mix.

At the moment any one could in theory add a router in to the network, sniff for packets to determined the AS number we are running EIGRP on, and start advertising routes and forming neighbours. This is not something we want to happen, even if not a malicious attack a rogue router sending EIGRP hellos and updates could cause havoc with a network.

So like all good network administrators it is important to secure EIGRP against such happenings. This is achieved in EIGRP by means of md5 authentication and key-chains.

The theory works some thing like this. All routers must be in time with each other, if possible a time protocol such as NTP should be used, but you could also set the clocks manually (just remember to redo this after a reboot as the router will lose its time). One they are in sync we can set up the key-chains. Each key chain has a number, time frame in which it will be sent and a time frame in which it will be accepted, along with the actual key value its self.

For a key to be accepted as valid by a router, when it receives it, the key-chain number and the key value must match on both devices, and it must be revived with in the accepted time frame. Below is a generic template for setting up a key-chain.

Router(config)#key chain
Router(config-keychain)#key
Router(config-keychain-key)#key
Router(config-keychain-key)#send-lifetime
Router(config-keychain-key)#accept-lifetime

The idea is that you may use one key each month for example, with the accept and send time of the next key in the chain over lapping with the last slightly (if you have NTP the over lap can be a matter of seconds due to the increased sync of the routers clocks), to insure the neighbours do not get dropped during the change over of keys.

Once the keys have been set up you apply them to the interface which is sending out EIGRP updates as below. 

interface FastEthernet0/0
 ip authentication mode eigrp <AS> md5
 ip authentication key-chain eigrp <AS> <keychain name>

I have set this up in the GNS3 lab here.. to get it working you will need to set the time on router 1 to 00:00:00 24th october 2010 (#clock set 00:00:00 24 october 2010), and then on router 2 remove and re-add the NTP server. This will sync up the clocks to the correct time for the configured key chains. You should then see the neighbours come up. Running a #Debug eigrp packets, and you will see the hellos and updated getting sent with the md5 authentication.

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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