Layer 2 Overview

Figure 1

I’ve been meaning to add a dedicated cisco section to my site for a while, I thought it’d be helpful if I converged my rants with work a little I’m hoping to build up a personal archive of notes for work, and in doing so help other with similar roles & problems. I’ve gone through and added any cisco related posts to my archive , useful cisco bookmarks have always been online with del.icio.us , and now to finish off I have a config files directory. Usual rules apply to this an all other posts - see disclaimer.

Looks like cisco have given their website an image overhaul…..

Evolution of Cisco.com - Cisco Systems
A transformation is occurring on the Web. The end user is more in charge, creating collaborative websites and blogs, generating, mixing and sharing content, and having more of a say in how companies do business with them. The potential of the Internet is being fulfilled by more than the physical network alone, it is the human network where people are connecting and collaborating, enabling ideas and opportunities. This represents an ideal time for Cisco to transform our website, into a platform for collaboration, interaction and innovation.

I thought it’d be cool to share some of my revision notes

It’s a shame it’s not an important exam, but the satisfaction remains the same. I’m planning to make this year quite exam heavy so I don’t suppose I’ll see this again so excuse me as I revel in my own smugness !

I’ve been thinking hard (i.e. before I posted this), and really don’t think I’ve received 100% in a formal exam before; the results in the screen shot are for Cisco’s IOS Discovery Assessment, ok yeah there was only 13 questions but hey, 100% is 100%

Cisco and Microsoft Collaborate to Enhance Real-Time Business Communications: Open standards, SIP-based enterprise solutions enable effective communications.

For years, people have said, this year, the next best thing will be VOIP ! Hummm, with these too big players taking an interest may be 2006 will be year of the VOIP !

I’ve been googling & searching through cisco release notes to find out what happened to the pix debug packet command after I upgraded from v6.3 to v7, you know it really shouldn’t have taken that long because the first answer on google groups found it :$

The message suggest using the capture command and points to the cisco documentation : http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/multisec/asa_sw/v_70/cref_txt/c.htm#wp1910869.

The first thing that strikes me is that the command isn’t a real time view like the old debug, but it will offer you a file that you can open in ethereal - now that’s quite cool
To get started you need to knock up an access list to capture the traffic, something like:

When it comes to cisco pix’s, I’m not a gui fan; the cisco command line is soo straight forward that I’ve never found the need for the PDM.

Anyway I came across a pix 6.3 with PDM installed that needed upgrading to v7, surprisingly this has to be done from the boot monitor, and after it was complete I was presented with this :