routerjockey

5 important reasons you should learn scripting

Today’s IT landscape if full of software defined marketecture, and lore of a dystopian future full of network engineers that do nothing but write code. But in reality, there are …

Vim Primer for Network Engineers

Vi is arguably the best text editing software in the world. There, I said it… deal with it! It should be noted that while many people continue to refer to Vi simply as such, Vim …

Another Wicked Vim Tip

As a follow up to my blog post covering Vim on the PacketPushers blog, I wanted to share with you another time saving tip for getting our jobs done not only quickly, but helping to …

SNMP can save your life

Ever get locked out of a router or switch that is many hours or even days away? Recently, I had the pleasure, again. For some reason, be it the consultant that was turning up our …

My Toolbag

Following the current popular topic of “Whats in your toolbag?” ala Stretch and Fryguy. I’ve decided (after some persuading) to detail the contents of my own bag. Without further …

IP SLA Basics

IP SLA is a function of Cisco’s IOS enabling you to analyze a Service Level Agreement (SLA) for an IP application or service. IP SLAs use active traffic-monitoring to continuously …

IOS Embedded Packet Capture

Tired of setting up SPAN sessions? Need to do some packet analysis? Since IOS 12.4(20)T Cisco has made Embedded Packet Capture (EPC) available. EPC is a powerful troubleshooting …

Working with the Embedded Event Manager (EEM)

Cisco IOS has plenty of gems contained within, but few are as fun, and as endlessly useful as the Embedded Event Manager, or EEM. To define it simply, EEM is a technology that …

Using the Cisco IOS Archive Command

The Cisco IOS archive command is not only very useful in keeping configuration archives, but it can also be used to log commands entered into the router, along with their user …

Using Regular Expressions on Cisco IOS

As a followup to my previous post on Regular Expression Basics, I wanted to give a few examples on using them on Cisco IOS. Obviously, with a topic as large as regular expressions, …

Netcat – secret weapon

Netcat or nc, is a forgotten tool in too many arsenals these days. It lays dormant waiting at the command line to make connections across the globe for you. Knowing how to use it, …

Mail Server Relay Testing

As you may know, I am not big in the server world, even less into mail servers. They make me sick. But, today I found a nifty little tool you can use to test your mail server …

An Essential Alias for Forgetful Engineers Like Myself (updated)

How many times a day do you issue a show command from configuration mode ? If you’re anything like me, its enough to get annoying. Luckily Cisco has given us the ability to user …

Regular Expression Basics

Before I even get started, I want to mention that not all regular expression metacharacters are supported in every application. Keep this in mind when building your matches. …

SSH Wrapper Script

Ok — this is my first script that I’m posting here. Its a VERY simple ssh wrapper script that you can place in your path, preferably in ~/bin bash #!/bin/bash …

Automation & Tools