Category Archives: Networking

Cisco Switch Wireshark Packet Capture

One of the most fundamental troubleshooting concepts in all of IT is to capture packets and review the data as it flows over the wire. Historically the easiest way to do this was to configure some type of SPAN port on a switch to copy the traffic to your pack capture device. With today’s less expensive and more powerful hardware it should come as no surprise that this functionality is now available on network hardware it’s self. Continue reading

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Cisco ISR Router Any Connect with Front Door VRF and a Meraki Firewall

First, let me start by saying I love the Meraki networking stack. It is easy and efficient to deploy and customers love it. Occasionally, however, you find a key feature that Meraki won’t do. In this case, Any Connect client VPN. Continue reading

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Static DHCP Reservations in IOS From a File

Configuring a DHCP server to hand out IP addresses is probably one of the most fundamental skills a network engineer could have. Don’t be fooled, however, there is plenty of complexity to be had here as well should your environment require it. Occasionally it can be helpful to have a client device receive a static IP address. You can configure this manually or you can allow DHCP to do the work for you. In my example, we have two printers we would like to statically address to ensure they are always available to a print server without any reliance on … Continue reading

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Configure Cisco IOS 802.1x Supplicant

If you have an intermediate familiarity with Ethernet switching you are more than likely familiar with 802.1x port based authentication. With that assumption let’s assume your environment is locked down tight enough to the point where this security is enabled. Great! However, what if you needed to add another Cisco device to a client facing switch port? Not so great… How do you get the device to authenticate the same way as your PC does? Fortunately the IOS includes a supplicant for 802.1x that will allow us to authenticate just like a wired windows client! Let’s check out the config … Continue reading

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