New dynamips gui!

Dynagen was a great front end for running dynamips in Hypervisor mode. I still use it today, and it's very stable. However, GNS-3 is a new GUI tool shows much promise. Be warned, though, it's an early alpha release.

Head over to http://www.gns3.net to try out the latest release.

Free CCIE and CCNP lab topologies

I came across this site, which as several of the common lab topologies used by the various training vendors. Lots of great resources for studying the CCIE Lab and CCNP exams that will put dynamips to the test. Have fun.

Undocumented Cisco IOS Commands

For a long time, Cisco has hidden easter eggs and undocumented commands. For example, do a show group or show rule on a CSS, and you'll see what I mean.

Cisco also has a multitude of hidden IOS commands that are actually very helpful. The csim command will allow you to simulate a voice call. But be very careful with the test crash command. Only do this on a lab router. Check out this site for the list.

PIX Emulator for Linux

Well, they have done it again. Someone has now emulated the PIX firewall/ASA on PC, completely in software. The underlying technology is QEMU, which is an open source virtualization package. I ran the latest 7.x code, and it works great. Only conern is that there didn't see to be an "idlepc" feature, similar to dynamips. In time, I suppose.

At any rate, it's somewhat hard to find the binaries, though. You can begin here (hint, look in hacki's forum).

CME + Dynamips HOWTO

Although I find Asterisk on my Ubuntu box very easy to setup and maintain, you can apparently run Cisco CallManager Express within dynamips. Instructions are here. Now if they only could simulate FXO/FXS ports in software, I would be impressed!

CCIE Voice Lab: Dynamips + VMWare

I have got to try this one out, if I can get some spare time! Check out this blog. Detailed instructions for setting up dynamips for the router topology. Also discussed is VMWare used for CCM/IPCC/Unity. The article points out (and I agree) that one should use Linux, rather than Windows. Oh yeah, better head over to newegg.com and load up on memory!

Default Router Password Database!

This is hilarious, but can prove useful when you are trying crack.. I mean help out your neighbors and family setup and secure their home routers. Check out the database here.