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.

No more CCIE SP Lab dates for 2007?

So, a few of us were trying to schedule lab exams for CCIE Service Provider. It appears that there were no slots available for the remainder of the year. Are they that booked? Has anyone recently scheduled their date? Is Cisco making changes to the CCIE SP lab? Who knows!?!?!?!

Juniper router emulation with Olive

So this trick won't exactly help you get your CCIE, but you now can run JunOS on your PC, even in a VMWare virtual machine. I tested one of the latest version R8 releases, and it seemed to work fine, however, I only have 2 days of Juniper training, so I'm no expert.

Head over to SidSmokes or here for more information.

Cisco 7200 Simulator 0.2.7 final released!

The awesome, open-source Cisco 7200 simlator has been updated with a new version. Version 0.2.7 final has been released, after several stable release candidates. I've had great success running this software in combination with dynagen on my Ubuntu box. I've had as many as 10 virtual routers running in my lab at home - all on my old AMD 3400 with 1 Gig RAM. You can download the latest release as always here.

Welcome to CCIE Lounge!

Welcome to our blog dedicated to CCIE certification at related topics. Several of us have already obtained Routing & Switching status (including me). However, on our journey to obtaining dual CCIE status, we decided to start this blog to share information along the way. Topics will include router & firewall virtualization, tips 'n tricks, hacks, and other geek related stuff. Stay tuned.