Patriotism: If You're Not With Us, You're Against Us

Today I saw the most patriotic truck in America. I wish I had the time to snap a photo, but I was preoccupied with that whole driving thing. It's been a long time since I've seen seven American flags on a pickup, it's been a good 7 years or so. Go America!

Route Redistribution, tigers and bears, oh my!

Today I focused my efforts on route redistribution. I managed to redistribute everything in my sample lab, which was nice. I have a few issues, mainly stemming from not always knowing when a routing loop would occur. I sorta figured out that it'll only occur when redistributing multiple points, and only under certain conditions. For example, if you're redistributing only internal EIGRP routes into OSPF on two interfaces, no routing loops would form, because EIGRP has an AD of 90 (Internal), and OSPF has an AD of 110. Thus, since only internal routes of EIGRP are redistributed, OSPF can't get any of its own routes advertised into itself, and since EIGRP has a lower AD than OSPF, then it won't choose any routing updates from OSPF for its own routes, because they're less reliable. Thus, we are all happy.

If none of that made sense to you, don't worry. It's just the magic of the Internet.

Routers: The Silent Killer

Ok, so last time we talked, I was explaining that the Internet is not controlled by gremlins or dark magics or anything of that sort. I did mention routers, and that they're very important. Well, they still are, nothing's changed since Saturday. Routers, by definition, route traffic.


You're probably going, "Well, dur" right now and hitting the back button on your browser. Well, hang on a second. There's more to it than that. For an example, we have a router here. This is Router 66. For the moment, let's pretend that there is only one router in the entire internet, and this is the one. Now, the real Route 66 connects Chicago and Los Angeles, so I need to find a way to represent both cities. Well, Chicago is known for the Cubs and deep dish pizza. I don't like the Cubs, so we'll represent Chicago with a pizza, like so:

Mm, that looks good. Ok, now we have to represent California. That's easy. California is known for its governor and, well, boobs. So I've tastefully made this image to represent the great state of California:

Wow, that's disturbing. I may have nightmares for a while based on that one. Ok, now that we've got the preliminaries done, Router 66 connects Chicago and LA together. However, these aren't the only two places in the network. It doesn't matter what these other networks are, so we're going to represent them as a small duck and a piece of aged cheddar cheese. Why did I do that? Well, why not? In any case, now we have a basis for our network. The following image is a picture of what our network looks like:



Ok! Now, let's say that Chicago is sending a message to LA. With all these networks, the job of the router is to send the packet (the data, the message, whatever) to the correct place. If the router sent the message from Chicago to the duck, that wouldn't be very helpful, would it?

Thus, the router determines the correct place to send that message, and thus LA gets the message and can send back replies. This is just a very basic network, though. There can be multiple routers, some connected in loops. In a situation like this, there needs to be a way to determine the best path to get to somewhere. That, however, is for next time, when I'm going to talk about routing protocols.

Until next time, I'll be here, trying to get the image of Arnold with boobs out of my head.

Circle of Love: 6/23

I'll have something more interesting up tomorrow. A brief lesson on routers, and why they aren't going to rob you and steal your organs.

Today:

I started another practice lab, because I'm focusing on IGPs and Layer 2 connectivity. I know what to do...in general. I just have a few issues now and then with the commands to enter. I know it's early, so I have plenty of time to get it right, but it's hard work. Just gotta keep going.

My goal for this week is to get one of these labs all set by myself, IGP wise.

Circle of Love: 6/22

When studying for the CCNP exams, my mentor taught me an exercise to help retain knowledge, as well as track progress. He called this the Circle of Love. The gist of it is that everyone who's studying sets a goal for the day, and at the end of the day, everyone circles up and shares what they learned, if they met their goal, and some challenges they met along the way. I didn't use it for the CCNP, because most of the tests were fairly straightforward. In fact, the ISCW and the ONT don't really have much configuration in them, so it wasn't that stressful. I also don't like the huggy feely stuff like that, so I tried to avoid it. However, the CCIE is much harder to achieve, and I'm resurrecting the practice.

In general, these will be a lot more technical than my other posts, and while I love to not take anything seriously, this is something that is the exception to the rule. I'm only going to put them up when I hit major milestones, so you dear readers won't have to worry about one of these everyday. Of course, I am the only reader right now, so I can't really disappoint myself. If anyone else is studying for their CCIE lab, feel free to post your thoughts and challenges. It's a long road, but it's worth it.


Today:

I spent the day working on Multicast. I understand the reasons behind why people use multicast, but PIM always gives me trouble. I'm going to be doing that in my practice lab very soon, so I want to be able to at least start the configuration without having to look at the answers.

In addition, I'm still working on mastering the IGPs. I know I have RIP, but then again, it is the easiest of the IGPs. OSPF is about a 75% confidence rate and EIGRP is about the same. Network types are the big ones here. Gotta study for them more. BGP is another issue, but I'm holding at a 50% confidence rate. I just learned confederations, which was actually pretty cool. Redistribution isn't that bad, I know the ins and outs of that.

My goal is to have my CCIE number in a year and a half. I haven't taken the written exam yet, but if I can do decently on the labs, I'm not worried about the written part.

That's it for now. Until next time!

The Internet: A Primer

Most people don't put a lot of thought into what exactly the internet is. It is, after all, a series of tubes, and that's all we need to know. But what exactly is happening behind the scenes when you visit a webpage? This is a bit fuzzier. Most people don't think about it, and that's fine. However, if they had to draw a map of what happens beyond their computer, it would most likely look something like this:



Click the picture to see it in its full glory.

Somehow, when a computer is plugged into an outlet or modem, beams are sent though time and space, propelled by gremlins or something extremely sci-fi, to end up at the Internet Building. In it are lots of little tubes, like so:



This tube in particular has that Dramatic Chipmunk video on Youtube, but it could easily be anything. Amazon, Google, even this blog! Nobody knows where the Internet Building is (Probably somewhere in the Pentagon), but it's the reason we can stay connected.

That's the general idea that most people have, and while it isn't true, it's at least plausible. Hell, it'd probably be simpler to have just a huge Internet Building somewhere. I'd offer to administrate it. In reality, the Internet isn't in a central location. It's just a bunch of servers, workstations, and personal computers linked together, with no regard for location. When you view a web page, a request is sent out to some server in Bumfuck, Wherever, and a reply is sent back, containing the requested information. It's that simple.

Of course, you may be wondering, "That's all fine and good, Oh Mighty Bringer of Knowlege, but how do you connect to that server?" and while I appreciate the title, it's a bit long, so please just call me "Your Awesomeness." Well, that's slightly more complicated, and it has to do with this little guy:

This is a router, which is probably one of the more important pieces of equipment in networking. More on that later, though. Suffice to say, this little guy's important.

Now you know the basics of the Internet. Until next time, I'll be here, defending the Internet Tubes from those vicious LAN Dragons.

How I Wasted my Weekend

I spent my Friday and Saturday watching the entire Star Wars trilogy and its bastard offspring, the Prequel Trilogy. I must say, they're a pretty good 4.3 movies. Now, I can't say anything new, I've seen them all before, not back to back, but alone. Everything that can really be said about these movies has already been said by people much smarter than me. However, I want to ask one question:

What the hell is up with Palpatine? I mean, I've never seen such a Goldbergian method of securing power. He had so many fail points, where the entire thing could fall down around him based off the actions of one or two people. If he wasn't elected Chancellor, then he'd be screwed there in his plan to become Master of the Universe or whatever. And also, what's up with the Senate? One guy proposes a bill and the rest of the senators explode with support and unanimously (and immediately) pass it? Maybe I'm jaded by American politics, but where's the debate? I mean, really. The bill was introduced by Jar Jar Binks. That's reason enough to reject it.

One last thought, though. R2-D2 is has the foulest mouth out of anyone in the series. I bet his beeps and boops are just audio dubbing over his foul, foul language.