Articles by Scott Hebert

1. Cisco IronPort Default Username and Password

   Posted on August 26, 2011 in System Administration

   Why is it always a pain to find this stuff in the documentation?

   Username: admin
   Password: ironport
   

2. SNMP Traps into MySQL is Sublime

   Posted on August 22, 2011 in System Administration

   I use snmptrapd to catch SNMP traps and then put them into a MySQL database using a pretty generic trap handler. This gives me the opportunity to generate such useful information as:

   > SELECT HOUR(time) AS "hour", COUNT(*) AS "bounces" FROM snmptraps
       WHERE hostname = 'XXX' AND time > '2011-07-25'
           AND trap_oid …

3. CEF memory leak in BWG

   Posted on August 15, 2011 in Networking

   For those still using the Cisco BWG as the ASN gateway in their WiMAX networks, Juda Barnes has discovered that the BWG 2.0 software suffers from a memory leak related to CEF. This memory leak is detailed in Cisco Bug CSCta09049. Unfortunately, since the Cisco BWG software has reached …

4. Does load-interval Affect Performance?

   Posted on August 08, 2011 in Networking

   I was recently part of a discussion regarding whether or not lowering the load-interval on a Cisco router or switch interface from the default of 300 seconds had an impact on performance. Both sides made good points, but both were based on assumption and conjecture.

   5 minute input rate 213000 …

5. LinkedIn: What is the Cloud?

   Posted on August 01, 2011 in IT Management

   A really interesting discussion has been going on in the LinkedIn IT Architect group. If you aren't a member of the group, I highly recommend you join. The question that fired off the discussion was, "Is 'the cloud' just another name for a hosted / out-sourced (web application) service? If not …

6. How to Enable RPMforge-Extras

   Posted on July 25, 2011 in System Administration

   Historically, the RPMforge repository has aimed to create add-on RPMs for RHEL, CentOS, and Scientific Linux. Although their goal was not to replace base packages, avoiding that has not always been possible. In mid-November 2010, RPMforge created the rpmforge-extras and moved all packages that replaced base packages into the repository …

7. Spicing Up Your Next Meeting

   Posted on July 18, 2011 in IT Management

   "Keeping a meeting interesting is a problem that often hurts team leaders who are trying to motivate sales staffs."

   Although Tom Donnelly's Inc article is really targeted at sales meetings, I think it has some points that are relevant for all managers. Keeping team members engaged in a meeting is …

8. Convert MOD Movies with VLC on Your Mac

   Posted on July 11, 2011 in Software

   My wife uses a Canon FS100 for taking home videos of the kids. If you aren't familiar with it, it's a fairly light-weight camcorder that uses SDHC cards rather than tapes. The only real grievance I have with it is that the video codec it uses is not compatible with …

9. Strategic Management Process

   Posted on June 27, 2011 in IT Management

   A while back, I sent an email describing the strategic management process. Although the email was written for an internal audience, it's generic enough to be reproducible here...

   Strategic Management is a five step process:

   1. Corporate Identity
      This is the definition of the company and is broken down into three …

10. MySQL: Disable DNS Lookups

    Posted on June 27, 2011 in Software

    In a small environment, there's very little reason to rely on DNS resolution inside MySQL. You can disable it by adding skip-name-resolve to your my.cnf or by using the --skip-name-resolve command line argument.

    Remember that if you disable DNS lookups, you will need to set permissions using IP addresses …

11. IT Staff Reduction Isn't Happening

    Posted on June 24, 2011 in IT Management

    ReadWriteWeb is highlighting the recent hubbub around the fact that IT staffs aren't shrinking despite the rapid adoption of cloud computing. It's always been assumed that outsourcing IT infrastructure would result in reductions in IT staffing. Although that is still generally assumed to be the future, recent studies have shown …

12. Cisco: Time-based, Inbound Rate Limiting

    Posted on June 21, 2011 in Networking

    Slaptijack reader Raj is looking for a way to limit inbound traffic on his switch ports based on the time of day. Specifically, he wants to restrict speed to 256 Kbps between 9 AM and 9 PM, and allow up to 1 Mbps the rest of the day. I've done …

13. Installing Unison 2.27.57 via MacPorts

    Posted on June 13, 2011 in System Administration

    I've mentioned before that I use Unison to keep a few important directories synchronized between my various workstations and file server. I made the switch to Ubuntu 10.04 LTS recently, and started using its unison 2.27.57 package. This breaks all of my Macs that use unison 2 …

14. New-Style TACACS+ Configuration

    Posted on June 06, 2011 in networking

    For troubleshooting tips regarding the error message %TAC+: no address for get_server see: Troubleshooting "%TAC+: no address for get_server" on Cisco Devices.

    While working with Cisco Catalyst IOS image 12.2(58)SE1, I noticed that configuration for TACACS+ had changed. My first clue that there was a problem was …

15. Limiting SSH Connections with ufw

    Posted on May 30, 2011 in System Administration

    In the past, I've written about the usefulness of using iptables to limit incoming SSH connections. Although it isn't a replacement for a good password policy, it at least limits the ability of outsiders to perform a brute-force password attack on your system. Now that I've started using Ubuntu more …