PDF text search- Windows – CYGWIN

You’ve likely been where I am, and usually there quite often, looking for a specific PDF which contains information you need to reference, but you can’t find the darn PDF! Unless you’re incredibly detail oriented and place everything where you’ll find it 100% of the time, you’re likely to lose it. However, for those on Windows who have CYGWIN installed, or even if you’re using Linux and just want to know how to do the same thing, allow me to enlighten you on how to use two, well three if you think about it, tools for searching your entire machine(s) for that specific file.

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How to IPv6 – a common sense approach

Never thought I would be writing about how to utilize IPv6 in 2017 because of all the excellent material on the Internet; however, I have discovered a few things:

  1. There are still technologies which have horrible support for IPv6 (including new stuff)
  2. There are people still resistant to implementing it
  3. There is material on the Internet which shows up early in Google searches which references deprecated standards

Without any further delay, I am going to outline a few items you should keep in mind when deploying your IPv6 network.

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DNSMASQ DHCP configuration for multiple subnets

DNSMASQ is both a DNS and DHCP server that is quick and efficient to run on Linux systems and is likely already running on your Linux box. If you’re in need of a quick DHCP server to run your environment to serve multiple DHCP scopes for different subnets in your VLAN, of which we all know the best practice is subnet == VLAN == Broadcast domain, then DNSMASQ is your go to guy and I prefer it over the ISC DHCPD server. This quick tutorial will go over the basics of how to get this setup and running and assumes you’re not going to utilize the DNS service.

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What is Cisco Nexus ToR-FEX

I realize there is still some confusion regarding Cisco Nexus FEX as it relates to ToR connected FEX, which is a Cisco Nexus 2K FEX with a Cisco Nexus 5K/7K/9K as a parent switch, and the FEX you find in UCS, which we can refer to as “Blade-FEX”. I am going to outline what ToR (Top of Rack) FEX in this blog post, not Blade-FEX, to help bring some clarity around this still confusing terminology.

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Cisco tacacs and aaa – single-connection

There has been some slight confusion and ambiguity around the “single-connection” configuration statement provided by Cisco switches and routers, including SAN MDS switches. As of this writing, Cisco Nexus 9000 NXOS switches on 7.0.3.I5.1 code do not support single-connection in their tacacs host configuration; however, certain MDS switches do. In either case, if you do find yourself wondering here for the answer, let me elaborate for you.

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Nexus slow SCP and jumbo frame failure

If you’re attempting to use SCP on your Nexus switch and you realize you’re getting slow performance, even with jumbo frames enabled on your source interface, the physical connected interface, and you’ve verified everything along the path is set to the correct jumbo MTU, you’re likely going to need to reference your system QOS settings for network-qos.

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Cisco BGP EVPN VXLAN – Part 2 – Spine uplink failure

So, you’ve surely seen some interesting tidbits in the previous section, things you haven’t noticed from other configurations on the Internet. I will outline why these are present in this configuration based on the failure scenario I present below:

Please note, this is an older post I am using from my old blog series and I made this in 2015, new switches and newer versions of code provide cleaner configuration and significant enhancements

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