USA Networking

Cable Labeling

2011-04-11T07:46:00.000-07:00

It is very important to give labels to your cables. Labels make your network troubleshooting less painful. In case of problem, you don't want to trace every cable end to end.

Each end of cable should be labeled, the label should give information about where the cable is connected to.
It is really up to you or your company policy how the description format of the labels should be written.

The most important thing is to keep the writings not too long, and easy to be interpreted. For example, I have a fiber optic cable at the IDF going to the MDF, I like to name it like this:

for the IDF cable: MDF_Core1_23 -> it tells that the cable is going to the MDF Core Switch 1 at port 23.
for the MDF cable: IDF_2Fl_1_1 -> it tells that the cable is going to the IDF at second floor, switch 1 and port1.

Well I suggest try designing your own labeling scheme and don't forget to write it down and give the description to fellow network installers and the project owner.

You can use many tools for your labeling, there are many tools to make your labeling easier, some tools will keep track on your labels and generate the next label automatically while some tools require us to input the label writing manually.
Below is a variety of tools you can use for your labeling purpose, you can find a lot of tools available at my favorite site http://www.cableorganizer.com.

Network Segmentation

2011-04-06T04:04:00.000-07:00

You started your network with small amount of computers and networking devices, sooner or later you want to add this and that, next thing you know your network got slower.

If you have this condition in your network, you might want to consider reviewing back you what devices you have in your network. You might need to segment your network.

You can use switches and bridges to segment your network, if you use them you separate your network collision domain. Remember what collision domain is when I posted about switches.

Like the above picture, if you use switch to connect 4 computers, then you'd have 4 collision domains. On the other hand, if you use hub, then you'd have 1 big collision domain, this will not only slow your network but also pose security problems.

The above picture looks good, but they're still count as one broadcast domain. To break up broadcast domain you can use routers.

What broadcast means is that computers need to send packet all over the network. One example is when you use DHCP to give IP address to all computers, first the computers will send out DHCP Discover message everywhere saying, help I don't know my IP, can anyone give me one?
The fact that computers send a lot of broadcast when connected to a network, the more computers/broadcasts you have, the slower your network will be.

When using router to break broadcast domain like this, this means you'd have 2 broadcast domains, in other words, you have 2 network segments within your network.

In CCNA exam, they usually give questions like this, if you have a network with the diagram like the above picture, how many broadcast domains and collision domains exist?

You know you have 2 broadcast domains, but how many collision domains?

Remember each port in a switch forms one collision domain and routers also the same.

From the above we can tell that the diagram has 6 collision domains.

Seriously Rethinking Leadership in a Networked World

2011-02-26T15:09:00.000-08:00

For over 30 years, I have had the privilege of helping leaders around the world develop their leadership effectiveness. In dozens of sectors and markets, I've seen the best and worst.

I continue to see established and emerging leaders who are passionate about learning to be better leaders and entrenched leaders who view learning as a threat to their power.

In these interesting times, we are witnessing an abundance of leaders who are devastating the integrity of markets and the faith of their constituents. Many countries have what Will Rogers referred to as "the best government money can buy." It is easy to find leaders who define leadership as the exercise of control over money and people.

At the same time, the planet is abundant with leaders who are helping to make their communities stronger and more resilient. They have intelligence, wisdom, and transparency. They see themselves more as stewards of resources rather than controllers of money and people. They think that leadership is more about helping people find their power than having power over people.

But are these the qualities of good leaders? Perhaps the only thing we can accurately say about leadership is that every assessment is based on personal bias.

For some people, good leaders serve their interests at the cost of serving competing interests. They like weak leaders they can control with money, votes or threats to their power and influence. Others like strong leaders who exercise control over others. They like leaders whose rule guarantees certainty in their favor.

Whether we want leaders who are children capable of being controlled or parents capable of protecting us, what both perspectives have in common is that they are essentially self-serving. They position leaders as tools to our agendas.

And because we are still transitioning through a predominantly adolescent consciousness on this planet, there are almost always competing agendas. In this ethos, we impose on leaders the unfulfillable expectations to guarantee the dominance of our agendas over opposing and hopefully loser agendas.

The opposite of viewing leaders as tools to use is viewing them as assets to engage in our networks. The two most valuable assets in networks are knowledge and skills.

In this worldview, leaders have unique value to the extent that they have unique knowledge and skills in their networks. Their networks include everyone they directly interact with and influence. Leaders who lack unique value have redundant value in their network.

The more connected networks become, the more likely it is that leaders have redundant value. This is one dimension of the leadership crisis today, exacerbated by the fact that the more asset redundant leaders become, the more irrelevant they feel and the more control they exert to restore ego equilibrium.

Reality is, in networks leaders can gain unique value in at least two ways. They create unique value when they create a niche of unique value for themselves. And they gain unique value when those in their network intentionally leave them a space of value uniqueness that no one else takes on.

This is a huge culture shift to see the value of leaders as equivalent to the uniqueness of their real time knowledge and skills relative to their networks. It is a shift that requires us to question the value of positional power that leaders assume in their leadership roles.

Positional power is the assumed power to control money and people. We have abundant and growing evidence that it takes no unique network value to exercise control over money and people.

Scope of control has nothing to do with unique value in a network. If scope of control had any causal relationship to scope of unique value in networks, monarchs, autocrats, and dictators would be guaranteed the most unique knowledge and skills in any networks at any levels around the world.

Understanding leadership through the lens of unique network value profoundly changes the conversations we have when we interact with leaders in our networks at the relative levels each of us has access to these kinds of interactions.

It becomes imperative that everyone understands the unique assets of their leaders. Before they enter any leadership position, we need to gain a collectively clear and accurate picture of their unique and redundant assets relative to our and their networks. When they enter these positions, we need to make it collectively clear what unique assets they have that the thrivancy of our networks require. We also then need to negotiate the areas of asset uniqueness they would provide the network.

But because of the intrinsically dynamic nature of networks, their relative asset uniqueness and possibilities of uniqueness constantly shifts and changes as other people in the network expand their unique value, making the leader's assets redundant, but still possibly quite valuable. Asset redundancy at optimal levels is key to network resiliency.

Networks are also constantly shifting landscapes of opportunities and expectations and so leaders always have opportunities to grow their unique assets to meet these. And this emphasis on asset and network based leadership makes it immediately more possible for leaders across boundaries to collaborate more successfully and intelligently to do together what they cannot possibly do alone, apart or in opposition.

This is an incredibly important shift if we seek a world where leaders help build thriving communities at micro to macro levels.

In this construct, perhaps the most salient characteristic of network relevant and valued leaders is that they have a passion for knowing their networks and continuously reinvent the unique value in knowledge and skills they bring to their networks.

This calls for a profound shift in how we develop, select, and assess our leaders. And the time to begin is now.

Twitter @jackzen / Jack's profile: JackRicchiuto.com

Mapping Twitter Chats

2011-02-03T14:06:00.000-08:00

This is a network map of the almost 1000 tweets during the #ideachat 1 hour session in November 2010. Individual participants in the chat are shown as purple nodes and the "whole group" is shown as the large green circular node. If someone tweeted to everyone in the group, at least twice in the session, an arrow would be drawn from their node to the big green node. People who tweeted to each other [@ messages or RTs], at least twice in the 1 hour session, will have arrows drawn from the tweeter node to the subject node. @blogbrevity <--> @cocreatr indicates that they both sent 2 or more tweets to each other during the session. [We do not show the hundreds of single tweets in the session -- we are looking for key participants.]

Node size on the network map reflects a new network metric we are experimenting with called "attention" which tries to determine both quantity and quality of links pointing at someone. It's not just the number of tweets pointed at you, but who they come from that matters. We will also post an interactive version of this map that will allow you to filter on the type of tweets and their timing during the 1 hour session.

From: blogbrevity's posterous Thanks, Angela!

9 Indicators of Growing Networks

2010-09-22T10:38:00.000-07:00

We continue to have countless conversations with funders and others who want to "grow" networks of collaborations and innovations. This is impossible until they have enough network literacy to understand what it means that a "network" actually "grows."

Here are 9 simple indicators of network growth, to this purpose. They become both indicators and strategies for the intentional growth of existing networks.

People in the network gain broader and deeper awareness of the available assets in the network
People in the network gain broader and deeper awareness of potential new collaborators and co-conspirators in the network
People in the network spend more time introducing people to one another who are 2+ steps away from each other in the network
People in the network spend more time introducing themselves to others who are 2+ steps away from them in the network
People in the network discover more new opportunities to engage and combine their assets to create a future different from the past
People in the network have more conversations together about their dreams and assets than their problems and deficiencies
People in the network value change and differences as more valuable to the network's growth than similarities and protecting a status quo
People in the network become "network weavers" who intentionally commit time and imagination to looking for new ways to connect unconnected people in the network
People in the network together become more self-organizing, innovative, agile, inclusive, strengths-based, and dedicated to shared thrivancy

Oustruplund, Kjellerup, Denmark, 08.25.10

2010-08-25T13:06:00.000-07:00

Special thanks to Oustruplund, J�rgen Vognsen, Mai Espersen, Hjemmet and my mom for help to make this happen.

Dansk Landbrugsmuseum GL. Estrup, Auning, Denmark, 08.22.10

2010-08-22T09:37:00.000-07:00

Special thanks to Dansk Landbrugsmuseum GL. Estrup, Irene Hellvik and to my mom.

"Tejer y Poder", Pros Arts in Pilsen, Chicago, IL, 07.16.10

2010-07-16T12:50:00.000-07:00

Special thanks to Thelma Uranga, Irasema Gonzalez, Tejer y Poder Students, Pros Arts and AfterSchoolMatters.

Killing our Neighborhoods

2010-07-13T12:21:00.000-07:00

I wonder if a Goldman Sachs executive would spend a night in the house above? After all, they do kind of "own" it.

The house, in the Slavic Village neighborhood of Cleveland, had a mortgage that was part of the Goldman Sachs synthetic CDO, ABACUS 2007-AC1. In 2008, the house was foreclosed upon, and still sits abandoned today.

At least the ivy devouring the south side of the building seems happy.

I am writing this in the Red Chimney restaurant, a social hub for the locals in Slavic Village. This place is probably the only thing that has not changed drastically in the last ten years in this neighborhood. It feels very comfortable -- old networks get rejuvenated here. Every community needs a gathering place, especially in times of trouble.

For an in-depth look at the players and financial flows involving this house , see Connecting the Dots of the Mortgage Meltdown.

Valdis recently helped CNBC with a documentary about Goldman Sachs and the recent mortgage crisis.

"Infrastructures and Territories� Danish Pavilion", Zhou B. Art Center, Chicago, IL, 04.22.10

2010-04-22T18:55:00.000-07:00

Special thanks to Vers10n Fest, Ed Marszewski & Dayton Castleman.

What is A Network Weaver?

2010-04-09T05:58:00.000-07:00

A Network Weaver is someone who is aware of the networks around them and explicitly works to make them healthier (more inclusive, bridging divides). Network Weaversdo this by connecting people strategically where there's potential for mutual benefit, helping people identify their passions, and serving as a catalyst for self-organizing groups.

If you at at the NTEN conference, or want to think about what it means to be a conscious Network Weaver at any conference, check out the Google Doc we created to gather what we learn. We are particularly interested in learning what it means to witness others being Network Weavers. How can we notice and support people who are natural Network Weavers?

The possibilities of a networked commons

2010-03-28T14:05:00.000-07:00

What if we invented an approach to democracy where voting was not a design element in the model. Voting continues to be the root cause of unchallenged excesses, bad decision making, special unethical interests, and leadership incompetence.

In most cases, voting is an excuse to avoid conversations that are information-based, inclusive, and innovative. There is no wisdom in crowds of weak networks. Managing assets in the commons can happen in strong networks of people as long as the commons are at the scale of networks where the degrees of connection are relatively close. In these networks, people come together to create commons they manage through conversations that matter. A very different world indeed.

Overlapping Boards

2010-03-23T06:43:00.000-07:00

We often think of our networks as belonging to us, or our group/team/family. We imagine they have an identifiable beginning and end. We want to draw borders to define "yours" and "mine." Yet, in reality we cannot. We really cannot define where my network stops and yours starts... no matter if you are a person, group, organization, or country. We are all intersected and our connections overlap with those of our network neighbors. Boundaries are fuzzy, at best.

Let's look at a simple example. Organizations, whether for-profit, or not-for-profit, usually have a Board of Directors. We can think of this Board as a network that belongs to the organization. All members are linked if they sit on an organization's board together. We might view the Boards of the top 50 U.S. companies like the diagram below -- individual clusters, each belonging to the parent company. The gray links show co-membership ties between the individuals.

Directors are not limited to the number of Boards they can be members of. Board members are limited to the number of Boards they sit on only by time, energy and invitation. Below is an example of a Board member who sits on the Board of two organizations. This may be Steve Jobs, who sits on the Board of Apple and Disney.

We now choose a different color for those Directors who sit on multiple Boards. We see how the Boards of the top US companies are actually interconnected in the diagram below. Blue nodes are Directors who sit on multiple Boards.

The blue nodes in the network above are conduits that move information, ideas, and knowledge between the clusters -- they are at the intersection, where two networks overlap. The blue nodes are well placed to be Network Weavers -- their opportunity to close triangles is great.

Contagion of ideas and practices between organizations often happen through flows via their Boards of Directors. We apply social network analysis [SNA] to this social graph and we see who may be key in this diffusion process. We apply a new SNA metric, called Awareness -- it measures potential awareness of a node to what is happening around it [directly and indirectly] based on it's pattern of connectivity. Those nodes with higher awareness are shown in a larger size in the diagram below.

It is usually beneficial to be connected to those who have a good view of what is going on. Information and knowledge is often shared [intentionally or unintentionally] with trusted others, close by. Information leaks and flows, but never too far. Board members who are connected to other highly-aware Board members, have a higher probability of finding out more -- but the range is limited. Even those who just sit on a single Board can increase advantage by being connected to multiple blue boundary spanners. This is reflected in the diagram below. Node size is derived from awareness of what is happening in the network. Some Boards have greater awareness of what is happening in their ecosystem.

This was a simple illustration. An actual network between the Board members will be denser, based on their possible multiple ties -- employment, memberships, and other current & past associations. The full multiplexity of the individuals was not known, nor shown. Yet, we see how even some knowledge of a social system increases our potential to target messages to influence that system. Of course, the better our data, the better our targeting. A telescope may be preferred, but even binoculars provide advantage over the naked eye. And binoculars that reveal what is usually invisible, are even more useful!

What Board overlaps can you utilize?

Network confidence

2010-03-16T16:42:00.000-07:00

As networks grow, they grow in confidence. Confidence is the expectation of success and comes from thousands of small acts of success within and across networks.

These small acts include solving common problems and problems in common together and sharing learning, knowledge, opportunities, talents and resources together. Every instance of success adds to the network's collective self-confidence that incubates even more collaborations and successes, resulting in "virtuous spirals" of thrivancy and thrivability.

And of course, the narrative culture within networks accelerate and scale ripples of confidence throughout the network and beyond to other networks.

The 4 Developmental Stages of Networks

2010-03-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

June, Valdis and I have seen countless networks grow over the past 30 years. It's interesting to see networks grow from weaker to stronger. They go through four stages in the process. Here is a model based on the phases of human development. When we bring people together in their networks, we see all four stages within various connections in the network.

Best of all, unlike human development where phases cannot be skipped, effective network development can involve immediate acceleration to an emerging and scaling network of adult connections.

Infancy
People in the network feel dependent on formal leaders to make things happen in the network. Their whole life is structured around demands that parent leaders take care of all their needs. Their whole thrivancy is based on the trade of compliance for protection.

Childhood
People in the network are interested in making things happen, but only things that require permissions and funding from the parental formal leaders. They are focused in this phase of getting more support from parent-leaders for the things they want to do. They live in continuous demand from a position of entitlement.

Adolescence
People in the network give up dependency on their parent-leaders, but still believe the "pie of resources" is still finite and so compete with peers to satisfy their needs. In this phase, people in the network believe that others' loss is the necessary cost of their gain.

Adulthood
People in the network take responsibility for their destinies and know that working together expands the pie in ways that allows everyone to thrive. They believe that people in the network can achieve more together than they ever could apart or in opposition.

Network weavers help people move into the adult phase more quickly and successfully, accelerating the possibilities of more strong networks.

Need Help with Network Weaver Handbook

2010-03-07T12:09:00.000-08:00

As you may know, I've been working on a Network Weaver Handbook for some time now. I've got almost 100 pages of activities and stories that you will be able to use with your networks, and I think it will end up around 200 pages before I'm through.

But right now, I need your help!

I have loaded the Table of Contents in a google doc and hope you will click on the link to the page, then add comments, questions, edits, etc. Here are some questions:

1. Which part looks most interesting or exciting to you?

2. What is missing that you would like to see included?

3. What is included that you don't think is that important?

Thanks so much for working with me on this!

How to Create a Sandbox for Learning

2010-03-06T10:40:00.000-08:00

Beth Kanter and I met at a workshop for foundations last fall. She loved the concept of Network Weaving and we decided to spend some time figuring out the synergies between Network Weaving and social media. We decided to use a call line she had but Skype would work as well. Meanwhile, she set up a little exercise for us to do, which she described on a google doc she set up.

Exercise:

1. Create 3-5 slide powerpoint with photos that defines/explain network weaving and your key ah ha from session
2. Upload into SlideShare
3. Put in the Network Weavers Group
4. Comment on someone elses slides
5. Create a new deck based on feedback and/or remixing the other person's

I invited a friend. Good thing as Deborah was the only one who did the assignment! Beth then took us to www.flickr.com and showed us how to search the Creative Commons (free to use) pictures there. She was sharing her desktop but letting us make decisions about what pictures to use. It was lots of fun! We noticed the power of slides with only a few words � the image was what had the power to help people get new concepts.

I went back and made a new deck, using yarn and knitting images to represent network weaving and feeling a great sense of accomplishment. We invited several addition friends to the next session, and it was great to meet some new people. We got on Slideshare again and Beth talked about how people loved puppies and babies and so we made a deck using images of kids. Beth always had us spend the last half hour reflecting on what we had done. This time we noted the importance of helping people make an emotional connection to concepts to help them better remember and apply them.

In the next few sessions, a major shift took place. Someone else helped set up the next time using www.doodle.com. At each meeting, we�d decide what we wanted to learn or talk about. Sometimes we explored new social media: Google Wave, web-based project management, etc Sometimes we had clinics, where one person asked for advice. Sometimes we spent most of the time deeply introducing ourselves to each other. But what ever we did, we laughed a lot, appreciated each other and reflected on what we had learned.

After Beth�s initial guidance, there was no designated leader, not even a coordinator: we all took responsibility for making sure the needed tasks got done, we all took notes together (which is possible on google docs), and we took turns facilitating as needed (watching the time, making sure we spent time on reflection). This kind of collaboration can work!

I encourage others to start a sandbox of your own. All you do is invite a few friends to a skype call and figure out what you want to learn or do together. Let me know how it works out!

Structural Folds and Innovation Dynamics

2010-03-05T09:24:00.000-08:00

A recent article called Structural Folds: Generative Disruption in Overlapping Groups , by Balazs Vedres and David Stark is chock full of important research on innovation, collaboration and networks.

Vedres and Stark studied relationships among businesses in Hungary over the last 20 years. In contrast to Ron Burt�s concept of structural holes, they explore the concept of structural folds.

The concept of structural holes describes how individuals who span two different clusters or groups can become powerful by brokering the relationships and information flow across the clusters. Managers who span structural holes often move quickly up the corporate ladder.

Using the concept of structural folds, Vedres and Stark argue that moving ideas from one cluster or group to another is not enough to spawn innovation. Groups need to overlap. They need to recombine and do something together to generate innovation that leads to growth. However, this overlap is often disruptive, and can lead to disintegration of the groups.

The trick is to move to another level, looking at the whole set of groups as part of a larger network. Then you can see that the larger network has some stability over time � individuals or businesses continue to be part of this larger network, but are recombining with others in different configurations over time. This looks disruptive, but is actually the source of much creativity and growth. The larger network, meanwhile builds a culture of collaboration that encourages and supports even more collaboration.

These ideas are very compatible with our Smart Network model. A Smart Network has a core of overlapping clusters. Clusters could be different organizational types (such as entrepreneurs, non-profits and foundations), different geographies, different business sectors, etc. In most Smart Networks, people are recombining through self-organized, collaborative projects. Vedres and Stark remind us that it�s important that these projects contain at least several people who have worked together before, but that including new faces from different clusters is likely to increase the success and growth of the project.

Using the Opportunity Process to Catalyze Self-Organization

2010-03-04T07:46:00.000-08:00

How do we get started with self-organization?

One simple process (adapted from a Peter Block activity) I've used many times is the Opportunity Process. Here's the simple steps:

1. Have people put their interest or current passion or challenge on a 9 x 12 sheet of paper or PostIt. Have someone sort into Action Groups of 3-10 people.

2. Have each group identify opportunities in that area where something could really make a difference right now.

3. Generate ideas for small projects/small acts that could help the group explore that opportunity. Each act needs a champion.

4. Identify the gifts (skills and resources) that the project team already has to accomplish that act.

5. Figure out who and what else they need to make the project successful and then invite those individuals to join their project.

6. How will the project be managed? Use a project management worksheet or online project management site like TeamworkPM so everyone involved knows what they are to do. Have a volunteer be project coordinator.

7. Check in with and coach the project coordinators.

8. After the project is underway, identify �patterns of success.�

Economic growth indicators for networks

2010-03-03T21:09:00.000-08:00

Networks can actually envision and measure their economic growth impacts on communities and regions and network spaces. Here are just a few indicators that can consider:

Number of new college-degreed & non-degreed jobs created by current organizations in each sector
Number of jobs created by new organizations in each sector
Number of new organizations coming to locate here from outside in each sector
Number of new organizations started from within the community in each sector
Number of new product and service lines offered by community organizations in each sector
Number of people in the community less or no longer dependent on public services and aid in each sector
Number of businesses performing better in each sector
Number of organizations with successful strategic processes in each sector
Number of residents with increased housing value in each sector
Number of students graduating to the next levels in each sector
Number of students starting new businesses and organizations in each sector
Number of employees re-skilled for new industries in each sector
Number of consumer dollars shifted from non-local businesses to local businesses in each sector
Number of businesses and organizations shifting to local suppliers in each sector
Number of people whose health care, education, and energy costs have decreased in each sector
Number of children with reading, writing, research, financial, and cultural literacies in each sector
Number of older citizens living longer and with few costs of living in each sector
Number of employers satisfied with the local pool of talent for open positions in each sector
Number of organizations winning grants, awards, and funding for local projects and efforts in each sector
Number of occupied commercial and retail spaces in each sector
Number of employee owned businesses that spawn new businesses

New Directions for Funding - A Case Example

2010-03-01T05:02:00.000-08:00

In Appalachian Ohio, a small group of non-profits worked with a regional/community foundation to set up an Innovation Fund called the Yellowroot Fund. This fund had less than $15,000 a year. It provided small seed grants ($500-3000) to small collaborative projects in the region. All projects had to include a mix of both entrepreneurs and support organizations (non-profits, tourism bureaus, local gov't, etc). The first year 15 projects were funded. Most were successful in small ways, but several were very dynamic and successful, and we helped them access larger dollars.

Innovation funds encourage people to work collaboratively -- but in small self-managed groups that have a high likelihood of success. Many of the projects linked people across counties. For example, the Mural Corridor Project developed a map showing a trail people could follow to see all of the 17 murals that had been painted on the sides of buildings in small towns throughout 5 counties. Because local businesses were part of the project group, the final map included locations of local businesses such as restaurants and bed & breakfasts � which increased traffic for these small enterprises.

The fund only lasted a few years, but by the time it ended many more people in the region knew how to self-organize: come up with a project idea, find others who are interested in working on that project, and make something happen. This fund helped people develop all of the skills described in Jack�s post, below. Local Network Weavers were involved in most of the projects and helped people become more aware of their networks and use them to access the resources they needed.

Now, even without those funds, hundreds of small projects are formed every year to develop new trails, festivals, brands, markets and other initiatives. Self-organizing has taken off, and it�s cascading throughout the region.

NetworkWeaving on Twitter

2010-02-28T14:05:00.000-08:00

I have created a Network Weaving List on Twitter. This is to follow those who focus on network weaving/building/organizing/mentoring/coaching/facilitating/etc. This list is not about network analysis nor network mapping.

Please see what is being tweeted and send me a DM to my @orgnet account if you would like to join.

The three authors of this blog are all active on Twitter: June, Jack, and Valdis

Come join us as we weave conversations and networks!

Funding in a Networked World

2010-02-27T08:48:00.000-08:00

As the funding landscape shifts at the rate of the economy, many funders are rethinking, if not reinventing, the way they approach their missions and success metrics.

There continues to be a whole genre of problems and issues in every market and community that persist specifically because of the fragmentation and competition among funder grantees. Many funders are realizing that systemic issues cannot be impacted by any amount of fragmented or competitive efforts.

This is not to say that there isn't value in the kind of fragmented and competitive efforts supported by funder RFP and award contests. Much good has come from these over the past decades, but there is a glass ceiling of impact and outcomes that can only be broken through with new kinds of collaborations between and among providers.

More funders are intrigued with the possibility that new levels of outcomes and capacity building will come from new kinds of collaborations.

Thanks to innovative applications from the social network sciences, we now have the tools and principles to build provider networks where collaborations can replace the constraints of fragmented and competitive efforts. In collaboration networks, providers discover what they can do together that they could never do apart, alone, or in opposition to one another.

In strong networks, network members naturally and dynamically align and collaborate in self-organizing ways. They are constantly organizing and reorganizing the assets in the network in new ways to include new members in new efforts. They share responsibility for a commonly-defined future in ways they would never do even with all manners of institutional to-down injunctions and incentives.

Building collaboration networks requires a new set of competencies for both grantees and their funders. On the grantee side of the equation, new collaborations require skill sets like:

?How to develop network awareness, influence, and access
?How to network weave new kinds of affiliations
?How to create vision alignments with other providers and suppliers in the network
?How to combine assets in projects to deliver higher level sets of outcomes
?How to build the organizational and leadership capacity for collaborative proposals and projects
?How to unleash the power of stories beyond statistics for new outcome metrics

On the funder side, new skill sets include:

?How to move from a deficiency to strengths and assets based understanding of provider networks
?How to weave networks capable of self-organizing new kinds of collaborative proposals & projects
?How to frame the new metrics and vision that will inspire new collaborative possibilities
?How to evaluate collaborative proposals for collaborative success potentials
?How to help build the kind of leadership and board cultures capable of new kinds of collaborations
?How to redefine accountability from siloed to collaborative models

As funders and grantees develop these capacities, these networks become stronger, meaning more innovative, pragmatic, visionary, proactive, and agile. As providers learn to share opportunities and resources, they become far more efficient and effective together than they could ever be alone.

Until we build strong provider and supplier networks, funders have no choice but to continue the practice of funding contests, at the expense of systemic impact and grantee-initiated innovations. It is simply amazing what happens when grantees are expected and invited to think together outside the box of standard RFP's and awards. It is even more amazing when they combine rather than protect their assets in service of larger visions of collaborative possibilities. Until funders and grantees develop network and collaboration competencies, they have no choice but to continue old models in hope of new outcomes.

Luckily, none of this takes as much courage as commitment and sense of pragmatism about moving in steps toward a future different from the past. As we see the funding and grantee space transform, we will continue to see their markets and communities transform at the same rate and scope.

from DesigningLife.com. 2010 Jack Ricchiuto

Dynamic & Static Affiliations

2010-02-22T12:25:00.000-08:00

In every network, people cluster by affiliations. These are affiliations based on shared transactions, ideologies, interests, adversaries, demographics, and histories.

And there are two basic types of affiliations, dynamic and static. In static affiliations, people cluster with an intention to protect the membership and characteristics of their affiliation. Sociology sometimes refers to these as "strong cliques" where people feel a relatively strong/sticky sense of loyalty to one another and the basis for their affiliations.

In dynamic affiliations, people cluster with an intention to grow and evolve their cluster's membership and characteristics. They are more loyal to the kind of inclusion and diversity that allows the cluster to emerge as a self-organizing, adaptive ecology of connections.

When it comes to growing networks, one strategy is to grow more dynamic clusters of collaborations and transactions. Another strategy is to expand weak static affiliations that may not be as attached to their clusters' status quo.

The 4 Laws of Networks

2010-02-17T15:38:00.000-08:00

The more we understand about networks, the more amazed we become at their immense and inscrutable power and elegance, starting with the fact that networks do not have "centers" or "boundaries" and act more like complex adaptive systems than orderly hierarchies.

Getting things done in networks barely resembles the rules of getting things done when the whole is divided into power, knowledge, and responsibility haves and have-nots. Best and worst of all, networks do not "play by the rules" because they are intrinsically too fluid and self-organizing for that. And because of that, they tend to be far more incubatorial than traditionally designed organizations and social structures when it comes to innovation and resiliency.

So are they simply random fields of chaos? Hardly. The more we intentionally grow networks, the more we discover very clear laws at work. Let's look at 4 laws of social networks, realizing that there may be galaxies more beyond these.

1. Luck = consciousness x transparency

The premise of my second book in 2002, "Accidental Conversations" is that "the best things in life happen unplanned." It continues to be amazing that when people hear that, they respond far less with outrage or defiance, but with juicy story after story about how the best things - and people - in their lives emerged in unplanned and unpredictable ways. The grace of serendipity is one of the most powerful and accessible currencies in networks and, as luck would have it, it happens at the intersection of (network) consciousness and being transparent about one's gifts and passions. A few books later, in "Conscious Becoming" I suggest that to be "conscious" is to be "curious." The most curious and transparent people are also the luckiest in networks.

2. Innovation = learning x diverse connections

I disagree with the argument that innovation is the child of desperation. I wish it was so, because if it was, we would be on a planet devoid of incredible amounts of preventable child deaths, failed economies, and the rest of what would otherwise be tragedies that could be prevented by innovations of all kinds. The pragmatic reality is that innovation happens at the intersection of learning and cultivating diverse connections. When you have diverse connections in a network, learning almost cannot not happen. Networks literally become learning disabled if the connections become too homophilous and without learning, no innovation is possible.

3. Influence = credibility x location

If your passion is to create a future different from the past, you value influence and influence happens at the intersection of credibility and location in the network. Get to know the people in a network who know lots of other people and cultivate credibility with them, and you have natural and authentic influence. Your voice can soften and you can put your spam weapons down because you will organically influence open spaces within your network simply because it is a function of location and credibility.

4. Network growth = introductions x generosity

Some networks grow into thrivability with far fewer resources than resource-rich networks. It is because people in these thriving networks make more introductions of people who don't know each other and practice more acts of generosity. Good introductions are an art form anyone can quickly learn and master. Generosity is offering your gifts to others who value them, without the strings of reciprocity attached. Generosity and introductions accelerate the growth the networks in amazingly unpredictable and wonderful ways.

These 4 laws continue to inform and inspire the work June, Valdis and I do with communities and networks and people continue to be amazed at their truth, beauty, and power. Networks grow at the speed of introductions and acts of generosity among and between members of a network.

Jack Ricchiuto | DesigningLife.com

Non-Profit Boards as Thriving Networks

2010-02-06T15:24:00.000-08:00

Why is that we've arrived at the place where so many of people consider the term "dysfunctional non-profit board" as a redundancy? Especially when so many non-profits are struggling to survive and their communities value them more than ever. From a group design perspective, board dysfunction is both an unnecessary and talent-wasteful practice to continue.

One of the most common indicators of really poor board design is when boards "look forward to the new board president,� incorrectly thinking that a change in leadership could possibly compensate for poor board design.

Following the design principle that "things always perform the way they're designed to perform,� the only way for a board to perform better is to better design the structure and functionality of the board. Then, when a board is better designed, a new good leader will more easily and successfully contribute great value to the board's capacity and performance.

So, we need to radically rethink the design of boards. We need to end the practice of boards as committees more interested in rules than resilience, and more obsessed with structure than engagement.

We need to start thinking of boards as thriving aspiration, asset, and action networked boards.

In a networked board architecture, the board would be comprised of a thriving network of aspiration, assets, and actions, organized by a core team. The core team is a network-elected group of 6-8 people, with continuity-friendly terms, that sustains the legal and fiscal responsibilities of a 501.c organization.

The primary work of the core team is to grow the capacity, impact, and agility of the board�s network.

The network would include key organizational stakeholders, community entrepreneurs and experts committed to the organization's success, interested community members, volunteers, and even funders, investors, and other non-profit partners. As with any healthy network, anyone can join the network and leave the network at any time.

The work of the core team is to continuously invite people, groups, and organizations into the board�s network who would be able and willing to contribute value to the thrivability of the organization in the currencies of tangible and intangible assets.

These assets include ideas, talent, resources, funds, and connections. Not only would the core team invite people into the network, everyone in the network is expected to invite other people and assets into the network.

As an aspiration network, the network would continuously inspire the core team, organization, and the network with long and short term vision. As an asset network, the network would engage and grow the kinds of assets that could help realize these aspirations. As an action network, the network would engage people in projects that would add value to the success and thrivancy of the organization.

The core team of the board grows and weaves the network, so that it is an ever-evolving network of compelling vision, rich with diverse assets, and engaged in new ways to grow the organization and the network. This replaces the structure of �board committees� that manage to exclude resources and engagement outside the board and to spend more trying to get to consensus than to incubate rich ecologies of diverse projects.

The purpose of the board's core team and network is to complement the organization's assets. Where the organization needs financial, legal, strategic, marketing, fundraising, or volunteer assets, it now has a core team and the network to engage the network's assets. This eliminates the capacity constraints of the board. How would you like to be a non-profit with a board whose asset constraints are not an issue?

Compared to traditionally designed boards, networked boards are incredibly more inclusive, agile, and innovative. A networked board increase the chances that non-profits will become more collaborative, resource-wise, and strategic than ever before.

Of course this approach will only be embraced by only the most strategic and visionary non-profit boards. Once more of them engage and prove the model, it will hopefully become the norm, and we will see more non-profits thrive as community investment organizations.

Originally published at DesigningLife.com

Rethinking Competition in a Local Living Networked Economy

2010-02-01T19:40:00.000-08:00

As more communities move toward a vision of local living networked economies, the whole conversation about the nature and value of competition comes into question.

The invitation for local living networked economies emerges from commitment to the profoundly provocative and transformational question: What can we do together that we can't do alone?

Competition is one form of network connection on a continuum of possible connections. On the other side of the continuum is collaboration and in between are co-opetition, niching, and complementarity connections.

In competition, we�re committed to the eat-or-be-eaten demise of other market providers. In co-opetition, we team up with a competitor on a project or offering that serves us mutually, agreeing to compete on everything else. In niching, we serve or create a market segment that is under-served or under-satisfied. In complementarity, we provide other providers with value that helps them, succeed and grow. In collaboration, we�re committed to sharing market share with other providers and team up with them regularly for mutual growth of our respective businesses, the local market footprint, and growing non-local markets and business.

In a community where there is a thriving bicycle market, any combination of these five connections can occur among the bicycle shops in business there. The character of this dynamic market ecology of providers has endless possibilities.

Shop A is committed to a competitive connection with some or all of the other shops, doing everything it can to weaken or eliminate them from the market. Shop B is committed to growing new niches in the bicycle market, through the innovation of alternative energy powered products.

Shop C used to be a full-service shop but has recently strategically committed to being the prime supplier of tires for any of the other shops who agree to their sourcing. Shop D openly competes with shops A and E, and at the same time is committed to selective co-opetition with them in the shared reduction of health care costs with shared plans and joint marketing efforts to grow the local footprint of the adult market, since only 20% of this market ride bicycles on a regular basis.

Shops E and B have recently collaborated on a very successful regional bicycle marathon event partnering with local arts and culture organizations for the event. Shops B and C team up to share professional services, and use the cost savings to collaborate on price reductions and savings for their respective customers.

Each of these 5 fundamental market provider connections has potential value to create a provider network for the community that gives the community products and services that are increasingly: convenient, affordable, locally-relevant, market-diversity responsive, quality service, innovative, adaptable, proactive, and promotive of a local living economy.

The community has the opposite of these when the provider network ecology is dominated by competitive connections.

The competitive connection is the simple commitment to weaken or eliminate other providers in a community's market. If the provider network is weak, meaning it lacks a healthy mix of the other 4 kinds of market connections, dominance will occur and providers - and their local suppliers, employees, investors, and customers - will all lose as the cost of one dominant monopolistic supplier's gain. This can happen as well when two suppliers team up their resources and position to triangulate the rest of the market into failure.

The market loses everything in a monopoly of providers: choice, affordability, convenience, quality service, incentive for innovation, and the rest.

Creating thriving ecologies of market provider networks means engaging our assets with a commitment to foster, nurture, and reward a healthy mix of provider connections in any local community market. This is the job of network weavers, regardless of whether they act independently, as grass-roots organizers, as members of institutions, or as market provider members.

This approach is not only pragmatic, it is also possible, and begins with two simple steps: introducing the language of the competition-collaboration continuum and inviting people into new conversations that make them more possible.

Originally published at DesigningLife.com

Swarms

2010-01-18T17:20:00.000-08:00

From Wikipedia:

Swarm describes a behaviour of an aggregate of animals of similar size and body orientation, often moving en masse in the same direction. "Swarming" is a general term that can be applied to any animal that swarms. The term can be applied to insects, birds, fish, various microorganisms such as bacteria, and people. The term applies particularly to insects. "Flocking" is the term usually used for swarming behaviour in birds, while "shoaling" or "schooling" refers to swarming behaviour in fish.

Swarm is the social confluence of similarity. On a human level, it happens when we pay attention to the myths that connect us. That's why, as I suggest in The Stories That Connect Us, it matters what stories we share. Our choice of stories create either the fermentations of swarms or fragmentations of isolation.

Only certain kinds of stories have the power to provoke swarms. Think about what those could be, propagate them, and watch a swarm emerge!

What kind of network?

2010-01-03T10:46:00.000-08:00

Jack, Valdis and I had a wonderful lively discussion about networks and innovation diffusion a few weeks ago and I�d like to capture some of what we talked about here.

First, we continue to try to clarify the different kinds of networks. We three often use the term networks in the social network analysis sense of sets of relationships and the patterns they generate. However, most people use networks to describe intentional networks -- networks that have some awareness of the set of relationships and incorporate that awareness into their strategies. But there are considerable differences in the nature of that intentionality.

Jack came up with a nice way to represent some of those differences, see the chart above.

Some networks actually look like and function like organizations, or an organization of organizations. These tend to be intentionally focused on a particular goal or purpose, i.e. a housing network committed to increasing housing units available to low-income residents. Such networks are often structured like organizations in that they have membership and rules about how decisions are made. They tend to spend considerable time arriving at consensus and developing plans of action. These networks have had considerable success working on specific initiatives, such as advocating a specific piece of legislation but are often expensive to maintain over long periods of time.

This is in contrast to networks that are self-organized. In self-organized networks, the organizations or individuals may never all meet in one room and don�t decide on anything as a group. They move forward when individuals identify others with similar or overlapping interests and do something together. Generally, many small joint actions are generated and fewer large actions. The many groups involved in Regional Flavor initiatives are an example of self-organized networks. Meet-ups is another example.

Another quality of networks is their ideological stance. For some networks a specific ideology shapes the boundaries of the network, determining who is in and who is out. Such networks can generate tremendous energy (for example, the Right to Life network or some environmental networks). However, their homogeneity can sometimes limit their reach and innovativeness.

Networks that are driven by pragmatism and experimentation tend to shun specific ideologies. Individuals and organizations in such networks are looking for solutions to intractable problems that require massive innovation; or, they are trying to figure out new ways of organizing economic activity. Such networks tend to have many opportunities that encourage people to move out of silos and meet people different than them. They encourage lots of reflection about what has worked and what hasn�t. Scrum software development teams and hospital networks working to eliminate MRSA are an example of this type of network.

Where would your networks fit on this chart? Is this chart useful?

Personalities in networks

2009-12-30T07:42:00.000-08:00

I posted a tweet on this today and June suggested I elaborate, so here are some seminal ideas on 5 basic personalities that show up and engage in social networks.

Adders

People who are always introducing (adding) new people, new ideas, new questions, and new assets to the network

Subtractors

People who are always looking to take something (subtracting) from the network - they are the consumers, stealers, and energy-drainers in the network

Dividers

People who are always aligning people in opposition to others in the network; they keep the network divided into us-them divisions based on either-or thinking

Multipliers

People who create rhizomic possibilities that can keep multiplying, virally, by virtue of their replicability and value to the network

Integrators

People who create new fusions of possibilities, transcendent and transformational ways for the network to become more inventive and adaptive. These are the designers, architects, poets, and crafts people in the network who provide vision and inspiration to adders and multipliers.

Obviously, rich networks grow adders, multipliers, and integrators.

You may find yourself living in a large network, and you may ask yourself... Well, how did I get here?

2009-11-12T10:23:00.000-08:00

Inspired by my favorite Talking Heads song: "Once in a Lifetime".

We often wonder "how did I get here?" when we look around and reflect on our personal networks. Where did all these connections come from? Did I do all this? Who helped weave my network? What can I do with these connections? Where can I add more?

I will go through key growth stages of a network that evolved this past decade. Many of the connections have already resulted in creative collaborations. Other connections are just bearing fruit now. Networks are like that -- a new connection does not always bear instant fruit, sometimes the growing season for some links is very long. Yet at the end, the fact that the link is already established, an opportunity is spotted and acted upon using the resources that the link provides.

Many years ago the network looked like this. Two people are connected if they interact with each other as friends and/or colleagues. ONet represents a now defunct on-line group: The Omidyar Network. This was a gathering place to help people discover how they can make a difference.

People on ONet got to know each other from their on-line activity and Jerry introduced Tom to Valdis -- he closed the triangle amongst himself, Tom and Valdis.

Next, Tom introduced Jean to Valdis at a seminar he organized in Boston. Soon after that, Steve reached out to June after doing a web search on "network weaving."

In the next phase, June introduced Steve to Valdis to work on network mapping, and Valdis introduced June to Tom to speak at his next seminar in Europe. Notice as people start "closing triangles" via introductions, the original meeting place for a portion of the group -- ONet -- starts getting pushed to the periphery.

Next, Valdis introduces June to Jean to share similar interests and goals, and after working with Valdis on network maps Steve introduces Daniel, who is also interested in network mapping, to Valdis.

Finally, Jean meets Jerry at another event and the network as it stands today is now in place.

When we make introductions, and close triangles, we are not doing it to merely create new connections. Network weavers usually have a goal in mind when connecting two new people -- a project, a mentorship, a future collaboration. The links between Daniel, Jean, and Valdis were in place several years ago but only this year did they all collaborate around a common project. Jean and Valdis were working on thrivable networks and Daniel was organizing a conference around building networks to help inner-city kids -- all three were going to be in Chicago the same week. After a few emails it was agreed, Jean and Valdis would do a workshop on building thrivable networks @ Daniel's Tutor/Mentor Conference.

So, networks are built in many ways. First, by being in the same physical or virtual space, and second by active network weavers who make strategic introductions for the benefit of those they connect and for the benefit of the entire network. Networks are also activated in many ways. Sometimes by the initial introduction and connection to an immediate need, and other times, existing links need a little nudge to activate -- like an obvious opportunity. Our themes in the workshop will be:

� Know the Net - map the existing connections of your community/ecosystem
� Knit the Net - weave and support new connections, build a thriving network
� Nudge the Net - activate the network toward self-organization and action

Register here online and join us in Chicago on November 20th!

How did we get here?
Letting the days go by...
Many years of knowing, knitting and nudging.
Same as it ever was... Same as it ever was...

The Power of Network Weaving

2009-08-30T10:51:00.000-07:00

One of the most interesting developments in the social sciences is the new science of social networks. This is the growing body of knowledge and practice about how organizations, communities, regions, industries, markets and geopolitics behave as networks of collaboration, learning, and influence.

One of the principles in social network science is that when people are better connected, they are more individually and collectively productive, cohesive, and resilient.

From a social network perspective, every social problem is a symptom of fragmentation in networks. Everything we call a problem today is a manifestation of unengaged citizens, siloed institutions, divisive politics, and fragmented industries. Few new possibilities can occur in a world of disconnections. When connections thrive, new possibilities thrive.

Where people are thriving in the world today, their social networks are the fabric of their thrivancy. When people are better connected in social networks, they become more of a community.

Social network sciences suggest that the most significant accelerator of network connections is the presence of network weavers in networks.

Network weavers are people who intentionally and informally - and often serendipitously - weave new and richer connections between and among people, groups, and entities in networks. They also weave new and richer connections between among networks.

This is not a new role; it is a role that has been around since the beginning of social introductions. Network weavers do three things.

1. They constantly learn about the assets and opportunities in the network. This includes the tangible and intangible, shared and isolated, well-engaged and unengaged talents, resources, funds, space, expertise, and knowledge available within the network.

2. They constantly learn about the dreams of people in the network. These are the passions inspiring what people are striving to create and pursue.

3. They constantly introduce and connect people with complementary dreams and assets.

Anyone can be a network weaver. It requires no specialized position, permission, personality type, or preparation. Network weaving only requires five things: intention, time, curiosity, the ability to make quality introductions, and a good connection with those they�re connecting.

Network weaving can happen in any media and geography - in person, online, by phone or text. It can be strategically planned or spontaneously improvised. It can take minutes or months.

A quality introduction is one where the people introduced are immediately inspired to get to know one another more, with a new sense of learning, collaboration, transaction, or alliance possibilities.

The power of network weaving is how it invites a culture of generosity that is the basis for all thriving networks.

The more network weaving happens in a network, the more people are connected in new ways. When people are better connected, they dream with greater courage, they share their assets with greater generosity, and they innovate with greater resourcefulness.

The divide between knowledge and asset haves and have-nots shrinks, creating a culture of trust and engagement rather than isolation and entitlement. People with common dreams scale their dreams thanks to wider and richer collaborations. People become more transparent and as a result, share a sense of responsibility for the well-being of the whole.

Through network weaving, we become able to create a common future different from the past.

Fireside Chat: Ed Morrison & Valdis Krebs

2009-08-24T19:31:00.000-07:00

First of a series of chats on leading edge ideas in regional economic development with Ed Morrison and Valdis Krebs.

We look at how to find hidden opportunities in business lists. Valdis uses social network analysis and some simple data mining to derive the network of collaboration opportunities below from the list of 350 NE Ohio advanced energy companies above. How did he do it? Watch and listen to this 5 minute Screenr screencast!

Next week's chat will focus on Ed's work around ditching organizational charts.

"Alley of Art" at 43 Du Page Court, Elgin, IL, 08.22.09

2009-08-22T18:38:00.000-07:00

Special thanks to Elgin Cultural Arts Commission

"A Synesthectic Plan of Chicago" Visitor Information Center, Cultural Center, Chicago, IL, 07.23.09.

2009-07-23T18:26:00.000-07:00

Special Thanks to Annie Heckman and Dan Godston for facilitating this event.

"Danish American Artist Series Presents: Anni Holm", Danish Immigrant Museum, Elk Horn, IA, 07.12.09

2009-07-12T21:39:00.000-07:00

Special Thanks for Irene P�rez for assistance with installation and documentation - and Angela Standford & John Mark Nielsen for making it happen.

"A Synesthectic Plan of Chicago" Visitor Information Center, Cultural Center, Chicago, IL, 07.02.09.

2009-07-02T21:24:00.000-07:00

Special Thanks to Annie Heckman and Dan Godston for facilitating this event.

The power of dreams and small acts

2009-06-11T16:21:00.000-07:00

These are views from the rural economic development Summit June and I (Jack) facilitated last Friday. It was a great group and a fabulous time of learning and transformation. People did a great job of dreaming and translating dreams into small acts - cultural breakthroughs we expect to hear long term impacts from.

Weaving a Job Network

2009-05-30T08:11:00.000-07:00

Recently Valdis appeared on WCPN - 90.3 FM, the Cleveland NPR radio station, on "The Sound of Ideas" with Dan Moulthrop. The program was about searching for a job when you are over 50 years old. Listen to the MP3 here [I am in the last 15 minutes]. Here are more details to the network weaving process that the limited on-air time did not allow me to share.

When is the best time to plant a tree?
20 years ago.

When is the next best time to plant a tree?
Today!

Chinese Proverb

What is true for trees, is true for networks -- build your network before you need it!

It is best to have been building and expanding your strategic personal network for all of your professional life. Unfortunately, most people don't come to that realization until they are let go from their current job.

Most people have small, dense networks composed mostly of their immediate on-the-job colleagues, friends and family. These networks are the first resource of the newly furloughed employee. Asking around, the job-seeker finds that immediate contacts often do not have much more job information than the job searcher has -- they are all in the same network neighborhood where everyone knows what everyone else knows at about the same time.

Once the job seeker exhausts the obvious job openings that s/he and their immediate contacts are aware of, they become stuck. What to do next? The common advice is send out or post resumes on-line, attend job fairs and start "networking". The first two suggestions get the job seeker onto the overcrowded freeway to the HR office. In today's recession, this route is a clogged artery with little or no movement -- time to get out of this traffic jam and try an alternate path.

The next suggestion -- "networking" -- sounds good, but is often approached wrong. Networking is commonly defined as quickly connecting with many people -- focus on quantity over quality -- sometimes mockingly called schmoozing. Building strategic connections is much different than just "networking" -- you build trusted relationships that bring you information and access that you currently don't have in your small circle of friends and colleagues. Quality trusted ties are like the trees planted many years ago. Quality trusted ties develop when people work on something together -- they don't develop over a handshake at a conference, a quick conversation over coffee or a speed interview at a job fair.

Networking may get you many new business cards, but are these people willing and able to introduce you to the hiring manager [the route around the clogged freeway]? If I just met you at a conference, or you called me out of the blue "to network", am I going to risk my professional reputation to introduce you to my boss or trusted colleague? Probably not. Yet, if you are introduced to me by a trusted friend, colleague or peer then I will listen and we will both benefit. Better yet, if we work on a volunteer project together, I see you "in action" and we bond -- I feel confident in recommending you.

Once you exhaust your inner circle of people who can make introductions, what do you do? Two things: 1) re-activate trusted ties from the past that are now dormant and 2) build new trusted ties via volunteering and part-time work.

Everyone has dormant connections that can be re-activated. Many people are now getting on Facebook and LinkedIn and re-connecting with former colleagues and college chums. Do so, but be careful. Do not re-connect with a transaction in your back pocket -- "Hi, nice to to hear from you again, do you know of any jobs?" I have a former colleague who re-connects with me every 5-7 years -- but he does so only when he is in the job market! He expects a connection, but is not eager to offer one of his own. Needless to say, he does not get far. Once you re-connect with one or two trusted ties ask them if they have remained in contact with others from your old social circle. You want to be expanding/re-activating your current network out 1 and 2 steps -- your contacts and hopefully their contacts. This will help you reach people with information about jobs you have not heard of yet.

A friend of mine, a job-seeking HR executive in Chicago, has done an amazing job of building her strategic network in the last year. She has hundreds of new connections with many of them being ties she built in prolonged interactions. She has volunteered on several projects in her field and has also joined several advisory boards. She helped organize several local HR conferences and meetings for the non-profit she works with and therefore has face-to-face work experience with a new cadre of colleagues. They have seen her in action, they like her work, her energy, they trust her, they even give out their personal cell phone numbers to be references for her! Like a tree establishing a root system, it has taken her a while to grow this strategic network, but it is now vibrant and ready to provide her with many opportunities.

In addition to job offers and business opportunities, a wide strategic network also provides other benefits. Health and happiness! When I talked to my HR colleague in Chicago this week, she did not come across as a person that had been out of work for a while. She was very upbeat and full of energy -- which comes across great in an interview! She was very positive because her network was growing and bringing results. She was meeting new people, sharpening her skills and learning new behaviors -- she was very positive about her future. More and more research is pointing to the health benefits of building social networks. Employers like to hire positive, high energy people.

Out of work? Form new ties -- not casual connections, but collaborative caring connections. They will bring you a variety of rewards. Also, when you start your new job, do not stop your network building. Keep expanding your network, make new connections in new places. Keep growing that tree, you planted, with wide-reaching branches.

"Only connect!
Live in fragments no longer."

Howard's End
E. M. Forster

"Art Night - Focus on the Arts" Highland Park High School, Highland Park, IL, 04.28.09.

2009-04-28T18:44:00.000-07:00

"Secret School's Crafternoon" Antena, Chicago, IL, 04.11.09.

2009-04-11T22:42:00.000-07:00

Special Thanks to Secret School and Antena for facilitating the opportunity and Miguel Cortez for assistance and photographic documentation.

"SPE National Conference" Fairmont Hotel, Dallas, TX, 03.28.09.

2009-03-28T19:30:00.000-07:00

Special Thanks to Matthew Clowney for photographic documentation.

Emergence Part 2

2009-03-15T09:22:00.000-07:00

Here is part 2:

Emergence - Part 1

2009-03-15T09:16:00.000-07:00

key to understanding self-organizing is the concept of emergence. Here is a nice video (via Lisa Kimball) in two parts.

Can we see self-organizing in our world?

2009-03-08T14:49:00.000-07:00

I'm really finding BFI Book Group quite delightful. First, it's a good use of Ning, a free customizable social networking site, as a discussion forum. Might want to check it out to see how it works.

In addition, the quality of the discussion of The Invention of Air (by Steven B Johnson) is great. There's a new thread on Systems Thinking and Change that is fascinating. Saul Kaplan, who organized the Book Group, says

...systems level innovation is exactly what it is going to take to tackle the really important issues of our time including health care, education, and climate change.

But to get systems level innovation we need theory. Steven Johnson points out

...what we don't have is a convincing theory about the system that connects all these local innovations, that causes them to self-organize into something so momentous.

.

I think the theory is there, in the science of self-organizing systems and complexity. But virtually all of that literature describes everything but human social self-organizing systems: ecosystems, immune systems, termite colonies, etc.

Somehow we've created a culture and social system where the self-organizing capacity that termites illustrate so effectively has been damped way down. Our only path back to this birthright is to become highly self-aware of our natural capacity to self-organize.

We have to learn to see the self-organizing that exists in our lives before this broader theory can become social theory. As Steven Johnson points out in his excellent video, self-organizing is local, and we need to practice self-organizing in a way that enables us to build our self-organizing capacities: we need to gain new skills in listening and in working together and learn to reach out to those who are different from us in every way possible. As we do this, I think we will be shocked at the depth of creativity that is unleashed.

But as Johnson queries, how does all this little stuff become the stuff of transformation? I believe the magic of emergence can be assisted through networking structures (whether coffee houses or social media) that enable us to share deeply, and through processes that enable innovations to be woven together, to scale and make a difference.

Whither the Coffee House?

2009-03-07T07:25:00.000-08:00

Saul Kaplan has set up an online book club on innovation. The first book we are reading and discussing is Steven Johnson's "The Invention of Air," which describes the coffee house culture of England and the U.S. in the late 1700's. Here are some of my thoughts about these places that were so crucial to innovation in that era.

Think about the coffee house - people flowing in and out with the frequent running into others and the chance to exchange and cross-fertilize one's latest spontaneous thinking, places for twosies to sit down and move the sparks that have been created into action, and groups coalescing around trending topics so larger stuff can emerge.

But the impact of traditional coffee house innovation is limited by class and geography. Little headway was made on issues such as poverty because no poor people ever made it in the door (except as unseen help). Social media is just now providing examples of how the web can overcome some of the coffee house limitations. One of the delights of Twitter is that you can create a coffee house peopled by quite diverse individuals from all over the world (I follow people from many countries and political persuasions) and, because you are overhearing all their comments and conversations, you can often find some opportunity to strike up a conversation and start to build a relationship with people you would never run into in this way in your ordinary life.

The difficulty, though, is reconceptualizing the physical place - a coffee house - as a set of innovation flows. Once you have a great provocative conversation with one or two people on Twitter, how and where do you move it so the energy and innovation continues to flow into action? I've now had a number of instances where the Twitter banter flowed into Skype calls/chats/document exchanges and then into face-to-face meetings or directly into some collaborative arrangement. The next missing piece is more support for small collaborations online. How do we keep track of all the small projects and what we are supposed to do for each?s

The Network Leap

2009-02-25T14:48:00.000-08:00

The biggest network divide -- the one I think makes philanthropy so much less effective than it could be -- is the divide between so-called DONORS and BENEFICIARIES. I want to suggest that these terms are a little whacky.

I want to suggest that people who give money and people who have projects that need money need to rethink of themselves as a PEER NETWORK -- and that this small (but oh so difficult) step would instantly start a process of transformation.

First of all, people are doing fabulous, creative stuff out in communities. They are experimenting, working unbelievably hard, scrambling for resources to keep going. Philanthropists could learn so much from them about what works, what makes a difference - but how do they get a true picture of what is going on, because non-profits feel they have to make themselves look perfect to get money and so hide some of the most important information -- their mistakes!? How can positive community energy be identified and supported -- and be allowed to be imperfect, but held accountable for learning and making breakthroughs? What might happen if philanthropists stopped funding themes and started funding networks of high-energy groups that have or want to learn deep processes of innovation, collaboration and reflection?

But, by funding organizations rather than networks and projects, philanthropists take away the incentive to work with others, learn from others and get the kind of feedback that helps non-profits see the unproductive ruts they have slipped into.

The Viral Giving Network

2009-02-25T05:00:00.000-08:00

An example of a Viral Giving Network was provided in two earlier posts about the Oxfam Savings for ChangeProject and Keys to Transformation and Scale. Women in the Savings for Change Circles spread their successful strategy for collecting savings and then lending to circle members to many other groups of women in their villages, thus increasing the impact of the project more than ten-fold -- at very little additional cost.

Viral Giving always includes training participants so that they can continue to spread the project. In Savings for Change, participants were given the framework of viral spreading ("You can spread this to other women in your village."), tools for spreading the project (a pictograph manual of how to run a savings circle), and basic skills and strategies to spread the project. Think about your projects: Are projects you fund something that can be spread? Or,do your projects have elements that could be spread (for example, the use of social media)? Do you suggest that spreading the project or elements of it are part of the project? Do you provide training in how these can be spread?

Video on Network Weaving

2009-02-25T04:52:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the good folks at I-Open, especially Betsey Merkel, I'm sharing a 20 minute video on Network Weaving. This could be the first of a series, a tutorial on Network Weaving concepts and skills.

All I ask is that you provide some feedback: Is this useful? What about the length? What specific aspects of Network Weaving would you like to learn more about?

Transformative Philanthropy Network - the parts

2009-02-24T13:49:00.000-08:00

In the next series of posts, I'll use examples to describe the 4 (maybe 5) sub-networks in a truly transformative philanthropy network. I'll offer a graphic that will show each part and then how they all fit together.

Part 1: The Viral Giving Network

Part 2: The Viral Donor Aggregation Network

Part 3: The Direct Donor to Recipient Network

Part 4: The Learning Networks

Part 5: The Engagement Across Divides Networks

You will see as each is described, the words that we use start shifting, opening up new possibilities.

Philanthropic networks

2009-02-22T11:16:00.000-08:00

In the 2 previous posts I've been talking about philanthropists as if they were synonymous with foundations. In this post I'd like to deconstruct and reconstruct the notions of who is a philanthropist.

We have been blessed in this country (U.S.A.) to have many many foundations. However, these foundations, as was the case for businesses and government agencies as well, adopted organizational structures that were hierarchical and generally operated in isolation from other organizations. For the last decade, though, many entrepreneurial individuals and businesses have moved to an ecosystem model: they have vast relationships with other businesses of many types and sizes as well as with 'customers,' and they often operate through an ever-changing ensemble of of collaborative projects with others in their ecosystem. New product ideas, for example, are as likely to come from a customer or a microbusiness in another part of the world as from internal staff. Staff are often continually engaging with "non-staff" in a wide range of FTF and online venues.

Kiva.org is an example of how philanthropy can operate in this new ecosystem world. The site draws in new philanthropists (who are mostly individuals who have never considered themselves as philanthropists before) mainly through friendship networks, and links people directly to individuals who need loans. It is this direct connection - knowing something about the person to whom you are lending money - that draws so many people in who never donated money to an abstract cause. How could foundations see themselves as builders of networks that create these kinds of direct connections and engage many more people in philanthropic activities?

Kiva.org also has set up a structure to support the self-organizing of lender interest groups. More than 3000 teams help build relationships among the new philanthropists, expanding their understanding of and commitment to the larger initiative, thus setting up viral expansion pathways. In addition, kiva.org offers an internship program that engages individuals in tracking success and further weaving the network.

How could foundations and other more traditionally organized philanthropists see their role as supporting the development of a complex philanthropic ecosystem?

Policy networks

2009-02-22T10:24:00.000-08:00

How can philanthropy assist in the formation of policy networks? I think the biggest mistake foundations make is that they often convene non-profits interested in a particular policy area and have them talk (often for months or even years), struggling to consense on a specific policy agenda which they then push forward as a group. For many intractable problems, though, this approach is premature, and often doesn't result in long term system change.

Why not start with the most basic system change and create a different set of relationships among all of those who care about some major problem or possibility? How can development of a policy agenda engage policy makers and policy influentials (Institutes, individuals, and media that people look to to shape discussions in a particular policy arena) from the start? Instead of immediately focusing on policy, could these key policy players become engaged with non-profits around experiments that help everyone learn what effective policy needs to look like for this area?

How could foundations and agencies see their role as creating policy networks that connect non-profits (both locally and with innovators around the world) and help them build long-term relationships with policy makers and policy influentials? Non-profits are all too often isolated from the experience of other non-profits that could inform policy recommendations.Too often they forge ahead with a massive change agenda with little or no experience from which to determine whether what they are suggesting will actually work or whether it has the flexibility needed to match the uniqueness of communities. How could they gain the skills needed for effective network building and collaboration that would support ongoing innovation?

What would policy look like that encourages collaboration and is flexible enough to allow creative adaptation to each community funded? I would love to see policy-mandated funding be based on the Innovation Fund model: the first round of policy sets up seed funds available to many collaborative projects, each made up of small groups of organizations interested in exploring a specific innovative approach through collaborative action. Well facilitated reflection sessions encourage the seed projects to explore what they learned about this policy terrain as a result of their innovative experience. Policy-designated funds are then available for new, larger collaborative projects that are thoroughly tracked to develop the key "patterns of success." Larger scale policy is then developed based on this learning and experience.

Looking forward to hearing about your experience and thoughts!

Providing support for learning/policy communities among "grantees"

2009-02-22T08:26:00.000-08:00

My first suggestion to enhance philanthropy is for foundations or philanthropists to be trend and energy seekers. Rather than have lengthy planning/priority sessions, why not have the program staff (and board) call people they respect (and then some random names from the non-profit, grassroots community) and ask them what they think are the most exciting projects, directions, organizations and individuals working in communities? As a result of listening, the foundation will quickly find out where the energy is, so that they can support, enhance and scale that good energy.

The first step in enhancing already emerging energy is to encourage and assist those energy centers to enhance their networks. I remember one very nice foundation that decided, after much internal study, on a focus for their grantmaking. They made a request for proposals from organizations interested in that particular focus area. Then the foundation selected a dozen or so organizations and brought them together to form a "network." Unfortunately, most of these organizations felt they had little in common and the processes the foundation used in their "network" gatherings did little to help the organizations get to know each other so they never identified commonalities. Because of the structure of the proposals (everyone had to lay out a 3-year plan), all of the groups had already decided what they were going to do, so there was little room for collaborative projects to emerge from the "network."

Now, let's look at another scenario. The foundation or investors identify energy centers in the network and ask them to identify their current network and who else they would like to be connected with. The foundation then negotiates a network building initiative with the core of the network (usually 6-10 organizations), providing the core with support to map their network and then learn basic Network Weaving skills so they can expand and enhance their network relationships. A key aspect of this strategy is to use the network weaving "training" as an opportunity to support the formation of a peer Community of Practice/Action/Reflection. Part of the Network Guardian role the foundation plays involves listening to the organizations and facilitating (or paying for facilitators) who watch topics emerge and structure convenings of all sorts (phone, FTF, Ning) (Twosies, small groups) to research and/or organize learning/discussion on these emerging topics. Out of this initial learning action collaborations form (which will usually need some coaching in inter-organizational project management!) and start doing things, usually innovative actions where there is high uncertainty.

So again, the foundation can help the collaboratives process what is happening - in real time as they "rapid prototype" - and make sense of what is happening. Does what they are doing feel like its going in the right direction? What have they been surprised about? What did they notice? What do they need to learn about? Who can they learn that from? For this kind of learning to lead to breakthroughs, the foundation as network guardian will need to make sure the reflection process includes participants and observers as well as the organizational staff.

So that this peer learning network is sustainable, it's important that the initial facilitator train individuals in the network in the skills need to continue learning activities after the initial grant ends. In this way, the facilitators seed the network with new network building and learning capacities that can become positively infectious!

What are your thoughts? Would this approach work? Who has already tried something like this?

Social Network Analysis Workshop

2009-02-15T21:16:00.000-08:00

Escape the snowy North and come learn something new in sunny San Diego!

Valdis Krebs will be presenting a 1/2 day workshop on practical applications of social network analysis [SNA] at the upcoming Sunbelt Social Network Conference sponsored by INSNA -- International Network for Social Network Analysis.

This workshop will be on the morning of March 11th at the Bahia Hotel @ Mission Beach in San Diego, California. The Sunbelt conference will run until Sunday, March 15th in the same Hotel.

The hands-on workshop will feature a quick overview of social network analysis as applied to organizations and communities. You will get a chance to use social network analysis software to explore a simple data set. Whether you are a consultant, analyst, manager, activist, student, professor, or journalist you will learn how to apply this useful methodology with clients and customers.

Register as an INSNA Member - $60 USD
Workshop Registration - SNA in Business - $50 USD
Conference Registration - $150 USD

Valdis and Erin Kenneally will have a presentation during the regular conference on Analyzing Networks of Corruption.

Viral Philanthropy Introduction

2009-01-10T13:41:00.000-08:00

How can a foundation or charitable endeavor have the greatest impact? I think its through 4 basic strategies:

1. Funding 2-step viral strategies for transformation

2. Providing support for learning/policy communities among "grantees"

3. Creating viral strategies to build an expanding donor community

4. Enabling donor and grantee to engage directly

More on each of these tomorrow!

I'm not sure that any philanthropic effort currently employes all 4, but I'm counting on those of you who have implemented one or more to share your experience with us.

Points of Leverage for Transformation

2009-01-06T10:05:00.000-08:00

When we want to understand how small changes can be leveraged into transformation, Donella Meadows has a great list of 12 leverage points she compiled back in the seventies, but which is still so applicable today.

The leverage point I most like is Number 3: The Power of Self-Organization.

The most stunning thing living systems can do is to change themselves utterly by creating whole new structures and behaviors. In biological systems that power is called evolution. In human economies it's called technical advance or social revolution. In systems lingo it's called self-organization.

Self-organization means changing any aspect of a system lower on this list�adding or deleting new physical structure, adding or deleting negative or positive loops or information flows or rules. The ability to self-organize is the strongest form of system resilience, the ability to survive change by changing.

The human immune system can develop responses to (some kinds of) insults it has never before encountered. The human brain can take in new information and pop out completely new thoughts.

Self-organization seems so wondrous that we tend to regard it as mysterious, miraculous. Economists often model technology as literal manna from heaven�coming from nowhere, costing nothing, increasing the productivity of an economy by some steady percent each year. For centuries people have regarded the spectacular variety of nature with the same awe. Only a divine creator could bring forth such a creation.

In fact the divine creator does not have to produce miracles. He, she, or it just has to write clever rules for self-organization. These rules govern how, where, and what the system can add onto or subtract from itself under what conditions.

Self-organizing computer models demonstrate that delightful, mind-boggling patterns can evolve from simple evolutionary algorithms. (That need not mean that real-world algorithms are simple, only that they can be.) The genetic code that is the basis of all biological evolution contains just four letters, combined into words of three letters each. That code, and the rules for replicating and rearranging it, has spewed out an unimaginable variety of creatures.

Self-organization is basically a matter of evolutionary raw material�a stock of information from which to select possible patterns�and a means for testing them. For biological evolution the raw material is DNA, one source of variety is spontaneous mutation, and the testing mechanism is something like punctuated Darwinian selection. For technology the raw material is the body of understanding science has accumulated. The source of variety is human creativity (whatever that is) and the selection mechanism is whatever the market will reward or whatever governments and foundations will fund or whatever tickles the fancy of crazy inventors.

When you understand the power of self-organization, you begin to understand why biologists worship biodiversity even more than economists worship technology. The wildly varied stock of DNA, evolved and accumulated over billions of years, is the source of evolutionary potential, just as science libraries and labs and scientists are the source of technological potential. Allowing species to go extinct is a systems crime, just as randomly eliminating all copies of particular science journals, or particular kinds of scientists, would be.

The same could be said of human cultures, which are the store of behavioral repertoires accumulated over not billions, but hundreds of thousands of years. They are a stock out of which social evolution can arise. Unfortunately, people appreciate the evolutionary potential of cultures even less than they understand the potential of every genetic variation in ground squirrels. I guess that's because one aspect of almost every culture is a belief in the utter superiority of that culture.

Any system, biological, economic, or social, that scorns experimentation and wipes out the raw material of innovation is doomed over the long term on this highly variable planet.

The intervention point here is obvious but unpopular. Encouraging diversity means losing control. Let a thousand flowers bloom and anything could happen!

Who wants that?

Amazing that she wrote this over 30 years ago!

What is Self-Organization?

2009-01-06T06:38:00.000-08:00

I like to explain self-organizing as the capacity for any individual or individuals to identify something they would like to do to make a community better, find others who would enable that action to be a success, and access the resources needed to move to action. When many people are involved in numerous collaborative actions, and they share the successes and failures of those actions with others, the community can quickly become transformed and begin operating in new ways. This is called emergence.

Our brains, our immune systems, termite castles, ecosystems are all self-organizing. This self-organization has enabled each of these systems to be wonderfully adaptable and effective - far beyond what any single cell or termite could accomplish on their own.

Are we self-organized now? Well, when we organize a shopping foray with some friends, we are self-organizing. When we plan a wedding, we are self-organizing. Barn-raisings, where farm families would come together to put up a barn in one day, are a quintessentially American example of self-organizing.

But we're not so likely to be effectively self-organizing in relationship to big problems such as climate change or poverty. We tend to rely on bureaucracies or organizations to deal with community issues. Unfortunately organizations have often become siloed, tending to work alone and build an internal monoculture, and thus have difficulty generating the kind of innovation that the world needs right now. And we've become reliant on the operating procedures of the organization, where each person has a job, you know if you don't do your job you may well get fired, and communication channels are given.

So it can really make a difference to set up a support system for self-organizing. Such a system would include training and coaching to build basic self-organizing skills, incentives to encourage people to self-organize, and recognition of the role of network weaver in helping people self-organize. We'll talk more about each of these in future posts.

What has been your experience with self-organizing? What are the most successful self-organizing experiences you have had?

The Forgotten Building Blocks of Self-Organization

2009-01-06T06:25:00.000-08:00

Most of the examples of self-organization that I find on the Internet are either personal or large-scale as in the Belarus flashmob example in a previous post.

The missing level of self-organization that no one is talking about is the small stuff: small group collaborations, especially those that cross organizational boundaries.

Self-Organizing Kickoff

2009-01-06T05:23:00.000-08:00

If you haven't read Here Comes Everybody, grab a copy and you will soon understand why everybody is talking about self-organizing these days.

Clay Shirky, the author, is an engaging speaker with a long list of easy-to-digest videos on You Tube that I highly recommend.

One of the stories he tells of the power of self-organization took place in Belarus in 2006. Not allowed to protest by the repressive regime, young people used mobile phones to gather large ice-cream eating flashmobs. As smiling ice cream eaters were dragged off to prison, their plight was broadcast all over the world, weakening the legitimacy of the ruling party.

In a recent talk, Shirky asked "Why aren't people using Internet communications for positive actions or "online barn raisings?"

Ernst-Jan Pfauth, in a blog post on Shirky's talk, points out

Well, the people from small farm communities live in a totally different social environment. Three important factors stimulate them to organize events like a barn raising:

The farmers owe each other a favor;
The small social density causes social control. Everybody is tracking everybody�s action;
The people they know are likely to be around for some years, so it�s worth the investment.

Shirky points out that these same conditions don't exist online so we have to design new environments for collaboration.

In upcoming posts, we'll review some of the ways people are starting to organize online and look at the key design elements of self-organizing, whether online or off.

Jean pointed out that some of you are already experimenting, so please let us know what you are doing by responding to this post!

"Bridge Art Fair" Catalina Hotel, Miami Beach, FL, 12.06.08.

2008-12-06T15:45:00.000-08:00

Special Thanks to Bridge Art Fair and the Orleans Street Gallery for facilitating the opportunity and Meghan Borato & Irene P�rez for assistance and photographic documentation.

Crazy Home Lab

2008-12-03T19:09:00.000-08:00

Actually I found this site quite long time ago, I'm amazed by the craziness of the owner's home lab. You've probably seen this site before, since this site is quite famous.

This site is named Uber Geek, the owner of this site is Scott Morris. His resume alone is outstanding, he's a quadruple CCIE, meaning he owns all four of the CCIE tracks.
And he also wins all other networking certifications that you can dream of.

Once you see the lab he has, you'd understand what I'm saying:

I can't say anything but this lab is just crazy, not only Cisco devices but also Juniper, Sun, Dell, etc.
Some of the small ISPs in my country don't even have these kind of devices I think.

Of course with those four big racks and massive amount of devices comes a great requirements. From the heat come from the devices he made special air conditioning environment at his basement.

I know the idea to build this kind of lab is no where near possible for people that just want to pass certification exams like CCNA or even CCNP. Especially if you don't get enough income from your networking projects.
Nevertheless having a lab like this will make your future clients won't doubt about your expertise.

So I say, start building your home network lab, add in some Cisco or other devices one by one and maybe eventually you'll come close to Scott Morris' lab.

Configuring SSH for Cisco

2008-12-02T07:47:00.000-08:00

In the CCNA level, we only know how to connect to Cisco devices using console connection and telnet connection.

We know that no one can tap on the console connection since it's directly connected to the Cisco device, but different story for the telnet connection.
Anyone can tap messages from the telnet session.

All messages send in clear text, so it's dangerous to leave default communication with Cisco devices just using telnet.

We can use SSH for secure connection to the Cisco devices. The SSH will encrypt all messages going from your computer to the Cisco devices.

First you're going to need Cisco IOS image that support SSH or IPSec, DES, or 3DES. How would you know that. Well you can just issue the following command:

router> ena
router# show ip ssh
% Invalid input detected at '^' marker.

If it's showing % Invalid input detected at '^' marker., then the IOS does not support SSH.

Now start with the configuration, you have to define a hostname for the Cisco device, and also the domain name for it.
In this example I use hostname of "netrouter" and domain name of "ciscolab.home".

router (config)# hostname netrouter
netrouter (config)# ip domain-name ciscolab.home

Next is to generate the rsa keypair used for the encryption, your device name plus the domain name will be the name of the key.
The modulus is the length of the key, the default value is 512 bits, Cisco recommends a length of 1024 bits.

netrouter (config)# crypto key generate rsa

The name for the keys will be: netrouter.ciscolab.home
Choose the size of the key modulus in the range of 360 to 2048
for your General Purpose Keys. Choosing a key modulus greater than
512 may take a few minutes.

How many bits in the modulus [512]: 1024
% Generating 1024 bit RSA keys ...[OK]

You can also configure some additional parameters for the SSH Connection:

netrouter (config)# ip ssh authentication-retries 5
netrouter (config)# ip ssh time-out 120
netrouter (config)# ip ssh version 2

The first command sets the number of retries if you failed or mistyped the username and password.
The second command sets the time out, the time required to enter the username and password in seconds.
The last command sets the version you want to use for the SSH.

Now we have generated keypair for the encryption, how will the Cisco device authenticates the users coming with SSH connection.
You can either use a AAA server like RADIUS or TACACS+ or you can just use the Cisco device local username and password. For now I'd just use local authentication, first set the username and password then configure the device to accept local authentication for the line vty connections.

netrouter (config)# username Cisco password homelab
netrouter (config)# line vty 0 4
netrouter (config-line)# login local

By now you have successfully configure SSH for Cisco, lets try the SSH, you can use putty for SSH connection, the default port for SSH is 22, you can use other port if you want by issuing ip ssh port 2000 from the global configuration mode.
Change the 2000 with other port ranging from 2000 to 10,000.

Here I'm using the default terminal from Macintosh:

Macintosh:~ krishananda$ ssh Cisco@192.168.1.1
Cisco@192.168.1.1's password:

netrouter>

There, the SSH is working. But the telnet session is also still working, now I want to restrict the Cisco device to only accept SSH connection and deny telnet connection.

WARNING!!!

Do not disconnect from your current connection especially if it's telnet session, in case you messed up with the configuration, you can always undo the changes.

netrouter (config)# line vty 0 4
netrouter (config-line)# transport input ssh

Now if I try to connect using telnet, the router will deny it:

Macintosh:~ krishananda$ telnet 192.168.1.1
Trying 192.168.1.1...
telnet: connect to address 192.168.1.1: Connection refused
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host

Hope this is useful for you.

TIPS:

If you're using macintosh, and you change the rsa key by issuing crypto key generate rsa again on the same device,
Your mac will deny the SSH connection, telling you a warning about a man in the middle attack or the rsa key has changed.
All you need to do is open your text editor, open a file /users/yourname/.ssh/known_hosts
wipe out the content of known_hosts file and save.
That should do the trick.

3 Books to Definitely Help You Pass CCNA Exam

2008-12-01T19:11:00.000-08:00

You might be struggling to save money for joining the Cisco Networking Academy or other courses just to pass CCNA exam.

The Cisco Networking Academy is great, yet the other courses, well in my experience, I joined a CCNA course - not the Cisco academy - but to be honest the result was not as I expected.
I don't know if this happens in other countries or not, the instructors were not as qualified as they said, sure they passed the CCNA exam also but their experiences in handling Cisco devices were just poor.

So, not satisfied with the result, I browsed the internet and found these three books are valuable to help me passed the CCNA exam.

CCNA: Cisco Certified Network Associate Study Guide: Exam 640-802

The first book is CCNA study guide from Todd Lammle. If you search for CCNA guide from google then you'd find the name of Todd Lammle popping up everywhere.

Todd Lammle successfully authored books that can easily understand even by newbies, you can find all topics covered in the CCNA exam.

You can buy the book from amazon for US$ 31 for the new one and for the old one you can get for US$ 26.56.
I also provide the links to the amazon, you can click on the link above or the image to straightly go to the amazon site.

CCNA Practice Questions (Exam 640-802) (3rd Edition) (Exam Cram)

Now this is interesting, I bought this book because it is authored by Jeremy Ciaora, my all time favorite Cisco mentor.

Jeremy Ciaora authored successful series of video tutorials from CBTNuggets, and without any hesitation I bought this book, turns out great.

I practiced with questions provided in this book and the best part that it does not contain illegal materials according to certguard, I've checked.

I read the materials in the Todd Lammle's book and after I got myself deep in the subject I switched back to cram myself in exam questions in Jeremy Ciaora's book. This method works great for me.

Cisco Access Lists Field Guide

You might or might not need this book, but for me I had some difficulties in understanding about Cisco access list before the exam.

I bought this book and happily found that this book offers more than Cisco access list subject in CCNA exam.

I learned much more, time-based access list, encryption and IPSec, QoS, and others that help me in configuring my Cisco home lab and also preparing for the next CCNP exams.

Some people say that this book is not that great and blah blah, for me, I really like this book.

Those are the books that help me got through the CCNA exam, with budget of US$ 76.98 for new books and much less if you buy used ones in amazon you can prepare well for the CCNA exam.

Amazon.com Widgets

Handy Commands for Cisco Initial Configuration

2008-11-25T18:33:00.000-08:00

I found the following handy Cisco commands are very useful for initial configuration of Cisco devices.
I always use these commands to configure Cisco devices from fresh configuration.

router> enable
router> configure terminal
router (config)# no ip domain-lookup

The no ip domain-lookup is very useful, what this command does is tell the Cisco device not to do a domain lookup when you mistype something in the CLI. For example if you do this without the no ip domain-lookup:

router# pign
Translating "pign"... domain server (255.255.255.255)
%unknown command or computer name, or unable to find computer address

The Cisco device will try to find the computer name of pign, it doesn't know that you mistyped ping. This process could take a very long time.
If you apply the no ip domain-lookup, the Cisco device won't try to do the domain lookup.

The second command is the alias command. This command makes an alias of a command that you use frequently.
For example you often use the command show ip interface brief, you can make an alias of it to be "ship".

router (config)# alias exec ship show ip interface brief

You configure it by entering alias first, followed by which mode the command resides in - in this example the show command resides in the exec mode - type in the alias for the command, then you enter the full commands that you want to make alias.
Now you just have to type in ship instead of the long show ip interface brief command.

Next command is useful when you connect to the Cisco devices and you need a very long time to configure it.
The Cisco devices have a default time of how long you're allowed to get connected to them. Sometimes you don't want to reconnect again all the time, but mind you that the time limitation is set because of security concern.

router (config)# line vty 0 4
router (config-line)# no exec-timeout

The above commands tell the router to give you all the time that you need when configuring the router from the telnet session, it won't cut your connection. You can also configure it for the console connection.

Last one is my favorite one, you know when you're configuring a Cisco device sometimes you'd get some notifications from the device which is great, it tells you things going on in it.
But it gets annoying when you're trying to configure it and the notifications just cut down your halfway written command.
The following command tells the router to write back the command you entered before the notifications cut it:

router (config)# line vty 0 4
router (config-line)# logging synchronous

I hope these commands are useful for you.

Handy Cisco Command - Interface Range

2008-11-21T18:35:00.000-08:00

There are many handy Cisco commands that you can use to help you in configuring Cisco devices, these commands well not exactly secret commands but you might not get it from the CCNA curriculum.

One of these handy commands I already posted it at my previous post. But I want to cover it again in case you missed the post.

This one is the interface range command. What this command does is to select a range of interfaces and apply the same commands to them.
This is very handy especially in a Cisco switch environment where you might want to set some ports to be access ports or apply the same security to those ports instead of doing it one by one for each interface.

For example, I want to select the interfaces fastethernet 0/2 to 0/8, with the interface range command I'd just do it like this:

2950> enable
2950# configure terminal
2950 (config)# interface range fa0/2 - 8
2950 (config-if-range)#

There, you notice that instead of displaying 2950 (config-if)# where you can get when you issue interface fa0/2, you'd get the 2950 (config-if-range)# prompt that shows you that you are selecting a range of interfaces.

When you want to select interfaces that are not in sequential order, like when you want to select interfaces fa0/2 to fa0/8, then interfaces fa0/10 to fa0/16, and the interface fa0/24 then you can do it like this:

2950 (config)# interface range fa0/2 -8, fa0/10 - 16, fa0/24
2950 (config-if-range)#

I'll be posting more handy Cisco commands again next time, hope this one is useful for you.

Do I Need Lightning and Surge Protection?

2008-11-19T04:14:00.000-08:00

That was what I concerned when first building my Cisco home lab. I never concerned about this before since I only had my laptop, couple of PCs and the good old Linksys networking devices.

No matter what devices I have, I should have installed some lightning and surge protection for any electronic devices I have.

Lightning, power surges and spikes are the main enemy of electronic devices. Lightning can cause a major power surge and spike, meaning when a lightning strikes it causes a brief huge power spike which can reach a spike of 50 million volts, it's brief but deadly.

And not only surges from lightning, if you live in some old neighborhood, sometimes the electrician didn't do their work very well or perhaps the electrical installation is too old so power surges and spikes can happen any time.

Knowing this I immediately bought a power surge protector, it's a surge protector from Belkin and I use it to protect only my networking devices.

But you you never know, I only concerned about surges and spikes from electrical line, I forgot about the line that is coming from my internet cable.

About three days ago lightning stroke, I don't know where, it doesn't have to strike your home directly, it can strike your neighbor home some miles away and it can still get to you.

One lightning strike, one cable modem, one Phillips LCD TV, one computer, and one CATV splitter are dead. Warranty available for the modem and TV thank God.
Luckily my Cisco devices are okay, thanks to the power surge protector I think.

Man it was a nightmare, one big thunder and suddenly everything was down, the lights, computers, everything.
All suddenly dark, I spotted a spark somewhere, a large cracking sound, and everyone just went aaahhhhh.
Even the computers when turned on after a while, the NICs were not working for some times, luckily they do now.
Yet my laptop still mute, the speaker and some usb ports are dead.

Amazon.com Widgets

So the moral of this story, buy some lightning and surge protectors, at least they provide protection to some degree.
You can also buy surge protectors that provide phone line protection for DSL connection or coaxial for your cable internet connection.

What about UPS, some UPS also provide lightning and surge protection, well I prefer to have both.
Plug in the surge protector first to the electric outlet and then the UPS goes to the surge protector.
And remember to buy them from a reputable vendors like APC or other brands, they cost more indeed but no doubt about the qualities.

If you don't want to buy them then the best protection when dealing with lightning strike in your home is to turn off all the devices and unplug all the power cables when it's raining heavy.

Hope this experience of mine won't happen to you.

Building HotSpot

2008-11-16T19:24:00.000-08:00

Ever wonder how to build your very own wifi hotspot? If you followed my previous posts, I hope you manage to build your own home network and that is suffice for the first step in building wifi hotspot.

Next things to consider are how to manage your network, you certainly don't want anyone just joining your wireless network right? that is if you don't want to build free for all hotspot.

You also don't want people eating all your bandwidth, somehow you need to limit the hotspot users, and limit their access so they won't be able to join your internal LAN.

If you want these features in your hotspot, you probably going to need something that is called captive portal.

What captive portal does is like this, if someone join your wireless network, he or she then open a web browser, the captive portal would then redirect the browser to your html page, no matter what url requested.
That html page of yours is typically a welcome page or a login page so only certain people can make use of your wireless network.
This is great for public wifi hotspots.

There are many captive portals that you can find, free or commercial ones, the one that I'm familiar with is from publicIP, it's called ZoneCD.

Most of the captive portals that you can find might work the same way, they need you to put a PC between your wireless device and your internal network or internet router.
This is the image I got from the publicIP ZoneCD:

The PC should have 2 NIC (Network Interface Card), one goes to your internal LAN, the other goes to wireless LAN.
That PC would do all the authentication of the wireless users, the bandwidth limitation, etc.

What I like most about ZoneCD is that it's a Live CD, you just need a working PC, put in the CD and then the PC boots from the CD, nothing needs to be installed.
Sure it's based on Linux/UNIX, but you don't need to know anything about Linux, you only need to know how to operate a PC, so they say.

You can do homepage redirection, content filtering for porn sites or downloads, the ZoneCD has built in firewall, you can also modify the login page to conform your own taste or give it a logo of your company.

Configuring WPA and WPA2 on Cisco Aironet

2008-11-12T07:10:00.000-08:00

The last post I talked about configuring WEP authentication on Cisco Aironet wireless access point.
Now I want to configure WPA and WPA2 to give more strength in the wireless security.

Just for a note I put an image of padlock on the last post and now I give a picture of a vault to give the image of stronger security.
You know what I mean, padlock versus vault, oh just forget it.

Back to the topic, when first posting about WEP I said that WEP encryption is weak, you better use encryption like WPA and WPA2.

WPA gives better key management and stronger cipher encryption. For those who don't know about cipher, it's kinda algorithm for encryption and decryption, we'll be configuring the cipher when dealing with WPA and WPA2. WPA uses what is called TKIP or Temporal Key Integrity Protocol for the cipher encryption.

WPA2 is even better than WPA, it uses a stronger encryption called AES or Advanced Encryption Standard, it creates fresh sessions key so every packet sent are encrypted with different key.

One other thing to know, the WPA and WPA2 come with two flavors, the Personal and Enterprise. In enterprise mode we need to have authentication server such as RADIUS, I don't have RADIUS server currently so I'll skip to the Personal mode instead.
The personal mode of WPA and WPA2 have what is called WPA-PSK the WPA Pre-Shared Key, we have to configure the WPA-PSK on both the Access Point and the clients.

So get on to the configuration of WPA first for my SSID Guest on VLAN 40:

1240AG> enable
1240AG# configure terminal
1240AG (config)# interface dot11radio 0
1240AG (config-if)# encryption vlan 40 mode ciphers tkip
1240AG (config-if)# ssid Guest
1240AG (config-if-ssid)# vlan 40
1240AG (config-if-ssid)# authentication open
1240AG (config-if-ssid)# authentication key-management wpa
1240AG (config-if-ssid)# wpa-psk ascii your-key-here

That's it you've successfully configured WPA on Cisco Aironet Wireless Access Point. Just configure the ciphers to tkip, set the authentication to open, use the wpa key management and the great thing in WPA is that we can set ascii characters as the key instead of hexadecimal like we did on configuring WEP.

The difference of WPA with WPA2 configurations is just some small things. We have to set the ciphers to AES and the key management to WPA version 2. Let's get started to configure WPA2 for my SSID Admin on VLAN 30:

1240AG> enable
1240AG# configure terminal
1240AG (config)# interface dot11radio 0
1240AG (config-if)# encryption vlan 30 mode ciphers aes-ccm
1240AG (config-if)# ssid Admin
1240AG (config-if-ssid)# vlan 30
1240AG (config-if-ssid)# authentication open
1240AG (config-if-ssid)# authentication key-management wpa version 2
1240AG (config-if-ssid)# wpa-psk ascii your-key-here

Don't forget to check out how to set up Wireless Network and the SSID on my last posts. Cheers.

Configuring WEP Authentication on Cisco Aironet

2008-11-10T17:31:00.000-08:00

The wireless network you installed for your LAN can mean that you are directly exposing your network to the public.

Anyone can use a wireless sniffer and view all the traffics going between the wireless access point and the clients. That's why you need to add security in your wireless LAN.

This post will talk about WEP or Wired Equivalent Privacy, the name states that your wireless network will be as safe as your wired network but not in reality.
There are many WEP decryption tools available out there. Just capture some packets using wireless sniffer and use the the decryption tool to find out the WEP key.

So we know the WEP is not secure, nevertheless I want to show how to configure WEP authentication for Cisco Aironet wireless access point.

WEP uses 40 bits encryption key (10 hexadecimal characters) or 128 bits (26 hexadecimal characters).
Don't get a false sense of security with the length of the encryption, the longer the encryption key just mean the more packets you need to capture and more time to decrypt them.

There are two types authentication for security according the IEEE 802.11 committee, the shared-key and open authentication.

In a shared-key authentication, the access point will send a challenge packet to the client and the client must encrypt the packet with with the right key (WEP key) then return it to the access point.
This method is not secure since everything sent in clear text.

The other method is open authentication, just like the name the authentication is open or you can say no authentication required.
But when open authentication used with the WEP, the WEP key will be used to encrypt all data before sending them.

I have to admit, I get a little confused when first time configuring authentication in Cisco Aironet wireless access points since no one thought me so I had to browse all the configuration examples.

It's easier to use the web interface of the access point, but I want to configure it through CLI.
To configure WEP authentication you should do this by entering the dot11radio interface:

1240AG> enable
1240AG# configure terminal
1240AG (config)# interface dot11radio 0

Create the SSID and associate it with VLAN if you haven't done it:

1240AG (config-if)# ssid Guest
1240AG (config-if-ssid)# vlan 40
1240AG (config-if-ssid)# authentication open
1240AG (config-if-ssid)# exit

Configure the WEP authentication:

1240AG (config-if)# encryption vlan 40 mode wep mandatory
1240AG (config-if)# encryption vlan 40 key 1 size 128bit 12345678901234567890123456 transmit-key

The above first command tell the Cisco Aironet to do WEP encryption on vlan 40 (SSID Guest) and set it as mandatory.
If you replace mandatory with optional, the use of WEP encryption depends on the client configuration, they can choose to encrypt the packets or not.

The second command tells the access point to use the WEP encryption key of 128 bit with the above 26 characters key. You can use whatever key you choose as long as it is hexadecimal characters (0-9 and A-F).

Don't forget to set up the access point as I did on the last post.

"Graduate Open House" Columbia College, Chicago, IL, 11.08.08.

2008-11-08T21:06:00.000-08:00

Configuring Cisco Aironet in Home Lab - Part 2

2008-11-08T17:50:00.000-08:00

Now it's time to configure Cisco Aironet Wireless Access Point for Cisco home lab.

What I'm going to do first is to configure the connectivity between the Cisco Aironet 1240AG wireless access point to the Cisco 2950 switch.

Here's the closer look of the network diagram of the wireless access point and the switch:

The network will be using VLAN 5 (192.168.5.0 network) as the native VLAN and the rest of the VLANs will be used for the SSIDs.

There's an interface called BVI or Bridge-group Virtual Interface, what this interface does is bridge all of the interfaces in the access point - the wired and wireless interfaces - so you can use the interface BVI IP address to manage all of those interfaces.

In Cisco Aironet 1240AG wireless access points, you have 1 interface fast ethernet port, 1 console port, 1 dot11radio 0 for the 802.11G, and 1 dot11radio 1 for 802.11A.

In this configuration I only going to configure the dot11radio 0 for the 802.11G wireless network since I only have the antennas for the 802.11G.
You can configure both 802.11A and 802.11G if you want.

First we configure the interface BVI 1 IP address:

1240AG> enable
1240AG# configure terminal
1240AG (config)# interface bvi 1
1240AG (config-if)# ip address 192.168.5.3 255.255.255.0
1240AG (config-if)# no shutdown

Now set the native VLAN (VLAN 5) to the wireless access point, we have to configure the native VLAN on both of the fastethernet sub interface and the dot11radio 0 sub interface:

1240AG (config)# interface fastethernet 0.5
1240AG (config-if)# encapsulation dot1q 5 native
1240AG (config-if)# interface dot11radio 0.5
1240AG (config-if)# encapsulation dot1q 5 native

Next is to set up the SSID starting from SSID for admin and associate it with VLAN 30.
We need to configure the SSID on the dot11radio 0 interface first then configure the VLAN on the dot11radio 0.30 sub interface and fast ethernet 0.30 sub interface.
Also I set up the SSID for open authentication first.

1240AG (config)# interface dot11radio 0
1240AG (config-if)# ssid ADMIN
1240AG (config-if-ssid)# vlan 30
1240AG (config-if-ssid)# authentication open
1240AG (config-if-ssid)# end

1240AG (config)# interface fastethernet 0.30
1240AG (config-subif)# encapsulation dot1q 30
1240AG (config-subif)# bridge-group 30

1240AG (config-subif)# interface dot11radio 0.30
1240AG (config-subif)# encapsulation dot1q 30
1240AG (config-subif)# bridge-group 30

The bridge-group command allows you to group interfaces and bridge nonrouted traffic among the interfaces.
In this example traffic from dot11radio 0.30 sub interface to fastethernet 0.30 sub interface and vice versa.

Note: If you configure the SSID on the global configuration mode, the SSID will be both in the dot11radio 0 and 1.

Do the same with the SSID for guest and associate it with VLAN 40:

1240AG (config)# interface dot11radio 0
1240AG (config-if)# ssid GUEST
1240AG (config-if-ssid)# vlan 40
1240AG (config-if-ssid)# authentication open
1240AG (config-if-ssid)# end

1240AG (config)# interface fastethernet 0.40
1240AG (config-subif)# encapsulation dot1q 40
1240AG (config-subif)# bridge-group 40

1240AG (config-subif)# interface dot11radio 0.40
1240AG (config-subif)# encapsulation dot1q 40
1240AG (config-subif)# bridge-group 40

Next step is to configure the switch port connected to the wireless access point as a trunk port with native VLAN 5.
I already posted about how to do this on the last post.

Also if you are going to use dynamic IP address, make sure you have configured router as DHCP server that serving clients for VLAN 30 and 40.

Right now if you have no problem pinging the switch and router from the wireless access point, your access point is broadcasting SSID and giving IP address from router for any client joining the SSID.

The SSIDs are not secure since they use open authentication, next time I'll configure it with stronger authentication.

Configuring Cisco Aironet in Home Lab - Part 1

2008-11-07T18:35:00.000-08:00

I've configured my Cisco home lab with a router that connects to cable internet and a switch with VLANs.
Now it's time to add a new device to the Cisco home lab, a Cisco Aironet 1240AG wireless access point for wireless connection.

And by the way, the image on the left is not an official logo from Cisco or anything, I just made that up.

I won't configure anything fancy this time, only give basic administration configuration and set up an open SSIDs also associate the SSIDs to VLANs.

Since I want to configure two SSIDs - one is free for all SSID with no authentication and the other one with authentication - for the wireless network, I need to configure additional VLAN on the switch.

I have already the VLAN 30 for the wireless network and want to add VLAN 40, so in total there would be 5 VLANs in my Cisco home network lab.

I made a network diagram with Cisco Aironet 1240AG wireless access point added in the picture below:

So lets start the configuration on the next post, there are some steps to complete this Cisco home lab network diagram if you haven't done so.

Starting from the wireless access point I'm going to configure the basic administration configuration such as the access point's management IP address, SSIDs and associate them to VLANs, optionally configure the authentication security options for the SSIDs, and establish trunk connection to the switch.

For the switch I'll configure VLANs and the trunk connection to the access point and the router.

Last in the router I'll configure interVLAN routing, DHCP server for each VLAN, and other configurations like I've posted before.

Building on Diversity

2008-11-05T05:08:00.000-08:00

Congratulations Mr. Community Organizer!

You beat them with the strategy they mocked.

Recently, I read an excellent book about Abe Lincoln -- Team of Rivals. In order to deal with a divided nation, Lincoln chose his cabinet from the best minds available. He ended up with a cabinet composed of mostly his rivals to the presidency. He chose these men for their abilities and experience. Lincoln knew the problems he faced were too much for one person. He knew he needed a team of experts -- all more capable than him in their specialities.

Lincoln was a master weaver in not only creating his team, but also managing them. A diverse team is difficult to manage, but usually produces better results than a team of like-thinkers. The key to Lincoln's diverse team was different thinking and different expertise and different styles. Yet, by appearance they were very similar -- all old white men. Same packaging, but different attributes.

Today's corporate world is full of apparently diverse individuals -- men, women, whites, blacks, asians, latinos, christians, jews, muslims, gay and straight. Yet, most corporations reward similar thinking -- which does not bring the rewards that diversity promises. We have organizations full of people that look different, but think the same. Everyone should read Team of Rivals to see how to mix, match and manage different skills, styles and abilities for maximum effectiveness.

We focus on Barack Obama's ethnicity -- but that is not why he won. It is his message, his vision, his leadership. 150 years ago, a tall skinny guy from Illinois focused on connecting a severely divided nation. Now, another tall skinny guy from Illinois faces a differently divided nation and needs the best team possible to move this country forward. I was glad to hear that Team of Rivals is one of Obama's favorite books. He will need to apply it's lessons learned to have an effective presidency in these tough times.

Wireless Home Network

2008-11-05T01:59:00.000-08:00

At the last post I talked briefly about the wireless site survey in networking projects.

Now I want to share my view in things that I personally consider in building wireless home network.
The following points are just my considerations, most home or SOHO users just plug their wireless access points, configure them and they just work fine.

Which Standard to Use

Currently there are four common standards for wireless networking, the 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, and the latest one is 802.11n. These standards use unlicensed frequencies meaning they're all free for all to use.

You can use the frequencies for your wireless networks and you can't complain if your neighbors used up all of the frequencies available and interfere with your wireless signal.
Later on this when I talk about the wireless channels in a moment.

802.11a uses the 5GHz operational frequency and has a data rate transfer of 54Mbps. This standard is not too popular anymore because it has a higher frequency meaning it has higher data rates but with shorter range.
The higher the frequency also makes it more easily absorbed by solid objects around it.

802.11b and 802.11g use 2.4GHz operational frequency. Most wireless access points support both the b and g standards since they both use the same frequency they're both interoperable.
The difference is that the 802.11b has data rate transfer of 11Mbps while the 802.11g has 54Mbps.

The latest one is 802.11n, it uses 5GHz and/or 2.4GHz frequencies and in terms of data rate and wireless range, it has biggest data rate the widest range, some vendors claim their 802.11n access points can have data rates up to 114Mbps.

I don't know the truth about that since I don't have any 802.11n devices yet.
For me I just love the sleek looking design of 802.11n wireless router from Linksys.
Cool, gotta have that someday.

Wireless Access Points Locations

Place the access points in locations that you think can reach all the clients in the network. Consider the interferences from microwave oven or cordless phones.
Also keep in mind about objects that can block, absorb or reflect the signals from the access points such as thick wall or metal surfaces.

The further you get from the access points and the more objects standing between you and the access point, the lower data rate you'd get.

Channels to Use

If one wireless access point is enough to cover your clients, check on the wireless channels that are used by access points installed near your network.
If your access point uses the same channel as your neighbor's, they will interfere the wireless signals.
If you're using more than one access points, set them to use different channels.

In 802.11b and g standards, the common channels or the clean channels that you can use are channel 1, 6, and 11. Use one for each of your access point, do not use the same channel if the signals.
What I mean by clean channels is that these channels are not overlapping each other.
The following is the graphical representation of 802.11b and g wireless channels:

The 802.11a offers more clean channels for you to choose. You can see the wireless channels that you can use for 802.11a:

More on subjects on channels you can find directly at the source at the FCC site.

SSID

Service Set Identifier or SSID is like an ID for your wireless network. I'm sure you already know this, to join wireless network you need to know the SSID or you can scan for the SSID and join it.

You can use many available wireless network sniffers to scan the SSID and the wireless channels used by the wireless networks. Some of them you can find at the list here.
Once again not every sniffer works with your wireless network card, check on it before downloading.

You can use any SSID for your wireless network, your name, company name, etc. The reason I brought this up because if you're using the upper end wireless access points like from Cisco, you can have multiple SSID broadcasted from a single wireless access point.

Maybe you need a free for all SSID for your guests, another SSID for your home users or employees, and another one just for you as the admin.

In Cisco, you can tie these SSIDs to VLANs, this can give you flexibility in deciding different security for each SSID, different access list for them, etc.

Wireless Security

Now this is the most important part of all, the wireless security or the encryption method you want to associate with your SSID.
There are some types of wireless network authentication for security from the open authentication that you can apply for guests on your WLAN to the WPA version 2.
There are also WEP that is not so secure nowadays since people can tap on your signals and decrypt them.
Best to say that WPA or WPA2 are more secure to use in your WLAN, you can also use 802.1x security.

Remember that not all hardware or wireless NIC support all authentication, most of them support the WPA authentication so it's more common to use nowadays.

I got to admit I'm too lazy to give all explanation of them here plus this post takes longer than I expected.
Smarter and more diligent people have describe about this, one of them you can find at wikipedia.

I don't want to make you bore and start on the configuration of Cisco wireless network on the next posts.

Planning for Wireless Network

2008-11-04T17:34:00.000-08:00

If you're planning to deploy wireless access points in a networking project then I congrats you, you still have lots of works to be done before you get to configuring the access points .

There are lots of things to consider if you're in a networking project, the location of the access points, channels to use, are there radio interferences in the locations, etc.

You need to do wireless site survey in a network project, see they even created their own science for this work.

To talk about wireless site survey could take its own blogs, books, tools and even specialized certification if you want to do it properly and professionally.
The tools software and hardware don't come in cheap I'm telling you.

There are softwares that can do wireless site survey, they can visually show you the range of access points that are installed in the site. Few that I've seen in work before are from ekahau and visiwave.

On the top of this post is the sample report from visiwave and the left picture here is from ekahau.

These pictures show you the range of the wireless access points on site. They're kinda like heat meter or something. With these you can then determine the best placement for the access points that can reach all clients.

From my experience not all of these softwares work with your wireless cards, so keep in mind before purchasing these softwares, do they support your wireless cards or not.

There also hardwares that can help you do the site survey and these hardwares can also scan for radio interferences such as that come from oven microwave, cordless phones, etc.
You got to check on yellowjacket from bvssystem, these things are cool.

The people in bvssystem integrates HP iPaq PDA with their yellowjacket to be used as wireless site survey tool.
This one is in the form of Tablet PC for spectrum analysis:

Both softwares and hardwares can provide you with detailed reports of the wireless site survey result.

Now that's when you're working in a network project, if you want to deploy wireless access points in your home or SOHO, you don't need to do all that troubles.

Next post I want to talk about the things to consider if you want to install wireless access points in your home or SOHO.

Get to Know Cisco Aironet Wireless Access Point

2008-11-04T03:31:00.000-08:00

Ah, I just love these things the Cisco Aironet Wireless Access Points, on the left one you can see the Cisco Aironet 1240AG Access Point, one among every other Cisco Aironet series.

This is the very first Cisco device that I got, I thought that at least I can integrate it with my existing non-Cisco home network.

1240AG is not the prettiest access point that you can get, but I like the shape anyway. It reminds me of liquor bottles that I used to see in the movies.

Now why would you want to buy Cisco Aironet, it costs about ten times or more than the average home usage access points like Linksys or D-Link.

These Aironet things are great, for the 1240AG, it has one Fast Ethernet port and one console port.
It doesn't come with integrated antennas, you have to buy them. You can use the 802.11G antennas and/or 802.11A antennas. This gives you flexibility in choosing the antennas, you can even use both if you want to.
Mind you that not all countries allow the use of 802.11A standard.

The console port as usual used for configuring the Cisco Aironet Access Point through CLI. You can also use web browser to configure the Access Point, different from other Cisco devices' web interfaces, the Aironet web interface offers rich features configuration.
Other Cisco devices have not that good appearances, you definitely prefer configuring other Cisco devices through CLI.

Below is the example of the Cisco Aironet web interface:

Unlike other Cisco devices, Cisco Aironet Access Points are by default configure to accept IP address from DHCP server, if you have DHCP server in your LAN, that's great.
Just plug in a cable to connect the access point to your LAN and as soon as it receives IP address you can do configuration for it.

One tip, for the Cisco Aironet 1100 series Access Points, they have a default IP address of 10.0.0.1 that last for just 5 minutes.
So during that 5 minutes you can configure your computer NIC for an IP address of 10.0.0.2 or other, and connect a network cable from your computer NIC to the ethernet port of the access point.
Open the web browser and type in the 10.0.0.1 address, then you can do some configuration. Remember this only last for 5 minutes, after that the access point will request IP address from DHCP address indefinitely.

Now what other features the Aironet Access Points have, many features that the average home usage access points don't have.

You can configure the Access Points to be an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) to protect your network, use it for scanning your network for rogue access points that your neighbour use for stealing your bandwidth, and they also offer the powerful 802.1x to authenticate clients.

You can also set your own transmit power and data rates of the wireless radio interfaces.

Configure several SSIDs to segment your network. Each SSID can be correlated with VLAN. Provide SSID for your guests, another SSID for your home users, and a special SSID just for administration purpose.
Want another SSID? a special SSID just for handling your VoIP packets, cool.

If you have several Cisco Aironet Access Points in your disposal, set them up so your users can roam all over the place and jump from one area of access point to another without loosing connection.

Have hundreds of Aironet Access Points in a project? You don't need to configure them one by one. Upgrade or request from Cisco for Aironet with Cisco IOS Lightweight enable mode.
With Ligthweight feature and wireless LAN controller you just need to make one configuration on the wireless LAN controller and it will send the configuration to all access points in your network.
Saves you from lot of works.

So many features to tell, to try out all these features get your own Cisco Aironet Wireless Access Points now. You won't be sorry if you're a true techies, except that your wallet would be thinner a bit.

The Danger of Broadcast Storm and the Solution

2008-11-02T05:41:00.000-08:00

If you've taken the Cisco Academy program or been in the network world for a while, you must have heard about broadcast storm.

Broadcast storm is a state in a network where a frame broadcast in a switch environment is continually being flooded through the network.

This is mostly happen in a switch environment where you have redundant connection between switches, remember that routers segment or isolate broadcast between networks.

Redundant connections are important if you want to create a backup path between switches. If one path fails the other will take over.
This won't work out with switches that don't have any loop avoidance mechanism.

This is how a broadcast storm can happen, I have two switches connected with redundant links and one switch connected to a client and the other switch connected to a server.

Then the client sends a broadcast, say an Address Resolution Protocol or ARP to find out where the location of the server like this, pay attention to the red arrow, pretend that the arrow is a broadcast frame sent by the client.

Remember the rule of a switch, a switch forwards a broadcast frame to all ports except the port where it receives the request.

The Switch A receives the frame and forward it to the two links it has:

The broadcast frame received by the Switch B from two different ports and forward it again to other ports including the port where the Server is attached.

But it doesn't stop there, the frames are flooded again back to Switch A and back to the client.

From now on, back again to picture 2 then 3 and so on, this will keep going on forever until you shutdown the network.
This condition can also be called switch loop and it leads to broadcast storm.
Most likely you can find a question about this in the CCNA exam.

Luckily Cisco switches have loop avoidance mechanism called Spanning Tree Protocol or STP.

What STP does is eliminating loops in the network while allowing redundant links, the switches in the network will send out BPDU or Bridge Protocol Data Unit.

BPDU is like a boomerang send out to all ports in the switch. The BPDUs will travel all over the network and when the switch receive the BPDU it sent, then the switch knows that switch loop is occuring in the network and will block one of the ports where the loop occured.

Actually there's a set of session needed just to explain STP, there's even books specialized to explain STP considering that STP is very important in a redundant network.

STP eliminates redundant links in your network that's it, but if you don't carefully design your network even if you're using Cisco devices, your network will someday experience a melt down.

There's a great article about a network meltdown in a hospital related to STP that you can read here. In a hospital!! Man, that's serious business, we're talking about people lives here.
So the case study can be a valuable resource for you, just read it.

This happened to me once when I went on a client. They're just a small office kinda like SOHO, they're not using Cisco devices, they just using network devices from Linksys and D-Link.

So they called me and said for some reason the network went down.

After checking the network for a while, no problem with the configuration and the cabling but still no connectivity.
Then after tracing all the cables - it was not exactly a neat cabling they have there - I found that one cable was connected end to end to the same switch which created the broadcast storm.

So the moral of this story, it's very easy to take down an entire network with just a single network cable, especially if the networks are using average home usage network devices .

No need to say that it is very important to keep the physical security of your network devices. You can't trust the employees again nowadays.

Adding Switch to Cisco Home Lab - Part 5

2008-10-30T09:36:00.000-07:00

Configure Router as DHCP Server for VLANs

Now this part of configuration is the most fun part of all. I just love the way that one router accepts requests from clients on different VLANs (with different subnets), and the router gives away the addresses based on what VLAN a client resides.

That's just cool, your average home usage routers can't do this kind of stuff, most of the average home usage routers can do is just give away IP addresses for one network.

At the previous post, I posted about how to make a router to be DHCP server. Now this post is similar but I'm going to make the router to give away IP addresses for clients on different networks.

The configuration is also the same, but now I'm going to make several IP DHCP pool. The amazing thing is that the router can differentiate each client request for IP address.

The router listens to the requests, which request comes from which sub interface (subnet or VLAN).
Then the router takes the available IP address from the DHCP pool and tells the client that it's now using this IP address.

At this example I'm using four networks in my local area network. I won't be giving away the addresses for the VLAN 5 since I'm only going to assign the IP addresses for management purpose only - I'll assign the addresses statically on the networking devices.
The 3 networks left, the VLAN 10, 20, and 30 IP addresses are configured using DHCP server.

Same as before, you need to exclude the IP addresses that you don't want to give out through DHCP. I conserve the first ten addresses for each network, I probably need it for something else in the future.

router> enable
router# configure terminal
router (config)# ip dhcp excluded-address 192.168.10.1 192.168.10.10
router (config)# ip dhcp excluded-address 192.168.20.1 192.168.20.10
router (config)# ip dhcp excluded-address 192.168.30.1 192.168.30.10

Now the DHCP will give out addresses to the clients starting from XXX.XXX.XXX.11

Next is to configure the DHCP pools for respective VLANs:

router (config)# ip dhcp pool OFFICE
router (dhcp-config)# network 192.168.10.0 255.255.255.0
router (dhcp-config)# default-router 192.168.10.1
router (dhcp-config)# dns-server xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

router (config)# ip dhcp pool HOME
router (dhcp-config)# network 192.168.20.0 255.255.255.0
router (dhcp-config)# default-router 192.168.20.1
router (dhcp-config)# dns-server xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

router (config)# ip dhcp pool OFFICE
router (dhcp-config)# network 192.168.30.0 255.255.255.0
router (dhcp-config)# default-router 192.168.30.1
router (dhcp-config)# dns-server xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

You can set the dns-server option to point to up to 6 dns servers.
The default-router command tells the clients to set the ip default gateway to point to the router's sub interface.

At this point, if you can ping all the sub interfaces of the router from the switch, the router will give IP addresses for requests coming from the clients for DHCP service.

The router differentiates the requests like this, if a request coming from the sub interface ethernet 0/1.10, then the router will give the IP address according to the ip address on that interface (192.168.10.0 network).

After this you need to configure the router for internet connection, if you haven't done it before.
Remember to apply access-list that allows all networks you have in the LAN to be translated by the NAT.

Adding Switch to Cisco Home Lab - Part 4

2008-10-29T17:49:00.000-07:00

Configure Router for InterVLAN routing

If you only configure VLAN on the 2950 or other layer 2 switches, the clients can only communicate with other clients within the same VLAN.
If you want them to be able to communicate with other clients on different VLANs, then you need to configure a router for interVLAN routing.

Configuration of router for interVLAN routing often called router on a stick. The reason is the clients that want to communicate with other clients on different VLANs need to go through the router first and the router will route the packets to the appropriate VLANs back through the same line.

The disadvantage of this is that single line going to the router will be filled by requests from one VLAN going to other VLAN, and the router will be set for handling the routing for this.

No problem for the small LAN, but if you have a huge number of clients, you need to consider using Layer 3 or multilayer switches (Cisco Catalyst 3550 series or above) for interVLAN routing.

The concept of layer 3 switch routing is something that you'd find on the CCNP level, not the CCNA.
I don't have layer 3 switch, the cheapest one I can find in my local area is more than $600 yikes. But the configuration is so easy, I'll only want to give you some snippets later.

For now lets configure the router to do interVLAN routing.

We know that routers have limited amount of physical interfaces right? The 2611 have a default of 2 ethernet interfaces.
One interface is going to the internet and the other is supposedly connected to the internal LAN.
How come one interface can handle multiple VLANs a.k.a. multiple networks with different subnets.

There's a genius way to get around this, that is by using logical sub interfaces. That one port can be logically devided into many sub interfaces.
Each sub interface will handle one VLAN/subnet.

NOTE:

Previously the interVLAN routing can only be done by routers with Fast Ethernet interfaces (100 Mbps) and not intended for Ethernet interfaces (10 Mbps) due to small bandwidth consideration. But now we can configure it on the ethernet ports also.

Before configuring the router, lets see again how the network diagram looks like:

So we need to define four sub interfaces and the respective IP addresses, we also need to define the VLAN assigned to the sub interface using encapsulation dot1q VLAN_NUMBER, where the VLAN_NUMBER is the VLAN ID for the sub interface.
You need to define the VLAN first on the sub interface, then you can assign IP address there.
You don't need to assign IP address for the main interface ethernet 0/0 but do no shutdown and the sub interfaces will automatically apply the same no shutdown.
here's how we configure them:

router> enable
router# configure terminal
router (config)# interface ethernet0/0
router (config-if)# no ip address
router (config-if)# no shutdown
~~router (config-if)# interface ethernet0/0.5~~
router (config-if)# interface ethernet0/1.5
router (config-subif)# encapsulation dot1q 5
router (config-subif)# ip address 192.168.5.1 255.255.255.0
router (config-subif)# interface ethernet0/1.10
router (config-subif)# encapsulation dot1q 10
router (config-subif)# ip address 192.168.10.1 255.255.255.0
router (config-subif)# interface ethernet0/1.20
router (config-subif)# encapsulation dot1q 20
router (config-subif)# ip address 192.168.20.1 255.255.255.0
router (config-subif)# interface ethernet0/1.30
router (config-subif)# encapsulation dot1q 30
router (config-subif)# ip address 192.168.30.1 255.255.255.0

You can give sub interface number up to 4294967295, the reason is it gives you the flexibility on naming the sub interface to match the VLAN ID. You can easily identify the sub interface e0/1.5 is for VLAN 5 and so on.

Oh, don't forget to do the no shutdown command on the main interface ethernet 0/1, it will also do no shutdown for the sub interfaces.

Now if you can successfully ping the interface VLAN 5 on the switch (192.168.5.2 in this example) then you are done configuring the router for interVLAN routing.

For configuring interVLAN routing on Layer 3 switches you have to make interface VLAN for every VLAN that you want to route and give them IP addresses.

Layer3Switch> enable
Layer3Switch# configure terminal
Layer3Switch (config)# interface VLAN 5
Layer3Switch (config-if)# ip address 192.168.5.1 255.255.255.0
Layer3Switch (config-if)# no shutdown

Do this for every VLAN that you want to route, you don't need to configure sub interfaces on the router.
The layer 3 switch will do the routing for the VLANs without ever need to send anything to the router first.
But you need to activate the ip routing feature on the switch first, if it's not already activated using:

Layer3Switch (config)# ip routing

Very simple right?

Last things left is to configure the router for additional configuration, DHCP server for each subnet, connect to the cable internet, and other details on the next post.

Adding Switch to Cisco Home Lab - Part 3

2008-10-28T21:24:00.000-07:00

Assigning Switch Ports to VLANs

After configuring VLANs on Cisco switch, now we need to assign the switch ports to VLANs.

We need to assign which ports should be in which VLAN, remember VLAN = broadcast domain = subnet.
So before making your own VLANs, consider the IP addressing scheme and which computer should be in which broadcast domain or network.

Next step is to configure the trunk port to connect to the router and access port to connect the switch ports to our clients' PCs or other network devices.

The trunk port is needed to carry all VLANs or selected VLANs (you can decide which VLANs are allowed to cross the trunk link) in one port and the native VLAN is assigned to "tag" untagged frames with the ID of the native VLAN.
You should also configure trunk if you want to connect a switch to another switch, you have to configure trunk port on both switches.

For the access port, one access port can only be a member for 1 VLAN, anything plug in to the access port will be assign with the configured VLAN ID.

You need to remember though, the devices attaced to the switch ports don't know anything about VLAN, it is only something the switch knows.
Before a frames are sent to the clients, the VLANs tags are stripped from the frames.

In this example I configure the FastEthernet port 0/1 to be the trunk port that connects to the router.

C2950> enable
C2950# configure terminal
C2950 (config)# interface fa0/1
C2950 (config-if)# switchport mode trunk

At this point you already configured the port FastEthernet or fa 0/1 to be trunk port.
There are two encapsulation method for trunking, the ISL which is proprietary method from Cisco - only for Cisco devices and the 802.1Q or dot1q for short which is the multi-vendor encapsulation method.

Since the 2950 switches only support dot1q method you don't need to define it again but if your switch support both methods then you need to configure it using switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q or you can replace the dot1q with isl if you want to use ISL.

Next is to define the native VLAN and if you want to, you can define which VLANs are allowed to cross that trunk port:

C2950 (config-if)# switchport trunk native vlan 5
C2950 (config-if)# switchport trunk allowed vlan add 5, 10, 20, 30

You can add or remove vlans on the trunk port, by default the trunk will carry all VLANs.

Finished with the trunk port configuration, now we assign ports to the VLANs we created. You can assign the ports one by one like this:

C2950 (config)# interface fa0/2
C2950 (config-if)# switchport mode access
C2950 (config-if)# switchport access vlan 10

Or you can define a range of interfaces at once, say I want to configure port 0/2 to 0/8 as the access port for VLAN 10, then I just have to do this:

C2950 (config)# interface range fa0/2 - 8
C2950 (config-if-range)# switchport mode access
C2950 (config-if-range)# switchport access vlan 10

Do the same thing with the VLAN 20 - the home network VLAN:

C2950 (config)# interface range fa0/9 - 16
C2950 (config-if-range)# switchport mode access
C2950 (config-if-range)# switchport access vlan 20

Very handy command right?

One trick I can give you, if you want to configure some ports that are not in sequential order, like you want to configure port 2 to 5 and 10 to 15 and port 24, you can do it like this:

C2950 (config)# interface range fa0/1 - 5, fa0/1 - 15, fa0/24

There, you successfully created access ports for VLAN 10 and 20. For the VLAN 30 or the VLAN used for wireless network, I need to safe it for another time since configuring wireless network with Cisco devices takes some tricks.

Now we're done with the Cisco switch configuration, next thing to do is configuring the router to accept VLANs and be DHCP server for all the networks.

Adding Switch to Cisco Home Lab - Part 2

2008-10-28T18:31:00.000-07:00

Configuring VLANs

I'll start the configuration of adding switch to my Cisco home lab by configuring the switch first. At the previous tutorial series, I posted about how to connect Cisco router to cable internet, and now here's how the network will look like again when added a switch to it:

The network will have 4 VLANs, with the VLAN 5 acting as the native VLAN.
By default, the native VLAN of Cisco switches is VLAN 1, you might want to change the native VLAN from VLAN 1 to other VLAN since there a security concern about this.

You can read a nice article about native VLAN security concern from cisco.

In 2950 switches, you have to type in these commands to create VLANs:

C2950> enable
C2950# configure terminal
C2950 (config)# vlan 5
C2950 (config-vlan)# name MANAGEMENT
C2950 (config-vlan)# vlan 10
C2950 (config-vlan)# name OFFICE
C2950 (config-vlan)# vlan 20
C2950 (config-vlan)# name HOME
C2950 (config-vlan)# vlan 30
C2950 (config-vlan)# name WIRELESS

You can verify that you successfully created the VLANs by issuing this command:

C2950# show vlan

Now to set the VLAN 5 as the native VLAN and assign it to be the native VLAN, we should do this:

C2950 (config)# interface VLAN 5
C2950 (config-if)# ip address 192.168.5.2 255.255.255.0
C2950 (config-if)# no shutdown

By issuing the no shutdown command, the VLAN 1 will be automatically shutdown and replaced by the VLAN 5.
Assigning an IP address to the VLAN other than VLAN 1 will make that VLAN as management VLAN so your switch can be accessible for configuration using telnet.
You can only alter the Native VLAN from VLAN 1 to other VLAN but you can't delete the VLAN 1.

Next thing you need to do is assigning those VLANs to the switch's ports.

Pop!Tech 2008

2008-10-27T14:10:00.000-07:00

You know my old saying...

"Connect on your similarities and profit from your differences"

One of the best places to practice that -- if you are a progressive, technical, social, global/local thinker is at the annual Pop!Tech conference held in Camden, Maine every October. Can't remember how many people I met -- many more than the biz cards I collected. They were ALL interesting, if not outright fascinating, each in their own way!

Andrew Zolli, who is the conference curator, is a master network weaver -- connecting others through placement in the program or F2F introductions. You want to connect to Andrew, he will close many triangles for you.

THE conference for connecting -- Pop!Tech.

Adding Switch to Cisco Home Lab - Part 1

2008-10-27T08:52:00.000-07:00

So I was sitting and thinking about what to post next in my blog, and hey why not continuing on the last posts about setting up Cisco home lab.

The network topology might not be the best topology for CCNA home lab, but the configuration should be similar with any other topologies.

Let's take a look at the last network topology where I connected 2611 router to the cable internet:
I'm going to add a Cisco switch, 2950 Cisco switch that is. And I'll be adding some VLANs to it, I'll separate the PCs in my LAN into four different networks.

VLAN 5 as the native VLAN - 192.168.5.0 network
VLAN 10 for the office - 192.168.10.0 network
VLAN 20 for the home - 192.168.20.0 network
VLAN 30 for wireless - 192.168.30 network

In network diagram view, you can see it like this:
This is just a very simple network diagram, but most SOHO networks are typically look like this, maybe with some additional switches here and there.

You can see above the details of the network with exception of the wireless network, I'll leave the wireless network configuration for later posts but still provide a VLAN for wireless connectivity.

Same with the previous posts, I'll do the configuration on series and hopefully in the end I can make a full Cisco home lab scenario for Cisco certification exam.

7 Reasons to Choose Cisco for Home or SOHO Network

2008-10-27T04:57:00.000-07:00

After building my own Cisco home lab, I feel very satisfied with how they perform for my LAN.

So let me poison your mind, I'm going to show you why I think home network geeks - like my self - and SOHO network should consider to replace the network devices they have now with Cisco networking devices.

Actually Cisco has an article called Why Enterprise Choose Cisco, but frankly I don't quite understand what they're trying to say so I figured 7 reasons that I can think of why choose Cisco for Home or SOHO network.

1. Cisco Certification

The number one reason is of course to smooth your way in passing Cisco Certification exams. You can get away not having Cisco home lab for the CCNA exam, but above that, especially if you don't have a direct access to the real Cisco devices, at least you need to rent Cisco lab.

2. Wide Range of Products

Not just apply to Cisco, every vendor has wide range of products to offer, routers, switches, VPN concentrators, wireless, firewalls, you name it.
But wouldn't it be nice to have a room in your home or SOHO with that cool Cisco logo on all of the devices.
Imagine clients walking down your office and see the network rack or at least the picture of it, and shockingly say what the heck is that???
Oh, that's just our small data center you reply.
Surely make your business seems reliable enough or what??

3. Scalability

This is what I really like from Cisco, you can easily upgrade everything, well almost everything in the devices.
Say you bought a 2611 router, the chassis only, and later you found out you need WAN connectivity, DSL connection, additional switch ports, VPN, and even Voice card for VoIP, etc.
You can just buy the modules and slide in to your router, not all of them of course, but as much as the router permits.
The complete reference for the modules supported by 2600 routers can be found here.

You can buy and upgrade the IOS according to your needs. Routers such as linksys also can be upgraded (the firmware), many third party firmwares are also available, but the Cisco IOS can do much more functionalities no doubt.

Need more power for the Cisco routers, no problem, you can always upgrade the RAM, now this is hard to do on average home usage routers. You can easily slide in a bigger RAM in the router just like PCs.
My default amount of 2611 RAM provides me a great connectivity to the internet compared to my old router.
You know if you connect lots of clients to the internet, the router maintains a NAT table and if the RAM is not enough it should affect the connectivity.

4. Managabililty

Having Cisco devices in your LAN is like being a tyrant in your own kingdom. You can pretty much do anything in it at your wish.
Kick out a client, limit the connection to nearly bytes per second and let them come to you and beg for mercy.
No no that's not me.. I think. I don't know about you but controling network devices from the CLI is like having an unlimited power over the LAN.
You can configure anything right from nothing and seeing it connects successfuly, I'm telling you nothing beats the feel of it.

5. Reliability

No question about reliability for Cisco devices. In fact I just knew that Cisco Systems Sets Guinness World Record with the World's Highest Capacity Internet Router.

Now get this, with the show version command in the device you can view the uptime right? how long the router is up and running without shutting down or reloading.
A company has a record of about 10+ years, 10 years, man, you should see it here or search in google for "cisco 10 years uptime".

6. Enterprise Class Features

Depends on the router capabilities and the IOS image you have, you can have an enterprise class features in your LAN.
Advance firewall system, Intrusion Detection System, Multicast handling, VoIP, all of that you can have just by upgrading your Cisco routers later when your company got bigger.

7. Cost

No, I'm not talking about the cost of buying Cisco devices, the price for the new ones are insane for home usage and SOHO. But you can always buy the used ones from ebay or other used Cisco resellers.
What I want to say is the cost that you can save if you bought Cisco devices. Return of Investment what smarter people would say.

So the reasons are good enough for you? If you're working in a SOHO you might be able to persuade the finance department to upgrade the network devices you have now.

But you're just students or a techies want to get deeply intimate with Cisco, how could you ever afford them.
If you really really want it why not? Take a look at me, I'm currently just about a quarter of century old, living in a country where you wouldn't dream of having a real live Cisco home lab.
And no, my Dad is not a millionaire, I bought the Cisco lab purely from my own income, one by one at a time, you just need to know what to buy and where.

Good luck

SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) for Cisco

2008-10-25T05:18:00.000-07:00

When you've set up your Cisco devices, you might also want to monitor them. It's very inconvenient if you have to look at the lights blinking on your Cisco devices or logging to the devices and type in show ip interface brief just to see if the interfaces is running correctly.

To make monitoring network devices easier, the great people in network industry invented SNMP or Simple Network Management Protocol).

SNMP gives you great flexibility, you can allow a group of people to just monitor the network devices in your LAN (read-only rights) and allow other group for monitoring and making changes to the network devices (read-write rights).

The image above shows one of many networking tools that implements SNMP, this one if from solarwinds.
You can view in graphical form of CPU/memory usage, bandwidth usage, etc.

Some terms that you need to be familiar with in configuring SNMP:

GET

Gets are used to collect information from network devices, it's in a read-only mode. You need to configure a community string in a Cisco device so a network tool can identify it. Apply read-only rights so the users having this community string can only view information on network devices.

To set it in a Cisco device is very easy, just go to the global configuration mode and type in:

router (config)# snmp community public ro

The above command configure the router to have a community string of "public" with read-only rights.
You can also apply an access list to that community string.

Now that you have that community string, set this community string to the network tool so it can monitor the network device.

SET

The sets can be used to make changes to a network device such as shutting down an interface, etc.
Configuring sets is similar to the GET configuration, you only need to change the read-only rights to be read-write rights.

router (config)# snmp community private read-write

Since this command allows users who know the community string to be able to configure the network device, you should always apply an access list to the read-write command.

TRAPS

If the GETs and SETs are initiated by the admin, the traps are initiated by the network device itself.
This is very useful, in case an emergency situation pops out like an interface is shutdown, fan failure, etc. the device can immediately send message to a preconfigured destination.

Do this to send traps to host 192.168.1.10 with community string "public":

router (config)# snmp host 192.168.1.10 public

Why Take CCNA Exam?

2008-10-22T18:39:00.000-07:00

So you haven't decided yet to take the Cisco CCNA exam, no time to study, too much works got in the way, etc.
Well I found something that might raise your spirit again in taking the CCNA exam.

First, why bother taking the exam? According to indeed.com the percentage of job vacancies in need of CCNA certified people have been growing wild in the last few years.
They search from millions of jobs from thousands of job sites about the CCNA required jobs, you can see from the graphic of indeed.com below:

From the looks of that chart, 50 plus percent growth of jobs in need for CCNA, WOW , the demand for CCNA certified are definitely won't run out in the next following few years.

So we know that there are still lots of jobs need CCNA, what about the salary? from indeed.com again, they provide the following graph about the CCNA income in a year:

Cisco CCNA $75,000

View Larger Salary Graph

The above graph depicts that CCNA salaries in the US have average salaries of US $75,000 per year.

Of course this depends also on the experience of the CCNA holders, most ten years experienced network engineers with CCNA certification can get this kind of salary.

What about CCNA salaries world wide? As I know in my country definitely won't reach that kind of number, but network engineers with CCNA certification are claiming that they got raise in their salaries.

Some interesting surveys by TCPmag.com can be read here. They regularly conduct salary survey on their readers. The fact is outstanding, just read the article, I know you'll gonna love it.

So what's the moral of this story? Get Cisco certified, the higher the better, average CCIE salaries are reported about US$102,000 - $116,000.

Even if you're living in a country like mine where the average salary of professionals are about US$250 - US$500 per month, you can always get in a project abroad if you have great resume. With no intention of bragging or anything, at the last project I was involved in, I can get way far beyond the average salaries in my country.

So good luck with your certifications.

Configure Cisco Router to Work With Cable Internet - Part 4

2008-10-21T17:58:00.000-07:00

Configuring NAT (Network Address Translation)

Continuing for the tutorial series of configuring Cisco router to work with cable internet, now we'll set the router to do NAT.

When connecting your router to the cable internet through cable modem, your router will receive a dynamic IP address from the ISP DHCP server according to the scenario.

While you only get one IP address from the ISP, you also need to connect more than one computer to the internet.
Plus the public IP address is different network with the private IP addresses in your LAN.

NAT can solve this problem, it stores the requesting private IP addresses in the address translation table of the router, translates every request from your LAN and forward it to the internet using the single public IP address.

Now NAT can be used in different scenario, but I'll save them for future posts, for now the NAT form that we'll use is many-to-one scenario of NAT.
Many private IP addresses translated to be one public IP address, some people call it overloading and/or Port Address Translation (PAT).

NAT Overload will assign a unique logical port number to every request from the LAN to the internet thus PAT.
For example, if you have a public IP address of 202.1.1.1, then for a request from the user of 192.168.1.20 in your LAN will be translated into 192.168.1.20:1720 for the incoming request to the router, and 202.1.1.1:1521.
This is how the router can identify which request goes to which device.

To configure it requires some steps, first lets see again how the network diagram looks like:

The image shows I only use one computer to connect to the internet, for now lets pretend I have a lot of computers in my LAN for internet connection.

You need to remember three basic steps for configuring NAT/PAT:

Create access list to decide which private IP addresses are allowed to be translated by the router.
Issue the NAT command to cooperate NAT with access list that we created and tell the router that we need to overload the requests if you use PAT.
Identify which interface in the router that is connected to the LAN then issue ip nat inside command, and which interface is connected to the internet then issue ip nat outside command.

The steps are not necessarily be in that order, we can start with whichever step first. Here how you do those steps:

Create Access List

router> enable
router# configure terminal
router (config)# access-list 101 permit ip 192.168.1.0 0.0.0.255 any

Issue PAT command

router (config)# ip nat inside source list 101 interface Ethernet0/0 overload

Identify interfaces for ip nat inside and outside

router (config)# interface ethernet0/0
router (config-if)# ip nat outside
router (config-if)# interface ethernet0/1
router (config-if)# ip nat inside

That's it three easy to remember steps for configuring NAT/PAT, one last thing to do for connecting your router to the cable internet is configuring default route.

Configuring Default Route

I decided to include configuring default route into this post since I only have a simple network topology and we only need one line of command to configure the default route.
Here's how we do it, from the last command we jump back to the global configuration mode:

router (config-if)# exit
router (config)# ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 ethernet0/0

What the above command does is to route all request that point to any ip address that the router doesn't know (0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0) to the ethernet0/0 interface.

If you have a static public IP address from the ISP then you can replace the ethernet0/0 with the IP address given by the ISP.

That concludes the tutorial series for connecting your router to the internet cable, thank you for following the series, and please give me feedback about my posts.

Please read also:
Configure Cisco Router to Work With Cable Internet - Part 1
Configure Cisco Router to Work With Cable Internet - Part 2
Configure Cisco Router to Work With Cable Internet - Part 3

Configure Cisco Router to Work With Cable Internet - Part 3

2008-10-18T08:01:00.000-07:00

Setting Cisco Router as DHCP Server

This option really is optional if you want to set Cisco router to work with cable internet, but this is a good chance to add your skill in configuring Cisco devices.

From the previous post, you know how to configure your router's interface to accept IP address from DHCP server.
Now it's time to configure your router as DHCP server.

Once again you need to make sure your Router IOS image support the DHCP server feature if not then the command won't be available.

To set a DHCP server, you will configure a pool of network IP addresses that you want to give out to the clients (PC, printer, NAS, etc).
As shown on the image in the previous post, I want to give out the IP addresses from the network 192.168.1.0.

First thing you need to configure is to exclude the IP addresses that you dont want to give out.
For example, I've configured the router interface 0/1 to be 192.168.1.1, then I need to exclude 192.168.1.1 so the router won't give out this address.
You can configure the exclusion in the router's global configuration mode:

router> enable
router# configure terminal
router (config)# ip dhcp excluded-address 192.168.1.1

This command is very useful especially if you need to exclude a range of IP addresses, if you need to exclude say 192.168.1.1 until 192.168.1.10 you can do it like this:

router (config)# ip dhcp excluded-address 192.168.1.1 192.168.1.10

After the ip dhcp excluded-address we give the low IP address and the high IP address, this way your router not give IP addresses from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.10, the router will start giving out address from 192.168.1.11 and so on.

Next thing to do is creating a pool of addresses, when issuing the ip dhcp pool, you'll be taken to the dhcp configuration mode where you can set the additional parameters beside the ip address and subnet mask to the clients.
In this example I want to make a pool with the name of HOME_CLIENTS

router> enable
router# configure terminal
router (config)# ip dhcp pool HOME_CLIENTS
router (dhcp-config)# network 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0
router (dhcp-config)# default-router 192.168.1.1
router (dhcp-config)# import all

At the third line above you can see the configuration command of a pool with the name HOME_CLIENTS.

Fourth line shows that the pool HOME_CLIENTS will give out the addresses in the network 192.168.1.0, with the exception of the addresses in the ip dhcp excluded-address 192.168.1.1 that I showed you previously.

Fifth line tells the clients should be given a default gateway address of 192.168.1.1 (the router's IP address).

The sixth line is the one important thing for configuring DHCP server in cable internet environment.
The import all command tells the router to give out other configuration received from the ISP cable internet DHCP server to the clients in the LAN.
For example, most ISP will give the DNS servers IP addresses from their DHCP server and this configuration might change depends on the ISP, so you definitely want to give this configuration out to the clients.

If you have your own DNS server in the LAN, you can tell the clients to use this DNS server using the following command:

router (dhcp-config)# dns-server 192.168.1.2 192.168.1.3

The above command will send out DNS server address of 192.168.1.2 and 192.168.1.3 to the clients.

You can also configure the router to use the above DNS server using the following command in the global configuration mode:

router (config)# ip name-server 192.168.1.2 192.168.1.3

You can get more information on Cisco IOS DHCP and DNS commands in the cisco site, please click here to go there.

Please read also:
Configure Cisco Router to Work With Cable Internet - Part 1
Configure Cisco Router to Work With Cable Internet - Part 2
Configure Cisco Router to Work With Cable Internet - Part 4

Configure Cisco Router to Work With Cable Internet - Part 2

2008-10-17T06:44:00.000-07:00

Setting IP Address to Cisco Router's Interfaces

We need to first set the IP address of the router's interfaces to begin configuring Cisco router to work with cable internet.

If you configure the router for the first time, connect to it using the console cable.

WARNING!!!

Not every Cisco IOS image supports the commands below, make sure your router's IOS support the commands, please read here first. If your image doesn't support it, the commands wont work.
Or check the features of your IOS image here.

Make sure your Cisco IOS image supports DHCP features (client/server).

As I said in the last post, the interface ethernet 0/0 is connected to the cable modem and interface ethernet 0/1 connected to my PC like shown below:

Ethernet 0/0 is using configuration got from the ISP so we'll set it to receive IP address from ISP's DHCP server. Always remember to give no shutdown command on the interface:

router> enable
router# configure terminal
router (config) # interface ethernet 0/0
router (config-if)# ip address dhcp
router (config-if)# no shutdown

Now to set the Ethernet 0/1 port as the picture above, we can just jump right to the interface 0/1 configuration mode:

router (config-if)# interface ethernet 0/1
router (config-if)# ip address 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0
router (config-if)# no shutdown

You have successfully configure IP addresses to your interfaces, you can check it using the following command:

router# show ip interface brief

Interface	IP-Address	OK?	Method	Status	Protocol
Ethernet0	xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx	YES	DHCP	up	up
Ethernet1	192.168.1.1	YES	NVRAM	up	up

The show ip interface brief is a very useful command, you would want to use it to check the status of your interfaces.

The interface column shows you all the interfaces you have, the IP-Address is of course shows the addresses of the respective interfaces.

The Method column shows whether the addresses given by a DHCP server or you configured it yourself (stored in NVRAM) or it can also shows TFTP - configuration from TFTP server.

When the status column is showing down then it indicates there is a problem with OSI Layer 2.
The protocol will show up if the interfaces are physically connected to other devices, if not they will show as down (a problem with the OSI Layer 1).
And there's also another state of the status column -administratively down - it means the interface is shutdown.
This is the most likely question you'd get in the CCNA exam.

You can read further about show ip interface brief command here.

When you finished this configuration, your router will be receiving IP address on interface 0/0 from DHCP server of the ISP, and the interface 0/1 will be ready to communicate with network 192.168.1.0

Please read also:
Configure Cisco Router to Work With Cable Internet - Part 1
Configure Cisco Router to Work With Cable Internet - Part 3
Configure Cisco Router to Work With Cable Internet - Part 4

Configure Cisco Router to Work With Cable Internet - Part 1

2008-10-16T07:01:00.000-07:00

If you just bought your first used Cisco router, I bet one thing you want to immediately do is connecting the Cisco router to the cable internet.
I know I did, I have cable internet for my home network. Previously I used Linksys router to get my LAN connected to the internet.

Configuring Cisco router to connect to the cable internet is easy work, even if you know only the basic configuration stuff in Cisco.

I need to warn you that this configuration will be in series or else this configuration will be a very long post. And also this series will be a good chance to learn some aspects in configuring Cisco router.

All you need to do is to set the IP address of the interfaces, set the router as a DHCP server if you want it, configure NAT, and the last thing is routing. Very simple indeed.

I'm only going to show you to get your router up and running, I wont discuss about access list and other fancy stuff - that's for the next posts.
Also the devices involve in this tutorial is only the Cisco 2611 router, Motorola cable modem, and my PC. If you want to use other Cisco devices you might need to do more configuration.

In this Part 1, I'm going to review about the concept of this configuration, please look at the topology image below:

Configure IP Address of the Router's Interfaces

The router will get the ip configuration from DHCP server of the ISP, the Ethernet 0/0 port I use as the exit point to the internet.
The Ethernet 0/1 will be the port where my computer is connected. I'm going to set private IP address as the gateway for the computer.

Setting IP address of the interfaces is definitely a topic in the CCNA exam.

Configure the Router as DHCP Server

In this example I'm using the router as DHCP server, giving IP addresses to the computer along with other configuration such as subnet mask, gateway address, and the dns server ip address.

You won't be tested about setting router as DHCP Server in the CCNA exam, it will show up in the CCNP exam.

Configure NAT (Network Address Translation) in The Router

NAT is a powerful concept, you have one public IP address given by the ISP and also private IP addresses in your LAN.

What NAT will do is translate all your private IP address into the public IP address. If you're using overload - one public IP address used by many private IP address - the private IP address is converted into logical ports.

For example, if you got public IP address of 10.1.1.1, then the form of the translation might be like this 10.1.1.1:3000

NAT is also a topic in the CCNA exam and one of the thoughest that is.

Configure Routing

This example only shows the basic static routing, the router will send all request from the client (from port Ethernet 0/1) to the port Ethernet 0/0.

You surely want to learn about routing for the CCNA exam.

Please read also:
Configure Cisco Router to Work With Cable Internet - Part 2
Configure Cisco Router to Work With Cable Internet - Part 3
Configure Cisco Router to Work With Cable Internet - Part 4

Need Other Resources for Learning Cisco?

2008-10-15T22:37:00.000-07:00

Ah, nothing like a long holiday for a tired mind, now back to blogging.

During my vacation I also took my chance browsing all over the internet, I'm surprise to see that in the internet, quite a lot of people claiming that Cisco.com didn't give them enough information about the devices in their home labs.

Sure Cisco did stop supporting some of the older devices, but they still keep the information about them including the configuration examples, etc. But maybe they did stop posting the information.

That's not what I want to post about now, just sharing my opinion. But I do want to post about some resources that provide you with the information about Cisco devices.

Two good resources are the Packet magazine and iQ magazine from Cisco, they're free to download. Too bad they stop issuing on new issues because they said they want to evolve their customer communications to a more interactive, web based model or something. Read here.

I really do prefer to read their magazines, although you can't get new issues now but you can still download them from Cisco.
Click here to browse on the older issues of Packet magazine and here for the iQ magazine back issues.

Sure they're maybe outdated reviews, for me, I can still learn a lot from them. For example I found this article about connected home from Packet magazine, making all devices in your home connected.

I actually took advantage of the article and start running my business by offering people this connected home network, turns out to be quite good.
There are many interesting articles like IPTV, VoIP, etc.

If you're aiming for cisco exams, joining in forums is important to get more information from people experienced with the exam.

Some forums that I recommend are from proprofs, sadikhov, and of course cisco. These are three of tons of cisco/networking forums out there.

The key is to find the forum best fit for you, some forums have different culture, some have very helpful people to help you while there are also grumpy people you might meet also.
Keep the list small, if you're like me, I often got confuse because I registered to many forums out there, quality not quantity.

The New Organizers

2008-10-13T07:13:00.000-07:00

"Respect. Empower. Include."

Sounds like the mantra of a network weaver.

Those three words come from the Obama campaign, from the the "Neighborhood Team Leader" concept as described in the Huffington Post.

Basic closing of local triangles...

Her team would be responsible for connecting with all of the Democratic and undecided voters within their "turf."

The strategy is not to have one central organizing point, like old campaigns, but to have multiple weavers working in concert -- each organizes their local geography/social circle. The natural evolution of "friends talking to friends", ...or at least acquaintances who are highly similar.

Our house was visited by one of these Neighborhood Teams. I talked to the volunteer about their tactics. They only visit those who are likely to vote for Obama -- they don't waste their time on those likely not to. This way they contact many more voters likely to tip their way -- an effective use of their time.

"I'm a different person than I was six weeks ago." I asked her to elaborate later. She said, "Now, I'm really asking: how can I be most effective in my community?"

Once connected, the community does not need to disband after the election. These connected people of like mind can stay together for other community improvement efforts.

Ironic, that the strategy & tactics of community organizing may be what defeats MacCain/Palin -- the exact concept they mocked at their convention.

Cisco IOS Naming Convention and Features

2008-10-10T21:50:00.000-07:00

When you decided to buy Cisco devices for a home lab, it is very important to ask the reseller about the Cisco IOS image the devices are using.

This is something that most newbies are forgetting about when buying used Cisco devices for the first time.

This should be no problem if you buy Cisco kit/home lab package, since the reseller will optimize the requirements for you, including the IOS version.

Now what exactly is the differences in Cisco IOS package names and the features they have. To list every one of them here is a very tiring work since there might be hundreds if not thousands of IOS packages with different versions and features.

What I can tell you is that the above image shows the naming convention of Cisco IOS images. You will oftenly see the above format used in the naming of IOS image.

HARDWARE

The first part is quite self explanatory, hardware is the hardware supported by the IOS.

FEATURE SET

This is where you can find out the features supported by the IOS. This is the new naming convention of Cisco IOS, some older version still use letters to describe the features. The "Legacy naming convention" can be quite confusing, so it's good they decided to change the naming convention.

Cisco distributes IOS packages according their features, take a look at the following diagram:

The higher the features set, the more features it has. You can check the features of Cisco IOS image with the tool provided by Cisco.
Access the tool at cisco site, and you can search by features, IOS image name, platform, product code, and you can even compare features between images. Great tool you should try.

For the legacy naming convention, you can find it formated as yyyy, where the y can be replaced by the following letters:

b - For Apple talk support
c - For CommServer lite (CiscoPro)
g - For ISDN subset (SNMP, IP, Bridging, ISDN, PPP, IPX, and AppleTalk)
i - For IP sebset (SNMP, IP, Bridging, WAN, Remote Node, and Terminal Services)
n - For IPX support
q - For asynchronous support
t - For Telco return (12.0)
y - For reduced IP (SNMP, IP RIP/IGRP/EIGRP, Bridging, ISDN, and PPP)
(c1003 or c1004)
z - For managed modems
40 - For 40 bit encryption
50 - For 50 bit encryption

MEMORY LOCATION and COMPRESSION FORMAT

This section tells you from which memory location the IOS and what format of compression it uses. Check the following for the formats:

f - flash
m - RAM
r - ROM
l - the image will be relocated at run time

And these are the compression types:

z - zip compression
x - mzip compression
w - �STAC� compression

MAINTENANCE RELEASE and INDIVIDUAL RELEASE

These shows the release version number of the IOS image.

RELEASE

The last part shows whether the image is T Release (new feature release identifier), S (individual release), or XR (modular packages).

For further reference you can see the complete list here and here.

I've made a mistake when I first bought my router, I didn't ask about the IOS version of the router so I ended up with a very basic IOS version not having even DHCP server feature.
You don't want to make same mistake, so get familiar with Cisco IOS naming convention.

If you already bought it, check the features supported by the image with the Cisco tool I told you above.

You need also consider the amount of DRAM of the device. The higher the version and features of an IOS, the more DRAM you need.

Password Recovery Procedure for Cisco 2600 and 2800 Series Routers

2008-10-10T01:34:00.000-07:00

If you buy used Cisco device for your Cisco home lab, your used router/switch configuration most likely already erased to default configuration by the reseller. But what if you got a router/switch with password in it, or you forgot the password you gave to the device.

Cisco devices have a password recovery procedure that you can use to overcome this problem, some devices might have different procedure for password recovery.

The steps that I'm showing here is for Cisco 2600 and 2800 series routers, but most routers have the common steps to follow.
Some Cisco switches series have a button on the chassis that you must press for password recovery.

WARNING!!!

The password recovery procedure will wipe out all configuration in the router/switch, it is always a good idea to backup your configuration regularly and use the backup to reconfigure the router/switch after password recovery procedure.

To recover the password first you need to enter the ROMmon mode, for 2600 and 2800 series routers you need to change the configuration register from 0x2102 to 0x2142, then reset the router.

rommon 1 > confreg 0x2142
You must reset or power cycle for new config to take effect

rommon 2 > reset

Changing the configuration register from 0x2102 to 0x2142 tells the router to ignore the configuration in the NVRAM - where you place the password for the router.

This is why you must backup the configuration file to TFTP server regularly, so you can recover the configuration file if something like this happen in the future.

Your router will reload after the "reset" command in the ROMmon mode with no configuration, so it will ask again whether you want to enter the initial configuration prompt again, just answer no to this:

Would you like to enter the initial configuration dialog? [yes/no]: no

At this point you can enter the router without providing the password, if you check with show version command you will get that the configuration register has changed:

router# show version
Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software
IOS (tm) C2600 Software (C2600-I-M), Version 12.1(2)T, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)
Copyright (c) 1986-2000 by cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Tue 16-May-00 15:15 by ccai
Image text-base: 0x80008088, data-base: 0x80865F64

ROM: System Bootstrap, Version 11.3(2)XA4, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)

Router uptime is 3 minutes
System returned to ROM by reload
System image file is "flash:c2600-i-mz.121-2.T.bin"

cisco 2611 (MPC860) processor (revision 0x202) with 20480K/4096K bytes of memory.
Processor board ID JAB0317052N (1135645455)
M860 processor: part number 0, mask 49
Bridging software.
X.25 software, Version 3.0.0.
2 Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 interface(s)
1 Serial network interface(s)
32K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.
8192K bytes of processor board System flash (Read/Write)

Configuration register is 0x2102

Next thing is to fill in your new password or erase the password requirement from the router configuration mode. Use enable password or enable secret, saver to use enable secret.

router# configure terminal
router (config)# enable secret Cisco

Don't forget to paste your backup configuration file to the terminal and save the running configuration:

router# write memory

or

router# copy running-config startup-config

Last thing to do and the most important part is to change back the configuration register to 0x2102, or else everytime your router reloads it will ignore the configuration file.

router (config)# config-register 0x2142

You can check with show version command that your configuration register value will change to 0x2102 after reloading the router.

Reload the router using reload command:

router# reload

I don't think they will test you to recover password in CCNA exam, but they will ask you about the configuration register value you must change for password recovery procedure, just remember the values.

Fastest Way to Recover or Upgrade Cisco IOS using tftpdnld

2008-10-08T22:26:00.000-07:00

There are many articles about how to recover or upgrade your Cisco IOS, but personally I find that using tftpdnld is the fastest and easiest way to do this.

tftpdnld is a command that you can use in the ROMmon mode of Cisco devices.

Using tftpdnld you can download files directly to the Cisco routers or switches from ROMmon mode using the console cable (serial connection).

In order to use the tftpdnld command you need a TFTP server running in your computer, any TFTP server will do.
In this example I recover my Cisco IOS image for my 2611 router, but this tutorial also good for 2800 and 3800 series routers.

I need to tell you that you can use tftpdnld to download image file from TFTP server to the router but not from the router to TFTP server.

Also this command requires you to use the first LAN port in the router - in 2611 is ethernet 0/0 port like shown below.

But in 2621 router you can also use the Token Ring or Fast Ethernet port.

WARNING!!!
Use this tutorial only if you understand the effect of the commands provided and you aware the effect of the procedures shown to a production or running network!

First thing you need to do to recover or upgrade Cisco IOS is prepare your IOS image file in the TFTP server folder.

Next is to get in to the ROMmon mode of the router.

In the ROMmon prompt, you need to set up some configuration for router to TFTP server connection. In this example I use the following configuration:

Issue the "set" command in the prompt, it shows the current configuration you've made, next is to type in the following commands:

rommon 1 > set

rommon 2 > IP_ADDRESS=171.68.171.0
rommon 3 > IP_SUBNET_MASK=255.255.254.0
rommon 4 > DEFAULT_GATEWAY=171.68.170.3
rommon 5 > TFTP_SERVER=171.69.1.129
rommon 6 > TFTP_FILE=c2600-is-mz.121-2.T.bin

Make sure you got everything right and your TFTP server is connected to the first LAN Port of the router.

Before issuing the tftpdnld, Cisco docummentation tells that in 2600 and 1720 series router, the tftpdnld in ROMmon mode might report a bad checksum comparison when it loads Cisco IOS software images of Cisco IOS Software Release 12.0(2.2)T or later - it's a bug thing.

To overcome this problem you need to issue another command:

rommon 7 > TFTP_CHECKSUM=0

Next you're ready to isssue tftpdnld command, type in the command as shown below then it will show you some output, answer y to the question prompted to you.
The question shows you that the content of the flash memory will be erased and replaced by the downloaded image file.

rommon 8 > tftpdnld

IP_ADDRESS: 10.1.1.1
IP_SUBNET_MASK: 255.255.255.0
DEFAULT_GATEWAY: 10.1.1.1
TFTP_SERVER: 10.1.1.2
TFTP_FILE: c2600-is-mz.121-2.T.bin

Invoke this command for disaster recovery only.
WARNING: all existing data in all partitions on flash will be lost!
Do you wish to continue? y/n: [n]: y

Receiving c2600-is-mz.121-2.T.bin from 10.1.1.2 !!!!!.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.!!
File reception completed.
Copying file c2600-is-mz.121-2.T.bin to flash.
Erasing flash at 0x607c0000
program flash location 0x60440000

rommon 9 >

At this point your new image will be in the flash memory if there is no problem with the connection from TFTP server to the router.

You can verify that your image exist in the flash using the following command:

rommon 9 > dir flash:
File size Checksum File name
4603828 bytes (0x463fb4) 0x9719 c2600-i-mz.121-2.T.bin
rommon 10 >

Last thing to do is to set the boot command to tell the router that you want it to boot using the image file you just downloaded:

rommon 10 > boot flash:c2600-i-mz.121-2.T.bin
program load complete, entry point: 0x80008000, size: 0x51c0dc
Self decompressing the image : #################################################
##################################
...

That's it you just successfully recover your Cisco IOS image, check the new image using the show version from the router prompt:

Router2611>sh version
Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software
IOS (tm) C2600 Software (C2600-I-M), Version 12.1(2)T, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)
Copyright (c) 1986-2000 by cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Tue 16-May-00 15:15 by ccai
Image text-base: 0x80008088, data-base: 0x80865F64

ROM: System Bootstrap, Version 11.3(2)XA4, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)

Router2611 uptime is 1 minute
System returned to ROM by reload
System image file is "flash:c2600-i-mz.121-2.T.bin"

cisco 2611 (MPC860) processor (revision 0x202) with 22528K/2048K bytes of memory.
Processor board ID JAB0317052N (1135645455)
M860 processor: part number 0, mask 49
Bridging software.
X.25 software, Version 3.0.0.
2 Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 interface(s)
1 Serial network interface(s)
32K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.
8192K bytes of processor board System flash (Read/Write)

Configuration register is 0x2102

TFTP Server for Newbies

2008-10-08T08:21:00.000-07:00

TFTP or Trivial File Transfer Protocol can be a very useful network management tool. Although it's a simplified version of FTP, but because of that simplicity it wins the heart of all network engineers.

You can use TFTP server for numerous purposes when relating it with network devices.
You can use it for uploading or downloading Cisco IOS or other network vendors' operating systems, backup configuration files, or even run firmwares or operating system over the network for IP Phones, network devices, etc. without storing them in the devices.

I think most if not all of the professionally managed networks are definitely using TFTP servers.

I quoted from wikipedia about the details and features of TFTP Servers:

It uses UDP port 69 as its transport protocol (unlike FTP which uses TCP port 21).
It cannot list directory contents.
It has no authentication or encryption mechanisms.
It is used to read files from, or write files to, a remote server.
It supports three different transfer modes, "netascii", "octet" and "mail", with the first two corresponding to the "ASCII" and "image" (binary) modes of the FTP protocol; the third is obsoleted by RFC1350.
The original protocol has a file size limit of 32 MB, although this was extended when RFC 2347 introduced option negotiation, which was used in RFC 2348 to introduce block-size negotiation in 1998 (allowing a maximum of 4 GB and potentially higher throughput). If the server and client support block number wraparound, file size is essentially unlimited.
Since TFTP utilizes UDP, it has to supply its own transport and session support. Each file transferred via TFTP constitutes an independent exchange. That transfer is performed in lock-step, with only one packet (either a block of data, or an 'acknowledgement') ever in flight on the network at any time. Due to this lack of windowing, TFTP provides low throughput over high latency links.
Due to the lack of security, it is dangerous over the open Internet. Thus, TFTP is generally only used on private, local networks.

You can find many free TFTP servers in the internet, most popular ones are:

WinAgents TFTP Server
TFTPD32
SolarWinds TFTP Server
Kiwi CatTools - Network tools collection including TFTP Server

Personally I use the SolarWinds TFTP Server, don't get me wrong, every TFTP server you can find is easy to install and configure. I just use the one from SolarWinds because I have been using it from a very long time ago.

Up there in the post is the image of SolarWinds TFTP server when I used it to upload IOS image for recovery.

To use a TFTP server is fairly easy, just make sure your router can reach the computer you use for TFTP server, run the TFTP service in your computer, provide a space for placing your files to upload or download, and run the copy command from the router.