What is Ansible?

Ansible is a simple automation language or you can say application that can perfectly automate IT infrastructure or network infrastructure.

Ansible is a free-software platform for configuring and managing computers or network devices which combines multi-node software deployment, ad hoc task execution, and configuration management. (description taken from wikipedia)

It can also be used for network management. Like Puppet or Chef which requires agent to be installed on host system but Ansible does not require an agent on the host system. It uses SSH for transport to communicate with the host. When Ansible was first developed it was used primarily for server administration but in the last few years of development more and more network modules have been added to the software. Currently these Network vendor devices can be manage by Ansible. Current version is Ansible Ver 2.4 :

A10 Networks

Cisco ACI

Aireos

AOS

Aruba Networks

Cisco ASA

AVI

Bigswitch

Bigswitch

Citrix

Cloudengine

Cloudvision

Cumulus

Dell OS

EOS

F5 Networks

FortiOS

IOS

IOS-XR

JUNOS

NX-OS

Netconf

PAN OS (Paloalto Networks)

Radware

Vyos

If you notice, above list is very long but I am interested mostly on Cisco and Juniper network devices.

There are generally two methods to automate network devices. First is to learn Python and then automate the things. Second is to learn Ansible and do automation. For network engineer like us , learning Python has high learning curve. Whereas learning Ansible is quite easy as compare to learn Python.

Ansible is a skill that all Network Engineers should learn and master. It will save you lot more time to automate task which you do on daily basis.

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SuperPuTTY for EVE-NG

To use SuperPuTTY as default client for telnet in Eve-NG for multi tab console

When we click on Router or Switch in EVE-NG by default console open in CMD. Here I posting a method to use SuperPutty with EVE-NG so that you can use TAB function of SuperPutty.
You need to edit registry
Enable handling of telnet://hostname:port/ URLs on the command line. With this feature, you can now set SuperPuTTY as the default handler for Telnet URLs
If you run the Registry Editor (Start->Run->regedit.exe) and set the value in:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\telnet\shell\open\command to be: "\path\to\SuperPutty.exe"
(with the full pathname of your SuperPuTTY executable)

In my case it like this :

C:\Program Files (x86)\SuperPuTTY\SuperPutty.exe %1

Second most important thing :

Select "Only allow single instance of SuperPutty to run" in SuperPutty options (Tools > Options)

And in GUI options , select Tab Text : "Dynamic"

And Finally you will get the multi tab console in Superp…

Install Linux in Eve-NG

Install Linux in Eve-NG :
You can choose any of Linux image from the pack below and simply upload into EVE. Download your preferred image from this link:Download Linux Images Here (This Link is Provided by EVE - NG) 2. Download your desirable image 3. Using WinSCP or FileZilla SSH (TCP 22) to your EVE and upload downloaded image to the location: /opt/unetlab/addons/qemu/ 4. Using Putty or other telnet client, CLI SSH (TCP 22) to your EVE and go to location: cd /opt/unetlab/addons/qemu/ 5. Unzip your uploaded image file, make sure you are using right name of uploaded image. Example for ubuntu desktop image below. tar xzvf linux-ubuntu-desktop-16.04.4.tar.gz 6. Remove raw zipped image file from EVE rm -f linux-ubuntu-desktop-16.04.4.tar.gz 7. Fix permissions /opt/unetlab/wrappers/unl_wrapper -a fixpermissions 6. Repeat this procedure for each downloaded image, expecting right image name in commands
Ready to go images recommeneded settings: IMPORTANT NOTE: Before you start Li…

NAT Cloud in EVE-NG

NAT Cloud in EVE-NG

I want to share with you how to create a NAT cloud in the EVE-NG community edition. Essentially, this is a virtual network with a DHCP server, which will allow NAT connections over the management interface of the EVE-NG VM for Internet access.

Interface, DHCP Server and NAT First of all, we need to create a network which can be used in the topology. I’ll be using the predefined pnet9 interface (Cloud 9 network) for this, but any other interface will do. 1 2 3 ip address add192.168.255.1/24dev pnet9 echo1

copy IOS from FTP server for cisco switch upgrade

These are the commands to copy IOS from FTP to Flash:
Filezilla SERVER :

copy ftp://username:password@ftp-server-ip/IOS-name.bin flash:

Example :

copy ftp://cisco:cisco@192.168.1.1/c2960x-universalk9-mz.152-4.E6.bin flash:

SolarWinds SFTP & SCP Server (When we need to copy IOS to Flash using Secured channel like SCP or SFTP:

copy scp://<User>:<Password>@<Server-IP>/<File-name> flash0://<File-Name>

Radius and Tacacs server for Authentication

Radius and Tacacs server for Authentication
When we study for certification regarding Cisco, we encounter topic like Radius or Tacacs Server many times. You all know what are these and when to use them. But will it be beneficial to setup Radius or Tacacs authentication in real production network ?

Suppose you have 20 - 30 devices and there are three network administrator handling those devices in your company. One day you get a news that one of the network engineer is leaving an organization. To comply with company's security policy, you need to delete his/her Login credentials from all 20 - 30 devices. It hardly takes 20 - 30 Min to do that. No problem ! All is well till now.

Now imagine a different scenario in which you are working in even bigger organization which has around 2000 devices and has large network team around 15 - 20 Network admins. Each one of them has different access permissions on the network devices and some of them only have access permissions to limited numb…

Network Engineer should Learn Python

Network Engineer should Learn Python
Suppose you are a Network Administrator or Engineer in a company which has 20 - 30 Network devices like Cisco , Juniper or some other vendors devices. How would you manage these Devices ? Yes you do Telnet or SSH to these devices and do your configuration etc. This is a happy happy situation.
Now lets consider second scenario. Suppose you are handling multi-site company with different offices which are distributed geographically across country and world too. You have to manage around 1000 different network devices spread around different locations. One day your boss come to you and ask you to change or add new NTP server to these network devices. Aaahhh... Yes he actually means to these 1000 devices!!! Now what will be your first reaction ? How it is possible to Login to each network device and enter the NTP command ? Yes it is possible to just grab your chair and SSH to each and every device manually and put NTP command. What an idiotic and boring…

Eat that Frog Chapter - 1

Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracy
Chapter - 1 - Set the Table
Recently, I have started reading the book "EAT THAT FROG" by Brian Tracy. So here I am giving you the summary of the first chapter which I have recently completed. The title of the first chapter is "Set your Table" which means Clarity of the goal that you set. Clarity is described by the author as the most important part for personal productivity. Why some people are ultra productive and other are very less productive. The reason behind is thst the ultra productive people are well focused on their goals and tasks.
A major reason for procrastination to do the work is the cloud and haziness of the goal in front of your eyes. We don't have clarity about the goal. We are not certain about what we have to do and in which order . To over come this habit of procrastination, Brain Tracy has described seven step method as mentioned below :

St…

Connecting the missing DOTS....!!!

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