Monday, September 27, 2021

Network Outage - Nokia microwave link flapping issue

Hello everyone,

Does anyone have experience with Nokia UBT-m MPR/Microwave(formerly Alcatel Lucent).

Here is the Design and Error Image

NOTE: This is a daisy chain network & total 16 similar network is connected to R2. All the traffic is forwarded to R1 via R2.

Issue : Link between both MPRs flaps after a certain period.Line of sight between MPRs is clear. Only thing i noticed on both MPR is clock failure alarm.

What could be the possible cause/reason and solution for this issue ?



How to setup private network (maybe mesh) in a Latin America elementary/middle/high school?

I want to do this for a school in Peru, but was hoping for some guidance on hardware and software. I want to make a private portal and include chat between teachers and student/parent. Any other ideas would be much helpful. Here is our website: https://www.jgmproject.com/

The DREAM: Since many of the kids are taking classes from school it needs to be accessible to users at about 1-3 kilometer distance from the school.



FIREWALL/VPN

What firewall appliance is best as far as VPN, speed, reliability; sonicwall, fortigate, meraki? I currently have Sonicwall NSA appliance and I'm very impressed at how not so well it performs ESPECIALLY when it comes to the reliability of the VPN and randomly deleting the firmware from both primary and secondary devices. Please advise.. Thanks



Did I wire wrong?

First time doing any of this.

I'm trying to convert a telephone wall outlet to a Cat5e one. Cat5e cables run to every room, so the conversion is easy enough. I got the necessary tools and did it. I worked on where I believe our "loft" cable probably goes to. The loft cable didn't have an RJ45 head to go into the router, so I did that by crimping the wires on in the same order the working ethernet cables are, T-568B standard. I know I got that side right.

On the wall outlet side, I went with wiring scheme from the manual of the outlet I purchased. No dice.

So, I opened up the one working ethernet outlet I have, and it's wired a bit differently, I think. It looks like this (two photos). Why is the B, which I would think would be T-568B, be different on this outlet than on the new one I purchased?

The answer for me is one of two things. I either wired it incorrectly, or this simply isn't the right outlet for the cable I have plugged in, and there are 30 more to go through... What are my odds? Any tips?

Thank you.



Probably a stupid question about MPLS

I have been studying for CCNP. Currently I am on MPLS subjects. It occurred to me that all MPLS designs consist of topologies CE-PE-P-PE-CE. What would the implications of having a CE-PE-PE-CE topology? Could something go wrong if there are direct links to from PE to PE?



Packet captures on ASA vs Wireshark

Hello all,

I recently got thrown an issue by one of our customers where they are having issues with receiving external FTP files. I was tasked to run packet captures for about a week or so, so that we can monitor/take a look at the traffic and see what is going on (whether the files are coming in corrupted from the WAN, or if there are issues internally and/or why they are being dropped). This customer recently got a new WAN circuit installed and this is when they started having these issues. My question is, would we be better off hooking up a laptop directly to the ASA with Wireshark running on it, or could we run the packet captures on the ASA itself? My senior engineer said that we could do it on the ASA, but my manager is uneasy about it. He is worried that running the captures on the ASA will be too labor intensive, and doesn’t want to cause any network issues/outages as this customers network is already a little unstable. I am leaning towards using Wireshark, but if we can do it on the ASA with out any risk that would be nice. This will be running for about a week since we don’t know exactly when these FTP transfers happen.

Thank you!



iPhone 12 Pro Max/iOS 15 and band steering?

I have a device with iOS 15 that will not allow the iPhone to connect to the 5Ghz portion of the SSID. Our system broadcasts both 2.4 and 5 on the same SSID.

Apart from creating 2 separate SSIDS, (NOC most likely will not do this), what are some items we can try on the iPhone side?

More Info if helpful

-The dual broadcasting SSID is unshaped speeds

-We have separate SSIDs for other users that are 2.4 and 5, but the dual SSID is for employees only. And this device is currently on the 5Ghz for students to get the phone to work, but we need it on the Employee SSID, however, the speed is maybe 5x5 versus any other device on the Employee SSID (800x800 avergae)



How do you manage the flood of email alerts for a team?

We receive 100 - 200 emails a day on alerts. some important some not. How does everyone manage these email alerts for a team?



Webinar: Industrial Cybersecurity & Remote Connectivity Basics

Just wanted to share a free webinar about the basics of industrial cybersecurity and remote connectivity . This is applicable to anyone with industrial/manufacturing networks. Please join in this Friday, all are welcome!

Learn more and register: https://info.airlinehyd.com/webinar-cybersecurity

About the webinar: With information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) becoming more connected, many industrial equipment/machine users understand that cybersecurity directly affects us. In this beginner-friendly webinar, you'll learn industrial cybersecurity basics with practical, real-life scenarios and best practices (and without scare tactics). Attendees will walk away empowered knowing how to get started with protecting their networks, and learn techniques for safely applying remote connectivity and secure servicing for machines/systems.



Aggressive Arps / Duplicate ARP's 4500-X / HPE Enclosure / VM Blades

Hello , I have inherited an new client for my company . Switch 1/2 4500-X switch 3/4 3850

Switch 1 is the Active HSRP when times are good as such holds the VIP for the subnets there are around 60subnets with VRF's . between 6am(ish) and 6pm(ish) I notice the CPU blitz up from 10% avg to 50% average often accompanied by some OSPF Retransmissions. After grabbing a CPU capture for traffic being punted I found Switch 1 was overwhelmed with ARP requests from VM's sourced from the HPE Enclosure/ESX Blades and always with a duplicate request . This environment is a mix of VDI's / Always on Servers . Storm control is out of the question on these enclosure uplinks as to go err-disabled is a big no-no . There's also no CPP which I want to do, to guarantee cycles for OSPF/HSRP but at risk of dropping legitimate Arp traffic

Here is a small Cap I got from NSX in vSphere the device i ran the capture on was not the Device I was running a capture on . these two hosts are on the same vlan on the same dSwitch. NB this cap is not unique to the host I was monitoring in the CAP . also pay attention to the timestamps

https://pasteboard.co/IOlgr8k6G40S.png

Sysadmins have went from active / Active configuration to Active standby on the vSwitchs to stop excessive mac flaps albeit the ARP volume is still a little ridiculous

I have the ESX/sysadmins telling me there is a Loop "somewhere" but I have validated there is not , I also engaged TAC to validate this also and they are in agreement. Has anyone seen behaviour like this from HPE/ESX Blades ? (Sorry if this should be crosspost for sysadmin)

Any pointers appreciated ? as is a Whiskey or thoughts and prayers at this point :D