VLAN tags - How to make your switch Virtual

So you are an entry level IT person, maybe the only IT person in your company.  You need to deploy a virtual infrastructure on a budget that can't have too much in the way of extras.  One way to save some coin, and this is also used in very large installations as well, is to use VLANS.  For some reason, VLANS are still thought of as voodoo, or some type of black magic by quite a few network admins.  They don't totally understand what VLANS (Virtual Lans) are, or how they work.  In layman's terms, all a vlan is a logical seperation of your physical lan into multiple virtual segments.  This allows two ports on the same switch to by virtually isolated from one another.  One could be on say vlan 10, while the other is on vlan 20, etc.  Placing a switchport into a VLAN is rather simple.  Below is the syntax for creating a vlan, and assigning it to an interface.

First you want to instantiate the vlan.  This can be done a couple different ways, however this is how I prefer to do it.

Enter enable, and config terminal mode.

>vlan 20
vlan20>description Internet VLAN
vlan20>exit
>

That is all you have to do to create a VLAN, now lets tie it to an interface.
>int FastEthernet0/0
FE0/0>switchport mode access
FE0/0>switchport access vlan 20
FE0/0>exit
>
wr

Thats it.  That is how you create a vlan, and tag an interface.  Be sure that if you need to pass traffic between two vlans, you must place a routing device between them.

Its been awhile

When I started this blog, I was putting in an entry daily, now it seems to just be twice a week.  I am going to try to refocus, and get back to daily posting next week.  Things at the office have been pretty hectic, and finding time to blog has been pretty rough.

With that said, I wanted to throw a quick 30 days (or so) review of iPhone 2.0 out there.  So far, its been flawless.  I have several apps, which I outlined in an earlier post, along with about 3 or 4 email accounts depending upon the day.  The battery life is doing much better now that I have everything but exchange checking for mail every 10 minutes.  Do I miss the GPS, or 3G speeds?  Not really.  So far, the 2.0 software update has made me an even more ecstatic and completely satisfied iPhone user.

Buell pictures as promised will be posted very soon.

Tracking Food Intake to Assist in Weight Loss

I don't know who isn't trying to lose weight out there, seems like everyone.  I have found a great site for using as a food diary.  FitDay (http://www.fitday.com) is a great web based food diary.  It allows you to enter each of your meals, along with specifying nutrition information for things that may not be in their large database.  You can also track your exercise, create goals, track your goals, and pull great reports on just about anything.  They also have a PC client that you can purchase if you don't feel like saving your info to the web.  

Give it a try.

Managing Nagios Config Files

I've been using Nagios in my professional life for about 8 years now.  Well, it was called Netsaint back in the early days, but its still pretty much the same utility.  

One of the hardest things when getting started with Nagios is learning to work with the configuration files.  In the more recent versions of Nagios, this has gotten a little simpler with the introduction of templates.  Now in version 3.0, the templates are even easier to use.

I always just modify the sample config files, and add my own templates for contacts, hosts, and services.  This way I can give visibility to each group of servers based on a contact group that is specified in the host definition.  

You can further simplify your config by using hostgroups appropriately.  When properly grouped hosts are together, you don't have to worry about typing every hostname into every service check.

More info can be grabbed at www.nagios.org.

SAPGUI on MacOSX 10.5

One of my ongoing challenges with making the switch to a Mac has been getting my Business Applications to run.  Until recently I wasn't able to find an SAP GUI client for Mac OSX.  A few days searching the internet, and the SAP Support forums, etc, I came across the Java Client.

It works great.  It is a little tricky to setup, but once done it is rock solid.

First you need to obtain the SAP GUI Client for Java Environments.  I am using version 7.10 Rev4.  You can get this from Service Marketplace on the SAP site.  You must have an SAP account in order to download.  See www.sap.com for full details.

Once you have the .JAR file, you can run it via Finder, and it installs.  Answer the default questions, and the installation should complete rather quickly.

Now that it is installed, you can run it.  If you are in an environment with quite a few of these clients installed, lucky you, ask your administrator for the config files.

If you are the first one, you can setup your connections to SAP systems manually rather quickly, and then save those profiles in the client.  Once the client is open, click new.  Give the connection a description.  From there, click on the advanced tab.  There you can manually specify a particular server to connect to.  The string should look like this.

conn=/H/server.domain.tld/S/3202&fast=true

I use port 3202.  Substitute the port that you use in place of 3202 in the above string.  Your system number determines the port for most folks.

Click Save, and you should be done.