https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/ Recent content on AxelRobbe.nl Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Mon, 03 Oct 2022 12:51:29 +0200 https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2022-10-03-sdwan-webhook-certificate-error/ Mon, 03 Oct 2022 12:51:29 +0200 https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2022-10-03-sdwan-webhook-certificate-error/ Today a short post regarding webhooks on vManage. The actual setup is already described by Cisco and Suchandan Reddy (Technical Marketing Engineer - Cisco SD-WAN). I will mention that the setup of an e-mail server and address is no longer neccessary in versions > 20.3, however, the webhook server’s username and password should be filled in. I usually set it to ‘dummy’/‘dummy’ as most webservers will ignore this data if not required. https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2021-06-04-sdwan-repair-vbond-sync-error/ Fri, 04 Jun 2021 10:29:15 +0100 https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2021-06-04-sdwan-repair-vbond-sync-error/ Another short entry to help those out who might run into a similar situation as I did this week. In the SD-WAN fabric, every once in a while the controller certificates need to be updated so that the cEdges and vEdges, but also the controllers themselves can authenticate one another. This week, I reconfigured the vManage to use the Cisco Automated using this CVD from Cisco. The process is relatively straight forward, but it’s important to update the cEdges and vEdges with a new root certificate so that they will successfully authenticate with the new Cisco issues certificates. https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2020-09-28-sdwan-lte-failover-not-working-with-tloc-extensions/ Tue, 29 Sep 2020 12:08:41 +0100 https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2020-09-28-sdwan-lte-failover-not-working-with-tloc-extensions/ A short entry today regarding the set up of LTE in Cisco SD-WAN with respect to the ISR1111 routers. For a client, I’m prepping a set of routers and for most branch locations, the ISPs provide an IP over DHCP on their WAN. Similarly, in our case most LTE carriers provide a dynamic IP as well. LTE is, be default, only useable as a fall-back solution. Because of how it functions, it will not work as expected when using a branch routers with a TLOC extension. https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2020-07-10-windows-dev-environment-with-wsl2-vscode/ Fri, 10 Jul 2020 19:11:52 +0100 https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2020-07-10-windows-dev-environment-with-wsl2-vscode/ Today I had the pleasure of getting a fresh new Windows image on my work laptop. Mind you, I still prefer a MacOS or Linux distro, but you can’t have it all. Setting up WSL in Windows is I guess the next best thing. This post provides a guide on how-to setup WSL and integrate it into VS Code for development purposes. What is WSL For those that are not familiar with WSL, this is the Windows Subsystem Linux. https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2020-07-09-nexus9k-vpc-with-fhrp-in-2-datacenters/ Thu, 09 Jul 2020 17:57:25 +0100 https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2020-07-09-nexus9k-vpc-with-fhrp-in-2-datacenters/ This post describes the setup of VPCs on a data center interconnect and HSRP as the first hop redundancy protocol for the VLAN interfaces (SVIs). This configuration has been performed on a Nexus 93180YC-EX with software version 7.0(3)I7(8). The switches have the system default switchport command set, so all ports are switchports by default, but this does not matter for the setup. Background This configuration is for a setup where the current network “core” is a Catalyst 6500 in VSS mode with a chassis in each data center. https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2020-06-02-cisco-vedge-cloud-certificate-installation/ Tue, 02 Jun 2020 11:15:32 +0100 https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2020-06-02-cisco-vedge-cloud-certificate-installation/ Like some of the other articles I’ve written, this serves mostly as a documentation page to myself. The last time I had to manually install a certificate on a vEdge cloud router was six months ago, so it’s something you easily forget. This guide was written for vEdge Cloud 18.3.3. Installing a vEdge Cloud router It’s fairly easy to install the vEdge Cloud router. There are images available for VMs in all the major clouds. https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2020-03-17-network-automation-tools/ Tue, 17 Mar 2020 10:54:54 +0100 https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2020-03-17-network-automation-tools/ Network automation was THE network topic of 2019, and perhaps for 2020 as well, although COVID-19 is a strong candidate as well. However, network automation not a new idea or technology. It’s becoming more prevalent in our networks through vendors (finally) adding more API support, but also products such as Cisco DNA Center, various SD-WAN products and so on; Networks with controllers that provide a programmatic interface. In the age of DevOps, everything needs an API and networking vendors are finally coming around to supporting it. https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2020-02-12-vscode-for-network-engineers/ Wed, 12 Feb 2020 13:24:31 +0100 https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2020-02-12-vscode-for-network-engineers/ I would like to share with you my favorite tool for my work available on Windows. Why favorite? Well, Linux and MacOS have all the other tools (iterm2 anyone?) that are not available on Windows so the competition is not that amazing. Apart from that, it must be said that VS Code is an absolute killer-app. A swiss army knife if you will of text editing, coding and syntax highlighting. I use this tool for almost anything except e-mail. https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2019-04-19-solarwinds-queries-repo/ Fri, 19 Apr 2019 12:32:23 +0100 https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2019-04-19-solarwinds-queries-repo/ Today I would like to quickly point out that I’ve started to ‘open source’ some of my Solarwinds queries. I’ve noticed a lot of people on the web struggling with getting more out of this product. I’ve added a new (public) repo under my github profile that might help fellow network admins get a bit more useful info out of their Solarwinds instances. Solarwinds is a nice tool, but it’s definitely missing some very basic info regarding network devices. https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2018-08-15-solarwinds-monitoring-dmvpn/ Wed, 15 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2018-08-15-solarwinds-monitoring-dmvpn/ Again, this week a request for Solarwinds reporting utilizing some SQL knowledge on my part. The idea was to create a report on DMVPN connections. The build-in web reporter does a fairly decent job creating this report already. However, the IP addresses in this report do not reflect the actual interface addresses (or perhaps it’s an user issue ;) ). Query Solarwinds Start by opening and connecting to the Solarwinds database in SWQL Studio. https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2018-06-20-solarwinds-duplicate-stackswitches/ Wed, 20 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2018-06-20-solarwinds-duplicate-stackswitches/ This is a follow up post to the switchstack sql code from last week. Recently, I noticed issues with my CPU stack member reporting, which showed duplicates. It turns out that there were duplicate entries in the SwitchStackMember table through some problems with Orion recently (don’t ask me the details, I’m not the admin). The problem resulted in the same node and stackswitches having several unique stack id’s in this table, thus being reported several times. https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2018-06-13-solarwinds-stackswitches/ Wed, 13 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2018-06-13-solarwinds-stackswitches/ Today’s post is on using SQL queries in Solarwinds to get more detailed information on the frontpage on stackswitches. Solarwinds tends to average the memory and cpu utilization among all switches in a stack, but this does not always reflect the true statistics on the switches. Sustained CPU above 80% can lead to data packets being dropped. The queries are all build in SWQL studio on a Solarwinds server to verify the information that is returned. https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2018-01-11-installing_homeassistant_centos/ Thu, 11 Jan 2018 19:04:55 +0200 https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2018-01-11-installing_homeassistant_centos/ In this piece we’ll be installing Home Assistant in Docker on CentOS. The reasons why I chose CentOS and how to set it up are described in the following posts: Set up a secure home server with CentOS - Part 1 Set up a secure home server with CentOS - Part 2: Samba Because of scalability and administratability, I’ve decided go to with Docker containers this time. My Pi already runs Hass. https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2017-12-29-setup_secure_homeserver_centos_part2/ Fri, 29 Dec 2017 19:04:32 +0200 https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2017-12-29-setup_secure_homeserver_centos_part2/ Hey all, this is part 2 of setting up an CentOS server. For backup and accessibility, I always set up a Samba share. Samba is a filesharing protocol supported by Microsoft Windows, Linux and MacOS and I therefor prefer this type of fileshare over others in terms of compatibility. If you want to see other parts of this series: Set up a secure home server with CentOS - Part 1 Samba can be challenging to set up because of the complexity and the amount of configuration options, however, for the purpose of a homeserver, we’ll keep it simple. https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2017-12-27-setup_secure_homeserver_centos_part1/ Wed, 27 Dec 2017 19:04:00 +0200 https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2017-12-27-setup_secure_homeserver_centos_part1/ Hey all, In this post I want to take a look at setting up a secure home server with CentOS. Why CentOS and not the more common distros such as Debian? Well, I like the stability and leanness of CentOS and the the package manager is neat as well. Pretty much everything runs on this thing as easy as it does under Debian, but the added security and stability are a great plus. https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2017-11-27-ruckus_unleashed_gateway_mode_setup/ Mon, 27 Nov 2017 19:03:28 +0200 https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2017-11-27-ruckus_unleashed_gateway_mode_setup/ Having problems setting up a gateway mode on Ruckus Unleashed access points that have a single RJ45 connector? You’re not the only one. During a test here in the office, I just found out that enabling Gateway Mode on the Unleashed Master during the setup makes it impossible to pair other new access points, even with Mesh enabled. The problem is that other new access points don’t have the meshing data just yet and since the master AP only possesses one UTP port, you cannot connect it any other way. https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2017-09-20-wireless_network_loop/ Wed, 20 Sep 2017 19:02:56 +0200 https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2017-09-20-wireless_network_loop/ Hey all, Today one of my wireless networks pulled me a new one. I had basically created a loop in the network, but it took a while to figure this one out. I had noticed in the virtual SmartZone that the network of one of our APs had started to mesh differently from our design. So much so, that even management of some remote AP’s became a bit sluggish. The network is set up with several Ruckus P300 point-to-point AP’s to cover a large area and a couple of meshing AP’s in between. https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2017-04-25-unleashed-disassociates/ Tue, 25 Apr 2017 15:13:29 +0100 https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2017-04-25-unleashed-disassociates/ In my first, technical post, I’d like to go a bit more in-depth on a technical issue I’ve encountered in my work. Working with Ruckus products, I’ve had my fair share of experience and troubles with the new Unleashed series. Unleashed is a product series that integrates a selection of zonedirector features into the APs, to allow for a cheaper network deployment. Unleashed is limited to 512 simultaneous clients and a maximum of 25 APs in the network. https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2017-03-22-welcome/ Wed, 22 Mar 2017 18:27:35 +0100 https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/post/2017-03-22-welcome/ First of all, welcome to my new blog! I have finally found a new goal for this domain after keeping it around for years and small projects. My struggle with some of the issues and technologies in my work are time consuming to solve and I’m sure I’m not the only one. Some of the information I’ve found recently is not or poorly indexed in Google’s search engine and thus hard to find. https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/page/about/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://blog.axelrobbe.nl/page/about/ Axel Robbe Network Engineer Networking and IT experience since 2012, while working as a student. Since early 2016, I’ve been full time employed as a network engineer in various environments in both a project as well as an operational setting. I’ve worked as a consultant for numerous clients and have been able to get a taste of many different technologies and designs. The goal is blog is on the one hand get a bit of visibility on my skills and experience.