So, we all know I have punched a few wrong keys into the Cisco at times. Who hasn’t?! Well now I’m too afraid to do ANYTHING with the Ciscos, but no more!
1) Emulation.
There are certain packages that let you pretend a cisco exists. I’m looking forward to testing the Cisco 7200 Simulator more, but from the limited testing it looks pretty complete. That is, it can actually ping/talk to other Cisco routers! I’ll make sure to setup a “fake” router somebody can access over the VPN (inside a vserver) to do testing.
a) Linux: http://sourceforge.net/projects/oece
b) Linux: http://www.ipflow.utc.fr/index.php/Cisco_7200_Simulator
c) Windows: http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/cc/pd/nemnsw/cm/index.shtml
2) A simple command.
This is the big one, I though, “is it possible to reboot a cisco after X minutes in case you mess up?” The answer is: yup. Let’s say you were going to modify an access list, something that might break connectivity. Type in:
pdxrouter# reload in X
Say Y to save file, then if you mess up, the router will just reload to a state before the changes you made.
Nifty, wish I knew this before.
April 24th, 2006 at 3:37 am
P.S. To cancel a reload, just say:
pdxrouter# reload cancel