1. Mirrors replaced
2. Turn signals relocated
3. Turn signal lens color changed
4. Gas tank kneepads

2004 tank paint job

2004 windshield

dresser bars, knee pads, mirrors, and signal relocators to come.

This framework provides an easy way to connect to remote devices and issue commands and store the output. I also wanted an easy way to “extend” this framework and be able to add ways to connect to any operating system (or at least use default shell behavior as a baseline).  I manage a wide variety of devices and I wanted to support at least the default implementations of Cisco IOS, OpenBSD, Mac OS X, and Aruba OS.  Here is how you would add an operating system’s parameters to Tratto (Systems.py):

class ArubaOS(OperatingSystem):
	'''aruba configs'''
	PROMPTLINE	='#'
	PAGINATES 	=True
	DISABLE_PAGINATION = 'terminal length 0'
	GET_CONFIG	="show run"

There are 3 files included in Tratto right now:

1. Connectivity.py — This is a class which manages sessions using pexpect
2. Systems.py — This is the class which manages all the operating parameters
3. driver.py — This is an example file of how to use Tratto to fetch whatever info you want

Here is an example of how to use the framework to connect to devices and issue commands:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import Connectivity
import Systems

#telnet to a cisco switch
m = Systems.OperatingSystems['IOS']
s = Connectivity.Session("192.168.6.1",23,telnet,m)
s.login("akonkol", "mypass")
s.sendcommand("show ver")
s.sendcommand("show clock")
s.sendcommand("show run")
s.logout()

#ssh to a apple machine
m = Systems.OperatingSystems['OSX']
s = Connectivity.Session("127.0.0.1",22,"ssh",m)
s.login("akonkol", "mypass")
#sendcommand will echo response by default, you can store that
#response in a variable if you wish
result = s.sendcommand("df -h")
print result
s.getversion()
s.logout()

#ssh to openbsd box
m = Systems.OperatingSystems['OBSD']
s = Connectivity.Session("192.168.5.1",22,"ssh",m)
s.login("akonkol", "mypass")
print s.sendcommand("cat /etc/passwd")
print s.sendcommand("arp -a")
s.logout()

The Future

With Tratto you can technically pull information from any networked device and use that data for whatever you please. Current ideas are integrating Tratto into

• a config repository application with a web frontend (like RANCID)
• a network mapping application using cdp neighbors
• monitoring platform which performs different commands based on certain scenarios (”show interfaces” when IP SLA shows latency)

This is my first attempt at releasing python software, so if you think something could be better let me know.
Download Tratto

• 2 Cisco 2611s
• 2 Cisco 3500 XLs

Recently I’ve been jumping between devices using a single console cable… and that got old pretty quick.  I was able to pickup a NM-16A Async module which provides 16 more lines to my 2600.  To use this card I also needed a Cisco octal cable.

Steps:

1) After inserting the card and screwing in the octal cable you can verify that there is added line capacity:

Router_A#show version | i line
16 terminal line(s)

2) Before you proceed you will need to find out what line numbers your new NM-16A uses, in my case it was 33-48:

Router_A#show line
Tty Typ Tx/Rx A Modem Roty AccO AccI Uses Noise Overruns Int
* 0 CTY - - - - - 6 0 0/0 -
33 TTY 9600/9600 - - - - - 2 1 35/106 -
34 TTY 9600/9600 - - - - - 4 19 0/0 -
35 TTY 9600/9600 - - - - - 0 0 0/0 -
36 TTY 9600/9600 - - - - - 0 0 0/0 -
37 TTY 9600/9600 - - - - - 0 0 0/0 -
38 TTY 9600/9600 - - - - - 0 0 0/0 -
39 TTY 9600/9600 - - - - - 0 0 0/0 -
40 TTY 9600/9600 - - - - - 0 0 0/0 -
41 TTY 9600/9600 - - - - - 0 0 0/0 -
42 TTY 9600/9600 - - - - - 0 0 0/0 -
43 TTY 9600/9600 - - - - - 0 0 0/0 -
44 TTY 9600/9600 - - - - - 0 0 0/0 -
45 TTY 9600/9600 - - - - - 0 0 0/0 -
46 TTY 9600/9600 - - - - - 0 0 0/0 -
47 TTY 9600/9600 - - - - - 0 0 0/0 -
48 TTY 9600/9600 - - - - - 0 0 0/0 -
65 AUX 9600/9600 - - - - - 0 0 0/0 -

3) You need to create a loopback to be used to telnet to each of the lines:

interface Loopback0
ip address 126.0.0.1 255.255.255.255
no ip redirects
end


4) Next you need to configure the lines of this card with your preferred settings:

line 33 48
no flush-at-activation
transport preferred telnet
transport input all
stopbits 1
flowcontrol hardware


5) Finally, it’s nice to add ip hosts on the router for ease of use. Note that the tcp port number for our new lines are named with 20xx where “xx” is the actual line number. For example, our first line is “33″ so you need to connect to port “2033.” After this is done plug the rollover cable coming from the octal cable labeled “1″ into the console port of the device you want to manage. In my scenario, cable “1″ == line 33 == port 2033, cable “2″ == line 34 == port 2034, etc…


ip host r2 2033 126.0.0.1
ip host s1 2034 126.0.0.1


You should now have a console server in which you can “reverse” telnet into other devices connected through the octal cable.

You should be able to issue commands such as “telnet r2″ and be dropped into a console session.

To return to the router press “control + shift + 6 +x.”

To disconnect the session type “disconnect <connection number>” or “disconnect <hostname> .”

Here is the relevant configuration parameters:

ip host r2 2033 126.0.0.1
ip host s1 2034 126.0.0.1
interface Loopback0
ip address 126.0.0.1 255.255.255.255
no ip redirects
line 33 48
exec-timeout 0 0
no flush-at-activation
logging synchronous
no exec
notify
transport preferred telnet
transport input all
stopbits 1
flowcontrol hardware


A big thank you to Gerry Murray for initial guidance and introducing me to this.

To create the database I had a line like this:

private static final String DATABASE_CREATE =
             "create table decks (id integer primary key autoincrement, "
             + "name text not null);";

My application would throw an exception and I had no idea why until I wrote  a simple debug method.  It’s the equivalent of  “alert();” in javascript.

public void createAlert(String message){
      AlertDialog alertDialog = new AlertDialog.Builder(this).create();
      alertDialog.setTitle("Message");
      alertDialog.setMessage(message);
      alertDialog.setButton("OK", new DialogInterface.OnClickListener(){
      public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int which){
                    return; }
      });
      alertDialog.show();
}

I simply threw my code in a java try-catch and received the error: “column _id does not exist.”  Did you catch that?  I didn’t declare my column name with an underscore.

I guess it is always good to read the documentation.

Adapter that exposes data from a Cursor to a ListView widget. The Cursor must include a column named “_id” or this class will not work.

Now why would I post this lame crap? Because after googling the problem… it seems that a lot of beginners are running into this issue.


#!/usr/bin/env python
#binds to ldap, queries for a specific AD account

results = Search("192.168.5.10",3268,"akonkol@yourcompanydomain.com","mysecretpassword","akonkol",['givenName','sn','mail'])

This will return the attributes you supplied (givenName, sn, mail)

tcpdump -qni em1 not src host 192.168.5.2 | awk ‘{print $2}’ | awk -F. ‘{print $1″.”$2″.”$3″.”$4}’ >> ~/hosts-through-proxy.txt

Explanation:

tcpdump -qni tells tcpdump to operate in “quiet” mode which really strips off a lot of extraneous info for our purposes.   The n flag also tells tcpdump to not resolve hostnames.

em1 This is your inside (internal) interface

192.168.5.2 This is the IP address on your internal interface, and tells tcpdump to ignore traffic coming from this IP address.

awk ‘{print $2}’ This prints the source ip field

awk -F. ‘{print $1″.”$2″.”$3″.”$4}’ This breaks up the souce ip text by periods, then prints the all the octets minus the port that tcpdump adds on

>> ~/hosts-through-proxy.txt This obviously writes the output to a file

After letting this run for a decent amount of time (a few days) I was able to run the file through uniq and produce a list of hosts using the firewall.

I will continue to post commands/workflows I find useful in this project.

Last year I wrote an intranet site using ruby on rails for what I call “personal enrichment.” Rails went OK, but whenever I wanted to achieve something that wasn’t textbook I found myself writing code that was like a trick/hack… needless to say it didn’t give me a good feeling.

About 6 months ago i started to force myself to use Python for all shell script tasks that were thrown my way. I love python. If you are used to scripting or actually enjoy scripting python is great. Now one of my pet peeves is when people say things like “lightweight, efficient, clean, easy to read.” Now all of those things are great.. but what does it really mean? Visual Basic is almost like writing english and developers think its the fisher-price of languages (including me). I have no answer to why I like python except a few little things:

• whitespace is used to terminate directives, which forces everyone to use similar formatting
• smtplib is the best email library I’ve ever worked with
• django doesn’t assume as much as rails does, you still have some tedious work but I find it the perfect balance.

So I built my first site in django it’s currently running in my dev enviornment. What does the app do? It’s an app that uses the power of expect (one of my favorites), diff (another favorite), and a repository model. Simply put, the app connects to a device (via ssh/telnet) logs in and issues a command, stores the output in a database, does a diff between the last retrieved output and does a diff, if there is a diff it emails the system owner.

What does this achieve? Automatic change control and a configuration repository. I’ve used RANCID to do this before and I love the concept. RANCID doesn’t have a front end, but it also uses cvs/svn so you can install cvs/svn frontends.

I re-invented the wheel, but I like this wheel… it’s dead simple… and it helps out those admins that suck at cli.

Like I said, I haven’t deployed it yet… but I think I may want to release it. So my next problem I’m thinking about is how to package up and release a distribution. I’ve never used/installed a django driven web app… how do people usually release their django projects to the public? VMs?

I’ve always heard the rumor or urban legend about powerlining rigs.  Powerlining is essentially launching a high test fishing line out with an anchor and several baited hooks.  Pitching a line out with several other smaller lines allows you to achieve distances (and in turn depths) that would be hard to achieve using the traditional rod and reel.

There are three main ways to pitch this monster line out into the water:

1. Throwing the anchor/weight by hand
2. Using a water balloon sling shot
3. Using the pressure of a CO2 tank (think potato gun)

Guess which one I’m interested in…. you guessed it… CO2 tank.

After perusing several messaging boards I’ve come up with the following bill of materials:

1. CO2 Fire extinguisher
2. 5ft of 1″ pipe
3. some sort of pipe adapter (I’ll figure that out once at home depot)
4. 12 oz 1″ x 2.5″ weight
5. 70′ of rubber band/cord
6. A couple hundred yards of 10-12 lb test
7. Reel
8. two large swivels
9. 10 smaller swivels
10. hooks
11. beads

Then my additonail ideas:

1. Door stopper spring
2. Dowel rod
3. Bell
4. Screweyes

The plan I’m working on… still need to add snelled hooks.