Completed the first 7 chapters in Intro cisco press book. Planning to complete the 8th one, configuring cisco switch now and sleep. Today’s further plans are, to complete the chapters 9 and 10, which forms the basis of LAN switching. Planning to take up the exam on dec 9th (sat) in Adyar NIIT. Lets see how things proceed. As of now, today I completed basic stuff about cisco IOS, yet to practice though in the simulator, which I planned later after completing the theory part.

Need to print the ICND book tomoro and plan that too, Nov 1st is jus 2 days away..

I was thinking this way, and I stil hav some perspective about it.. let me keep it for later discussion.. Today we had a meeting about how to improve the testing and all those stuff we are doing in our job.

There was a question raised by  one guy, regarding the usage of opensource products for our official work in office, since then I was jus watching wats happening there and outside, since it was a pleasant day with some cool breeze around… finally came into my senses.

The answer was they are not RELIABLE, no one takes responsibility if something goes wrong with those tools. Hmm.. and we are told to use these tools and get the max frm them, and if something screws up, then..? so better think and use these stuffs wisely..

So wat can a lay man conclude from this, better not to use this, wat can a partially knowledged girl like me could do, try it out, and if it works ok, use it, else dump it, but don give the next try and waste time (this is wat i practically do when it comes to my job!)

Still, the industry, esp indian industries are thinking a LOT, really a LOT in using OSS..

Today Jus read all these things

• IP-addressing
• ARP, RARP, DNS, DHCP, BOOTP, ICMP, PING (i din know many of these things, other than expanding their acronyms..!)
• Subnetting basics
• WAN protocols (PPP, HDLC, Frame relay)

Plan for tonight

• TCP/UDP basics
• Advanced subnetting (complete problem coverage)
• Chk out router modes and basic commands in boson simulator

Was not much comfortable with FR till yesterday, now am ok with it, jus went thru few links and a video tutorial of the same and chked how things work in the configuration stuff too… Though learned about FR long back in college days, was not sure how and where things are working with it, so it was a vague topic for me. Now am ok with the basics of frame relay and even the basic show/debug commands of the same.

These links are bit more helpful I guess..

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/cisintwk/ito_doc/frame.htm

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/125/12.html

Both are from cisco docs, but they are more elaborate..

Jus wanted to summarise wat i learnt reg FR

• Its a packet switching N/w WAN protocol
• Its based on STDM
• X.25 is the first STDM protocol and FR was developed after it in 1984
• It was standardised by 1990 when FR Consortium was formed, but it was not internationalised that time, later ANSI and ITU-T took it up and standardised it for international usage and privided specifications
• DTE/DCE -> formed the major terminologies, where
  • DTE – Data Terminal Equipment – usually a router (L3)
  • DCE – Data Communication Equipment – usually a switch (L2)

• AL – Access Line connects the DTE to DCE
• TL – Trunk Line connects the DCE to other DCE
• VC – Virtual circuit – end to end logical connections
  • SVC – Switched VC
  • PVC – Permanent VC
• Encapsulation
  • CISCO specific
  • IETF specific
  • diff is pkt type is specified in cisco specific encapsulation
  • DLCI – Data Link Connection Identifier – 10 bits – 16 to 1007
  • CIR – Committed Information Rate

Commands

• encapsulation frame-relay
• frame-relay interface-dlci (16-1007)
• Show commands
  • show interface serial()
  • show frame-relay lmi
  • show frame-relay pvc
• Debug Commands
  • debug frame-relay events
  • debug frame-relay packet
  • debug frame-relay lmi

Need to chk it out in the simulator.. think its moving on fine.

Next need to read abt IP addressing, routing ..

I dono when kubuntu got released..

But jus downloaded it yesterday since I found freespire too slow.. and i din like the way the gnome apps are rendered there, chked out other linux distros which wil be ok for me, kubuntu was ok, since I wanted KDE, seeing all the praise for ubuntu wanted to chk its latest release… so installed it today.. I was jus a 6 step install. And it completed in around 20 minutes. OK, now its time to chk out my necessities..

chked mp3.. as usual not working, jus changed the sources list, and and installed libxine-extracodecs and kool, amarok worked fine, playing mp3s..

internet.. i hav a bsnl dataone and all the IP and stuff got automatically configured,.. now time to chk web browser.. still konqueror is not having the default gmail capabilities.. hmm so jus did a apt-get for firefox installation and things are fine.

Then chked out ipod mounting, amarok is not automounting.. but was able to open in file viewer… din chk whether the mp4 stuff plays..

adept was nice, to chk for updates in the GUI mode.. but am ok with apt-get in command line.. used to it..

Thats it I chked till now, need to make win 32 codecs work and also dvd playback.. and also chk out other programming stuff and chk out jedit.. Had a nice time after a some days.. since i wasnt using linux for some time ..! Now configured even kmail, so wil be default OS atleast for me in my home… was bit surprised when my mom told she cant prepare documents here, I explained openoffice to her, she wasnt that much pleased.. anyway time will change the usability ..

I am not that gud in networking protocols stuff.. but thats wat is required to get through the basics in ccna, so started reading rfcs, so that i get a clear picture of wat is it and wat its not…

Planning to read RFC 791 and 793 today .. will keep posting about wat i read before go and hit the bed…

DP told me abt this… was not sure wat that was.. chked out the other links.. ya one thing is for true that many people are drunk just too much.. why is this necessary.. this is wat the iceweasel team tells..

Gnuzilla is the GNU version of the Mozilla suite, and IceWeasel is the GNU version of the Firefox browser. Its main advantage is an ethical one: it is entirely free software. While the source code from the Mozilla project is free software, the binaries that they release include additional non-free software. Also, they distribute non-free software as plug-ins. (IceWeasel does keep the triple licensing used by Firefox to facilitate the reuse of code.)

Duplication of the same mozilla effort, I don think will be of much, its been a gud yr for firefox since even many win users hav adopted it, I think its a mere waste of time for developing such completely free.. it doesnt serve purpose to get an opensource browser to be dominant in web, with IE7 offering many more sleek features, its jus matter of unity in opensource projects which will lead to acquire the market..

This is much more cooler post..

Today, jus looked into some stuff n perl..

• scalar variables in perl can have any number characters .. can be as long as u wish, unless it follows the set of rules for variables. In most of the prog langs that I referred, there was always an restriction in the length ofvariables in one way or the other, though I don have the data to list in a table, wil try to update on them soon
• Its not elseif its elsif
• and we need to chop the i/p sometimes to remove the new line char

I never knew till today that perl is compiled lang.. since I heard everythign abt perl as a scripting lang, thought it to be interpreted one, but its a combo like java, but not exactly though.. started looking out for some clear info and got the following, better I document it, so that things are clear atleast from now on..

The life cycle of a Perl program

1. The Compilation Phase

   During phase 1, the compile phase, the Perl compiler converts your program into a data structure called a parse tree. Along with the standard parsing techniques, Perl employs a much more powerful one: it uses BEGIN blocks to guide further compilation. BEGIN blocks are handed off to the interpreter to be run as as soon as they are parsed, which effectively runs them in FIFO order (first in, first out). This includes any use and no declarations; these are really just BEGIN blocks in disguise. Any CHECK, INIT, and END blocks are scheduled by the compiler for delayed execution.

   Lexical declarations are noted, but assignments to them are not executed. All evalBLOCKs, s///e constructs, and noninterpolated regular expressions are compiled here, and constant expressions are pre-evaluated. The compiler is now done, unless it gets called back into service later. At the end of this phase, the interpreter is again called up to execute any scheduled CHECK blocks in LIFO order (last in, first out). The presence or absence of a CHECK block determines whether we next go to phase 2 or skip over to phase 4.

2. The Code Generation Phase (optional)

   CHECK blocks are installed by code generators, so this optional phase occurs when you explicitly use one of the code generators (described later in “Code Generators”). These convert the compiled (but not yet run) program into either C source code or serialized Perl bytecodes–a sequence of values expressing internal Perl instructions. If you choose to generate C source code, it can eventually produce a file called an executable image in native machine language.[2]

   [2] Your original script is an executable file too, but it’s not machine language, so we don’t call it an image. An image file is called that because it’s a verbatim copy of the machine codes your CPU knows how to execute directly.

   At this point, your program goes into suspended animation. If you made an executable image, you can go directly to phase 4; otherwise, you need to reconstitute the freeze-dried bytecodes in phase 3.

3. The Parse Tree Reconstruction Phase (optional)

   To reanimate the program, its parse tree must be reconstructed. This phase exists only if code generation occurred and you chose to generate bytecode. Perl must first reconstitute its parse trees from that bytecode sequence before the program can run. Perl does not run directly from the bytecodes; that would be slow.

4. The Execution Phase

   Finally, what you’ve all been waiting for: running your program. Hence, this is also called the run phase. The interpreter takes the parse tree (which it got either directly from the compiler or indirectly from code generation and subsequent parse tree reconstruction) and executes it. (Or, if you generated an executable image file, it can be run as a standalone program since it contains an embedded Perl interpreter.)

   At the start of this phase, before your main program gets to run, all scheduled INIT blocks are executed in FIFO order. Then your main program is run. The interpreter can call back into the compiler as needed upon encountering an evalSTRING, a doFILE or require statement, an s///ee construct, or a pattern match with an interpolated variable that is found to contain a legal code assertion.

   When your main program finishes, any delayed END blocks are finally executed, this time in LIFO order. The very first one seen will execute last, and then you’re done. (END blocks are skipped only if you exec or your process is blown away by an uncaught catastrophic error. Ordinary exceptions are not considered catastrophic.

Well, to be honest, I din get most of that written above, but will keep reading til  understand things n a better way, I think this way I better made a proper start with PERL..

Am reading this now..