Getting something like this?
debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Dialog
debconf: (No usable dialog-like program is installed, so the dialog based frontend cannot be used. at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Dialog.pm line 75, <> line 3.)
debconf: falling back to frontend: Readline

Likely on a minimal Ubuntu or Debian install. I’ll save you the pain of searching for an answer if you end up here: install the ‘whiptail’ package. Either you’ve hit some dependency issue with debconf or you’re on a stripped down Debian/Ubuntu install and someone butchered it enough to remove whiptail. This should make it all better.

<rm> every time you disable IPv6
<rm> a small turtle stops moving
<rm> does it die? who knows… maybe
<pgrace> please, think of the turtles!
<rm> so think of the turtle today!

Over the past few years I’ve slowly assembled a kit of older Cisco gear to help me study for my certification exams, as well as just try out various things that I want to learn about for my own reasons or for consulting jobs I do for others.  Below is a picture and list of what I currently have in my apartment (there are a few more switches I have in storage elsewhere, but my two-post rack in my apartment is only so big). Below the picture and list are an explanation of why I’m posting about this, largely because I want to post somewhere that I’m willing to rent out the kit at a daily rent for anyone who wishes to use it to study.

Here is a list, from top to bottom:

- 8 port gigabit switch (Netgear GS108, not that it matters) which connects parts of the lab (explained below) to my home network.  Next to it is a Cisco Aironet AP1131AG access point.

- Cisco 1841 router with a WIC2T and T1 card

- Cisco 2610 with NM-16A, used as a terminal server to access the serial interfaces of everything else

- Cisco 3524 used as an “interconnect” switch

- Cisco 2620 with 4 port serial network module and WIC2T

- Cisco 2620 with WIC2T

- Cisco 2610 with nothing installed

- Cisco 2610 with 8 port serial network module

- Cisco 2522 with 10 serial ports and 10 baseT Ethernet via transceiver

- Cisco 2521 with 2 serial ports, 10 baseT Ethernet via transceiver, and token ring

- Cisco 2501 with 2 serial ports, 10 baseT Ethernet via transceiver

- Cisco 2501 with 2 serial ports, 10 baseT Ethernet via transceiver

- Cisco 2501 with 2 serial ports, 10 baseT Ethernet via transceiver (yes, 3 of them)

- Cisco 3640 with two NM-1E1R2W modules, and one NM-2FE module.  This gives it a total of 2 10baseTX Ethernet ports, 2 token ring interfaces, and two 100baseTX Ethernet interfaces (plus the vacant NM slot and 6 WIC slots)

- Cisco 3550 with 48 10/100 ports plus 2 GBIC slots

- Cisco 3550 with 48 10/100 ports plus 2 GBIC slots

- Cisco 3524

- APC switched PDU so I can turn devices on/off remotely and with some granularity.

The general idea behind this collection of devices is that the AP is good for testing out wireless configs, the 1841 is good for testing features available in some newer hardware and software.  The terminal server and PDU are pretty self-explanitory.  The “interconnect” switch is a switch that almost every device currently has a connection to so that VLANs can be used to let devices talk to each other in any fashion necessary (and since most of the devices support 802.1q trunks to them, I can build multiple layer 2 point-to-point connections from devices like the 262x routers, which only have a single Ethernet interface.).  Devices with additional interfaces are currently connected in no specific fashion and are changed as I have a reason to change them.  The 3640 is there for use with voice hardware/software (which I currently don’t have, though I do have some Cisco 7910 phones) as well as give me a box which can have a significant number of interfaces if I so chose.  The two 3550s are of course there for layer 3 switching hardware, as well as the ability to use HSRP and other protocols.  The bottom 3524 is just there to be used for additional switching/spanning tree/other testing and to be “just another switch” in the mix.  Not shown are 4 more 3524s that I have in storage.

The nice thing about this setup is that it can be 100% turned on/off and configured remotely via the terminal server, so there’s no problem with screwing up configs because you will always have out-of-band access.  I have slowly been upgrading the RAM/flash in a lot of these devices so that I can get the latest software on that will fit and run, mostly with the intention of getting as many features as possible in addition to as much IPv6 support as possible.

Now here’s what it all boils down to and why I’m posting it here.  I want to make this available for rent to anyone working on studying for their CCNA/CCNP (and perhaps CCIE R&S too) on a daily rate (maybe a negotiable hourly rate too).  I am thinking something on the order of $25/day, but that may be flexible as I don’t know what else is out there for rent along these lines.  This is all connected to a UPS that can keep everything running for 15-20 minutes, or more/less depending on how much equipment is on.  I would be able to make some cabling changes at request as long as diagrams are provided up front, I don’t want to keep getting asked to swap cables all day long.  If you’re interested in this, e-mail me at ryan@u13.net and we’ll talk.

Lastly, if anyone out there is familiar enough with this hardware and wants to recommend a cabling scheme for me that will prove to be flexible enough for labbing things up, I’d love to hear it.  I have yet to find a scheme that can remain uber flexible so that I can test all different stuff with minimal cable movement.  Especially if people start showing interest in renting this, I’d like a cabling scheme that will meet many needs with minimal changes.  The WIC and NM cards don’t need to stay where they are, I’d be more than happy to move them around as necessary (keep in mind that some modules are not compatible everywhere, like the NM-2FE in the 3640 won’t work in 262x routers).  I have enough cables (including crossover adapters) for the Ethernet and serial interfaces to connect anything pretty much any way possible/desired.  E-mail me if you have suggestions, or comment below and I’ll try to keep up on them to answer questions and take comments.  I know the picture above sucks and the cabling is messy.  I took the picture in a dark room with my phone and the cabling is messy because I didn’t want to tidy up a bunch of cabling that I’m not happy with considering a decent “base cabling” setup.

As most of you probably know, I run 3 servers out of Chicago for various purposes – Soldat/THD-related and other.  They are on hardware owned by me (well, 2 servers are owned by me, one is owned by MM/THD), but hosted by Chi Networks as a collocation offering.  This is provided by them as a legacy business from when they acquired Empyrean Hosting a few years ago.  They don’t actively seek new colo customers, but they do a great job supporting the ones they do have.

In part of their effort to better serve their customers, they moved all of their operations that were in a telco-owned facility over to a telco-neutral facility, still in downtown Chicago.  Their new space is impressive and they now have plenty of room to grow as well as plenty of connectivity options.  I took some vacation days to visit Chicago with my brother last week, and while there I stopped in to see the new colo space and catch up with my old cohorts at Chi Networks (since I used to work for them).  I snapped a few pictures on my phone of their new colo space, as shown below for your viewing pleasure.

I have installed quite a few apps on my Motorola Droid since I got it, one of them being Nagroid.  I installed it and have been using it, with a few annoyances:

- The phone vibrates/rings/alerts me whenever there is a warning.  This is fine, but it’d be nice if it was more configurable.

- My bigger issue with it is that it alerts me to SOFT alarms.  In the Nagios world, alarms/tests in a soft state are ones that have not failed enough consecutive tests to actually register as a service or host error.  For example, Nagroid will alert me when HTTP fails one test on http://jester.u13.net, even though Nagios itself won’t send a notification e-mail.  Nagios is configured to only send alerts if it enters a HARD state, which happens after 3 consecutive test failures.  I’d greatly like to be able to turn off notification of SOFT states on Nagroid, if not only for the annoyance factor but also to save battery life (with it vibrating every 10 minutes over nothing).

I put in an report into the Google Code Issue tracker for Nagroid, feel free to add a comment, star it or otherwise join in the discussion if you have anything to add: http://code.google.com/p/nagroid/issues/detail?id=10

Tonight I started getting rapidfire spam messages with subjects like: SU:  Blitzpenny.com : Online Penny

It took me a few minutes to realize that SU is StumbleUpon.  The bodies look like:

Hi,

Check out this site I found using StumbleUpon!

Blitzpenny.com : Online Penny Auction Site UK, US,
Canada

http://www.stumbleupon.com/redirect.php?t=i&u=37633890&d=http%3A%2F%2Fblitzpenny.com%2F&l=2&c=gl9xttrq3w6dp5jp

blitzpenny.com

http://www.stumbleupon.com/redirect.php?t=i&u=37633890&d=http%3A%2F%2Fblitzpenny.com%2F&l=2&c=gl9xttrq3w6dp5jp

- Atul

The first thing I did was check the headers to see what was going on. Sure enough, these are coming from SU directly, they’re not messages being spoofed by someone else. I compared these headers to a legit e-mail from SU I had received long ago:

Received: from smtp.stumbleupon.com (smtp.stumbleupon.com [74.201.117.226])
by mx.google.com with SMTP id 4si9603790iwn.92.2010.02.25.22.35.28;
Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:35:29 -0800 (PST)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of service@stumbleupon.com designates 74.201.117.226 as permitted sender) client-ip=74.201.117.226;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of service@stumbleupon.com designates 74.201.117.226 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=service@stumbleupon.com; dkim=neutral (body hash did not verify) header.i=@stumbleupon.com
Received: from www.stumbleupon.com (sv4web58-be [10.10.20.58])
by smtp.stumbleupon.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 97A886EA3
for <flieslikeabrick@gmail.com>; Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:35:28 -0800 (PST)
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=simple/simple; d=stumbleupon.com;
s=mail; t=1267166128;
bh=UcKOhRQW13r8mzvxMcJzMfAeQMJGESQQlpWqc/5bGVI=;
h=Date:To:From:Subject:Message-ID:Sender:MIME-Version:Content-Type;
b=n/lFHbejnGb4fl9tqEg0wH9RMhQT3zYmLdZOomRTnNvTHHytHlK5QjrMjdbuetO2I
oUNgKtQz49A+3CeqznkgkK6cXuemD7rUeewTJ1bQVmQ2xnoiuHTcWX+QJKaRWdhBYd
SrTW2vrr0nudcyPIhc9iL+4m2rWL6N8WstwVx7uk=
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:35:28 -0800
To: flieslikeabrick@gmail.com
From: atul143 <noreply@stumbleupon.com>
Subject: SU:   |Madbid |Australia, spain
Message-ID: <7800d6e975a78aa6849b13dbe2115cb8@www.stumbleupon.com>
X-Priority: 3
X-Mailer: PHPMailer [version 1.73]
Sender: service@stumbleupon.com
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary=”b1_7800d6e975a78aa6849b13dbe2115cb8″

These are the same as the legit message, down to the PHPMailer bits.  Great, I wonder how long I’m going to get these (Got 10 in the past hour, which went through to my inbox).

If you run any Soldat servers off of my server (Outcry), know anyone who does or see anyone else who refers to Soldat servers and other things on Outcry by the IP 67.106.77.193, please make sure that it is updated appropriately with the name ‘g1.u13.net’ or ‘outcry.puttynuts.com’

This IP will stop working very shortly.  Please use the new hostname.  If you must use an IP you can use 204.80.93.33 but it would be a much better practice to use the name so that this issue does not occur again.

So a lot has happened over the past few months (in no particular order):

• MM’s server shit the bed today
• I got a Motorola Droid (and have rooted it, installed openvpn and got IPv6 to it via 6in4 )
• I got two fantastic cats
• I rebuilt my file server
• I moved to Syracuse for a network engineering/operations job with Time Warner Cable

Over the next few days/weeks I’m going to do what I can to write about each of these and then some more.  Hopefully there’s someone out there still reading this, maybe following along on RSS and will see me come back to life… again

For the past 2 years or so, I’ve been very religious about composting.  I’ve noticed more and more benefits from this over time.

I started doing it because I wanted to be able to use the rich soil produced by composting for future gardening, indoor plants, or for fertilizing new grass that is being planted (or old grass that needs some more nutrients).  The nutrients from kitchen waste generates rich soil and plants/etc benefit greatly from having these nutrients (for this same reason, you should use lawn mowers without bags or other mechanisms for catching grass clippings.  Letting these grass clippings stay on the lawn keeps those nutrients in place for the grass to use.  Carting them off to your woods or putting them out for waste collection will ultimately remove nutrients from your lawn and you’ll be required to fertilize or otherwise bring these nutrients back to your lawn.  Anyway…).

The next best reason to do it is your garbage will never smell again.  You can compost any food waste as well as extremely dirty paper products (think paper towels used to clean up food or other kitchen messes).  Don’t compost any paper towels or anything used to clean up things like motor oil, gasoline or other things that shouldn’t end up outside.

With recycling, we take our garbage out every 2-3 weeks.  If we didn’t compost, the garbage would have to be taken out due to the smell at least weekly.  Putting a half-empty garbage bag out for pickup results in the plastic from the garbage bag ending up in the landfill without maximizing the utility of it first.  Ideally we’d all be using biodegradable garbage bags instead of plastic (they are available, in biodegradable plastics and paper forms), as well as buying products in bulk (no packaging) or in large quantities that only use biodegradable packaging.  Unfortunately, our garbage we generate now consists almost solely of plastic packaging from foods and other things that are not recyclable.

In short, separating out your food waste and unrecyclable paper products to compost them outside makes your garbage smell less, keeps nutrients in your soil for later use, and as a result of taking the garbage out less it keeps some unnecessary plastic out of landfills.  It feels really great to generate so little garbage as a result of recycling (we recycle plastics 1,2,3 and 5 here, as well as all cardboard and plastic products, and scrap metal) and composting.

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/15/1930234

If you have Road Runner or any other Time Warner service, please take a bit of time to call up any of their support numbers, get a real person on the phone, and tell them that if they bring those caps to your area, you will be dropping their service for a competitor like Verizon FiOS/DSL.

I have done this.  I have Road Runner Internet service at my apartment in Troy, and when I heard that they wanted to roll out this new capping plan to a wider area, I called up and asked them if they were planning on bringing it to my area.  This was a few months ago, but they said “no, we have no plans of that right now.”  With these recent mentions of them wanting to roll it out more, I think I’m going to call again and check, and this time more strongly let them know that if they bring it here, I will instantly be giving my business to Verizon for FiOS, or even going for their slower DSL service (if FiOS isn’t here yet).  I really urge everyone to do the same.

Time Warner and other cable companies have always advertised their Cable Broadband services as “always-on, unmetered/unlimited access” yet now want to introduce these obscene caps because apparently more people actually wanted to use the unlimited access they were duped into buying.  Think about all of the people who have been paying this flat rate for their service for years, and maybe watch a lot of youtube and other streaming video, maybe even for-pay subscription services.  Would you want to pay for something like a MLB.com subscription and then have to pay your ISP even more/month just because you want to enjoy the subscriptions you’re paying for?  I thought not.

I don’t understand why they’re doing this, it would almost certainly hurt them in the long run.  With FiOS making major advances in the markets that Time Warner is in (home phone, cable TV and Internet access), this is pretty much giving Verizon the business on a silver platter.  To get this new “unlimited, no really this time” access from TW, they are going to want $150/month.  That’s over three times what I’m paying now.  Their caps are going to start really low, I think the article above mentions the details ($20 or so/month for 10GB.  seriously).

Even if you’re not a TW/RR customer (or any of their affiliate ISPs) and you think this is a bad idea, find a sales number for a local TW-affiliated ISP.  Ask them about this, and tell them that you will not ever get their home broadband service as long as this is their plan.  US broadband access is already far behind that of western Europe and east Asia, and this is another few steps back.  Verizon is actually finally bringing real competition to the US broadband market by marching into territories firmly held by RR, Optimum Online (Cablevision), Comcast, RCN and others, and my proverbial hat goes off to them for doing so.  These government granted monopolies are what have kept the state of US broadband so far behind, and this latest move by TW is merely the status quo.