March 2008 Archives

We recently enabled IPv6 across our backbone. The following is an example configuration for a 7600 router running the SUP 720. All operations listed here resulted in zero downtime or impact to the existing IPv4 customers and IPv4 BGP peers.

ipv6 unicast-routing

interface Loopback0
ipv6 address xxxx:yyyy::1/128
ipv6 enable
!
interface GigabitEthernet2/2
ipv6 address aaaa:bbbb:0:2::FFE2/126
ipv6 enable
ipv6 nd suppress-ra
!

router bgp 65534
no bgp default ipv4-unicast

neighbor ipv6peer peer-group
neighbor ipv6peer description IPv6 Peer Group
neighbor ipv6peer version 4

neighbor cccc:dddd::1 remote-as 65535
neighbor cccc:dddd::1 peer-group ipv6peer

address-family ipv6
network xxxx:yyyy::0/32
neighbor ipv6peer activate
neighbor ipv6peer next-hop-self
neighbor ipv6peer send-community
neighbor ipv6peer remove-private-as
neighbor ipv6peer soft-reconfiguration inbound

neighbor aaaa:bbbb:0:2::FFE1 peer-group ipv6peer
neighbor aaaa:bbbb:0:2::FFE1 activate
exit
!

ipv6 route xxxx:yyyy::0/32 Null0 254

Like most people Christina and I like to check into our flight and print out the boarding passes the day before our flight. This makes things so much easier with a 6:30am flight out of LAX. So this morning I log into the aa.com web site pull up our record locator and check in (and print) Christina’s boarding pass. When I attempt to do the same for myself their system tells me I cannot check in because I don’t have a seat assignment (odd) - better yet when I click on the seat assignment link there isn’t a seat available in the plane.

Now some people might think it’s strange when your seat assignment mysteriously disappears between making the reservation and printing out the boarding pass - I fall into this category. After waiting on hold for 15 minutes to talk to an agent I find out that “you never had a seat assignment” because that’s what the computer says (contrary to my email confirmation) and that the agent in the call center cannot help be because there are no open seats available. Our resolution - get to the Airport two (2) hours early so a counter agent can assign me a seat. Will Christina and I be able to sit next to each other? Maybe maybe not. But I feel better after being assured that I do have a reservation and that there will be a seat available for me on the plane.

The last three times that I’ve flown on American I feel like the entire company have gone out of their way to make the experience as miserable as possible. I’ve learned my lesson - I’ll never give American another dime of my business.

I remember wondering why anyone (Virgin American) would start a new airline in this country - about how saturated the market already is, and how airlines are struggling to stay in business. The simple answer is that the incumbent airlines have set the bar so low, that my expectation is if I can get on the plane I’ve come out ahead. All Virgin needs to do is smile at me and they’re ahead.

To allow FTP with IPTABLES on a RedHat Linux box add “ipconntrackftp” to the IPTABLES_MODULES configuration within /etc/sysconfig/iptables-config and make sure the following two lines are in /etc/sysconfig/iptables:

-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state —state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT -A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state —state NEW -m tcp -p tcp —dport 20:21 -j ACCEPT

As children my Mother taught and enforced in us the Golden Rule… treat others as you would like to be treated (yes I know that’s not exactly it but try explaining “do unto” to a five year old). Later in my life this has evolved into more of a belief of Karma - what you send out into the world is what you receive back.

I have no ill will towards the people that have harmed me in the past, and I have no joy when tragedy happens to them. Nor am I surprised to hear when an aggressively outspoken individual turns out to be participating in the very behavior they seem to be so critical of.

I constantly remind my Wife that all of us are hypocrites (myself included) - it’s just human nature. I’m not saying this to by cynical but as a reminder that no one can be perfect.

If you don’t know, “Day One, Everything Changes” was the campaign slogan for Eliot Spitzer.