It is very easy to install using Synaptic/Apt and is available in the Ubuntu Universe Repository. There are two front ends available using GTK, and QT. The only issue I had to troubleshoot was that the recorded audio was out of sync and choppy. It was very easy to fix by changing the DEFAULT sound option to plughw:0,0.

The software is capable of using a variety of audio sources including Jack audio server. The capture provided an excellent quality file in .ogv format.

If you are sharing the video capture with Windows users, you will need to convert it to a Windows-friendly format for them. I used mencoder - 

mencoder -idx mycapture.ogv -ovc lavc -oac mp3lame -o mycapture.avi

For a helpful page on installing additional repositories and software in Ubuntu, see here Enabling Extra Repositories. You should also see the following link:  Medibuntu  – to install the W32 Codecs.

This is only required if you need to convert the output into a Windows format like .avi. In order to play the converted avi video in Windows,  I still needed to install this free codec: FFDShow MPEG-4.

I work in linux a lot as well these days. I’m just finding after years of Microsoft that I really like linux. It is my base OS and I run VMWare or RDP sessions to manage my Microsoft shop.

I’ve been wanting to use a simple POP or IMAP client to check my mail when I’m traveling, have poor connectivity, etc. My company has many people overseas on very slow and highly contended VSAT connections. I don’t like passing my credentials in plain text.

I applied a secure certificate to the virtual POP3, IMAP, and SMTP servers on our Exchange 2003 front ends. I opened the appropriate firewall ports, and voila we had secure IMAP and POP3. SMTP was a little weird.

Exchange does not use a separate port for secure SMTP. It uses port 25 for everything. This works out fine. When you configure your client, choose TLS and not SSL. Make sure it is port 25. You can confirm your email was sent encrypted by looking at the header (send yourself a test). It will say the email was received by your smtp server in an encrypted session.

One last gotcha – the secure SMTP worked inside the firewall and not outside. When using telnet into the mail server on port 25 from the inside, an EHLO issued a full string of options, including STARTTLS. Outside the firewall, these options were only a string of XXXX’s. Cisco firewalls using inspect ESMTP statements filter out the STARTTLS option. This also causes the client to fail with an error stating the STARTLS is not offered. Remove the ip inspect esmtp statement and all will be well.

Outlook and Outlook Express use SMTP 25 and the SSL option, not TLS. Any other client, choose TLS.

Clients tested: Thunderbird, Evolution, Outlook Express

Note: if you are using Outlook or Evolution you might consider using the rpc/https built into these two clients.

Let’s assume that you already know how to log into the device and have the necessary passwords to get you into Enable mode to configure your Cisco IOS device.

 Perhaps the first and most basic command is simply: show run – which will display the running configuration on the device.

Backup Your Cisco Device

To backup your configuration before you start, download and start-up a free tftp software on your workstation (solarwinds is great). Install and run. Note the default directory. 

On your Cisco device type the following command:

copy startup-config tftp:<ip address of your workstation running tftp software>

Editing Extended Access Lists

Here is one that really threw me for a loop when I started digging into a very lengthy firewall configuration on a Cisco device. There was a very long extended access list, which is really just a normal access-list except this one had a few hundred lines. If you tried to edit the access-list directly, it would wipe out all those lines! And, wouldn’t you know the first time I touched that firewall, I did just that! Thank goodness for not saving changes and being able to reboot the firewall to the old config. NEVER SAVE YOUR CHANGES UNTIL YOU HAVE VERIFIED THEY WORK! Once confident your changes are good, type write mem to save them. Remember to always back anything you work on up before you modify it.

To edit an extened access-list, you need to know what the line numbers are underneath it. If you have an extended access list 21, type show access-list 21. This will display all the line numbers contained in access list 21. (Note, these line numbers get re-numbered automatically by the Cisco IOS). Find the line number you want to edit. Let’s say it is 13.

From config mode type: ip access-list extended 21

(config)# ip access-list extended 21

This will bring you into a new config mode for extended access lists:

(config-ext-nacl)#

To remove a line, just type no and the line number:

(config-ext-nacl)# no 13

To add a line, type a new line number and the command for that line:

(config-ext-nacl)# 14 permit tcp any host 10.10.10.1 eq www

Modifying Interfaces

One of the most common things I’ve ever needed to modify are individual ports on a switch – usually to change the Vlan, or perhaps change the speed or duplex settings manually.

Type config terminal (or config t) to get into config mode.

Type Interface and the name of the interface (you can see the name of the interface from the show run command or show interface command. It might be something like FastEthernet 0 port 3 or GigabitEthernet 1 port 11

Type:

(config)# interface FastEthernet0/3 (or for short type Fa0/3)

This will bring you into (config-if)# mode.

If you are configuring a range of ports, you could do this from config mode:

(config)# interface range FastEthernet0/0 – 10

Other commands you can use at the (config-if)# mode prompt are:

no shutdown – this will turn the interface on, which by default is turned off.

You can also ‘reset’ or ‘bounce’ the port by using the shutdown command followed by the no shutdown command if you are having some type of issue with that port.

You can give the port an IP address:

ip address 10.10.10.1 255.255.255.0

Or you can tell it to use DHCP:

ip address dhcp

As with any Cisco command, you can type a ? after it to see all the available commands.

You can add a description, which is always helpful:

(config-if)# description This port is for the IT vlan

Or perhaps:

 (config-if)# description ISP WAN interface. For support call 800 555 1234 contract number xyz123

You can use the speed and duplex commands to configure the speed and duplex settings of the interface:

 (config-if)# speed 100

 (config-if)# duplex full

The switchport command allows you to put a port into a certain vlan:

 (config-if)# switchport access vlan 10 (this would make the port available on vlan 10 as long as trunking is configured to support vlan 10 on the switch)