Configuration of a drop-in bridged CISCO Router / Firewall

Configuration of a drop-in bridged CISCO Router / Firewall: "Configuration of a drop-in bridged CISCO Router"

Often, you have a given network layout which cannot be changed. For example, you own only a few routable IP-Addresses and therefore must use the same Network-ID for the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) and your Internet connection. Some modern Firewalls / Routers allows to "drop-in" in such a network configuration. That means, no network changes have to be made and only one IP-Address is used for the router / firewall. If you use a Cisco Router, this can be difficult, because usually each interface on a Cisco Router must have one IP-Address assigned to it. But there is a trick - so called bridging - using this feature you can overcome these difficulties.

iTunes Pops & Crackles, Poor Playback on PC

Hi All,
"I have a fairly large MP3 collection on a decent machine that is no where near at full capacity, but whenever I play MP3 tracks via iTunes, the sounds crackles and pops. The same tracks played via Windows Media Player and WinAmp do not make the same noises." Sound familiar? Then try the following:

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http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93610

If audio doesn't sound right when you play a song in iTunes or QuickTime Player, the Sound Out setting in the QuickTime control panel may be set to the wrong option, or there may be a conflict between the audio enhancing effects of the sound card and iTunes' Sound Enhancer feature. Things you might notice include:
* A song or audiobook may play too fast or too slow.
* The audio playback may sound scratchy or muffled.
* There is no sound when playing.
* The playhead does not progress.

Try changing the QuickTime Sound Out Setting to improve the quality:

QuickTime 6
1. Click the Start button and point to Control Panel.
2. From the menu at the top of the QuickTime Settings window, choose Sound Out.
3. Select a different option in the "Choose a device for playback" menu.

QuickTime 7
1. Click the Start button and point to Control Panel.
2. Open the QuickTime control panel.
3. Click the "Safe mode (waveOut only)" checkbox.

Some PC audio hardware has audio-enhancing effects that can conflict with iTunes' Sound Enhancer feature.
To resolve these conflicts, do one of the following:
* Turn off the effects for your PC's audio hardware using the configuration software that came with your hardware.
* Disable the Sound Enhancer feature in iTunes:
1. Open iTunes.
2. From the Edit menu, choose Preferences.
3. Click the Effects tab.
4. Deselect Sound Enhancer.

EIGRP does not support secondary addresses

EIGRP Frequently Asked Questions [IP Routing] - Cisco Systems: "Does EIGRP support secondary addresses?


A. EIGRP does support secondary addresses. Since EIGRP always sources data packets from the primary address, Cisco recommends that you configure all routers on a particular subnet with primary addresses that belong to the same subnet. Routers do not form EIGRP neighbors over secondary networks. Therefore, if all routers' primary IP addresses do not agree, problems can arise with neighbor adjacencies."

Configuring a 'router on a stick' or a 'one-armed router'

Designing High Performance Campus Intranets [Campus Switching Solution] - Cisco Systems: "Router X is typically referred to as a 'router on a stick' or a 'one-armed router.' More routers can be used to distribute the load, and each router attaches to several or all VLANs. Traffic between workgroups must traverse the campus in the source VLAN to a port on the gateway router, then back out into the destination VLAN."

Why would you want to do this? Imagine that you have 2 subnets that you need to route between (10.1.1.x and 10.1.2.x). Normally, you would place on interface in each subnet and everything would be fine. But what if the router you are using only has one free interface? In this case, using one-armed routing would be one solution.

To do this, you set up the interface on the router and the interface on the switch that it is conencted to as trunking ports. You can now route between both subnetsvia the single routed interface.

Things to remember:
1. You need to ensure that the trunking protocol between the router and the switch is the same.
2. The older Cisco 1900 switches only support ISL.
3. The newer Cisco 2900 switches only support 802.1q
4. Cisco 1700 routers only support 802.1q

Checkpoint Firewall - Troubleshooting Dropped Connections

When trying to troubleshot unexplained connection drops, try running the following script on the Checkpoitn firewall command line interface (you will need to be in active mode first). This script will take a list of all of the active connections in a human readable format (fw tab -t connections -f -u), then remove any errors (2 /dev/null) and then search only for the host you are interested in (grep 192.168.64.1).

while [ 1 ] ; do echo "***********************************************************************" ; clock ; echo "**********************************************************************" ; fw tab -t connections -f -u 2 /dev/null | grep 192.168.64.1 ; echo ; sleep 1 ; done