Tag Archives: SAN

Making cisco MDS switches log to an external (syslog) server

Cisco MDS

Configuring a Cisco SAN switch to have it send logging to an external syslog server by using the GUI is quite easy to do:

Floow the steps as I walk through DM: click “logs”, then “syslog”, then “setup”

If any syslog server is already configured, you’ll find it here:

You can either delete an existing or create a new entry, but you cannot have more than three entries in total!

If you prefer to have an entry using IPv4 or IPv6, choose IPv4 or IPv6, otherwise use DNS and simply type in its name.

I’ve tried this method to change an existing entry and somehow it wouldn’t stick. Deleting three entries, clicking refresh and 2 came right back…. I failed back to the command line.

The CLI is actually easier, but with less overview of what you’re doing. If you need to list the existing syslog servers, type “show logging”. In the extensive sum-up that follows are the servers you’ve configured so far. If a servers needs to be adjusted, don’t bother to first delete it, because a new entry will overwrite the existing line. But if you need to actually delete one, type “no logging server” followed by its name or IP.

A new entry is made by typing

logging server name-of-the-syslog-server.domainname.extension [severity] port 6514 facility syslog

if you want to use the IP of the server, don’t type its name, but the IP, the syntax is the same. Severity is for example “6” so any message of severity “notice(6)” and lower (more important) will be sent. I’ve put port 6514 here as an example for secure syslog, but any other port will do just fine as well.

If you want thee syslog server entries, repeat the “logging server” line three times, one for each syslog target.

Oh, don’t forget to ask the firewall admin to open the port that you will be using 😉

Don’t forget to save the new config. That’s it!

Changing the time of Cisco DCNM

You’ve just deployed the DCNM appliance and you notice that the reports are displayed in the PDT timezone format. How do you change this into your own timezone?

For this you can log on to the command line of the appliance using SSH.

Check if DNS is working by performing a ping to your favorite NTP server.

To edit your timezone settings use your favorite editor (like “vi”).

vi /etc/ntp.conf

# Use public servers from the pool.ntp.org project.
# Please consider joining the pool (http://www.pool.ntp.org/join.html).
server 0.centos.pool.ntp.org iburst
server 1.centos.pool.ntp.org iburst
server 2.centos.pool.ntp.org iburst
server 3.centos.pool.ntp.org iburst

If you want to use your own NTP server, put a hashtag in front of the 4 example servers in the config file and put your own NTP server in.

# Use public servers from the pool.ntp.org project.
# Please consider joining the pool (http://www.pool.ntp.org/join.html).
ntp.mycompany.com iburst

The “iburst” parameter will try 8 times to collect new time info if necessary, instead of the default, which is only once per interval.

To change the timezone, remove the /etc/localtime file and create a new symbolic link to the file you need.

rm /etc/localtime

The list of location files can be found here:

/usr/share/zoneinfo

for example “Europe/Amsterdam” would be the file /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Amsterdam. You can simply list the available locations by listing the available files in these folders.

ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Amsterdam localtime

Now restart the NTP daemon:

service ntpd restart

And check the current date and time:

root@dcnm01 etc]# date
Tue Jun 19 13:22:06 CEST 2018
[root@dcnm01 etc]# date
Tue Jun 19 13:26:00 CEST 2018
[root@dcnm01 etc]#

How to set the DNS server in a Brocade switch

In order to do DNS lookups in a Brocade SAN switch (for example to read the NTP server’s time), you need to configure DNS first.

By using the command “dnsconfig”, you can configure which 2 DNS servers the switch can use to do lookups:

dnsconfig

Now you see a 4-item menu:

Enter option
1 Display Domain Name Service (DNS) configuration
2 Set DNS configuration
3 Remove DNS configuration
4 Quit
Select an item: (1..4) [4]

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Brocade SAN Switch commands that prove to be very useful

Brocade commands are usually very easy to find out. Simply type “help” and look for the command you think you need, but what exactly does each command do? Here’s a list:

Info

uptime                          – Same as unix uptime
date                              – Same as unix date
version                          – Gives versions of firmwares & OS

Hardware State

faultshow                     – Show switch faults
fanshow                       – Show switch FAN faults
psshow                        – Show switch POWER SUPPLY faults
tempshow                    – Show switch TEMPERATURE values
switchstatusshow          – Overall status of switch

Config

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Using putty instead of the default ssh from Cisco device manager

DCNM

How do I configure Cisco DCNM so Putty starts when I select to go to the command line of a switch?

right click on switch

If you right click on a switch in the overview section in DCNM, you can go to the command line of that switch, but how do you change the default CLI SSH into Putty (or another telnet / SSH capable tool)?

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