Add Local HD as Desktop Icon - Mountain Lion

If you are needing to add your local HD (typically Macintosh HD) as an icon to your desktop (mine disappeared after an installation of Mountain Lion), you can achieve this by opening up Finder -> Preferences and under the General tab, check the box next to "Hard disks".

Use the Calculator to Reveal a Mac's Firmware Password

Someone out there will find this useful someday, I promise.

The following procedure can be used in order to obtain the Firmware Utility password on older Mac laptops (2011 and earlier):

1. Obtain obfuscated firmware utility password from the PRAM with the following command:
sudo nvram security-password
The output will be similar to the following: security-password %fa%cb%d9%d9%dd%c5%d8%ce

2. The number of percent signs in the output is the number of characters in the password.  Since the Calculator can only handle words up to 8 characters (16 hex characters), if there are more than 8 symbols, then you will have to split the password up and convert in sections.

3. Copy the security password output from the Terminal to a text editor and delete the percent symbols in it, followed by splitting the password string at every 16th character.

4. You will need to perform the following on each 16-character section:
-Open the Calculator and set it to Programmer mode in the View menu or by pressing Command-3.

-Copy one 16-character section of your password and paste it into the calculator. You should see its
binary equivalent shown below the yellow-green display, and also see its ASCII-text representation at the bottom-left of the display (you may have to click the "ASCII" button to reveal this).

-Starting with the first bit in the binary output (the one furthest from the blue zero at the right), reverse every other bit by clicking its corresponding 1 or 0.

5. As you do this reversal of every other bit, you will see the ASCII output in the calculator reveal your password, or at least the section of it that is represented by the 16-character segment being operated on. Write down the revealed text password and then repeat this process for additional segments of the password, after which you should have your firmware password.

Source:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57521667-263/use-the-calculator-to-reveal-a-macs-firmware-password/

Microsoft Network Load Balancing Configuration on Cisco Switches

Reference link for MS NLB configuration on Catalyst switches.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/ps708/products_configuration_example09186a0080a07203.shtml#mm

Nexus 5K 130 Day Restart Field Notice

I have had several questions arise around the Nexus 5000 field notice #63560 - Nexus 5000 System Restart after 130 days of uptime.  This issue only affects 5K switches that are running the following version of software, AND have the LAN_BASE_SERVICES_PKG license installed:

• 5.1(3)N1(1) 
• 5.1(3)N1(1a) 
• 5.1(3)N2(1) 
• 5.1(3)N2(1a) 

If you purchase an L3 daughter card for the 5K switch, the LAN_BASE_SERVICES_PKG ships with it.  The following L3 features are included with the card/license:

• Static routing 
• RIPv2 
• OSPFv2 
• EIGRP stub
• HSRP 
• VRRP 
• IGMP v2/v3 
• PIMv2 (sparse mode) 
• routed ACL
• uRPF

If you are just using the 5K switch as solely an L2 device, this field notice should not be of concern.

Source: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/ts/fn/635/fn63560.html

UCS Pre-Login Banner

Have you ever wanted to configure a pre-login banner for your UCS system?  I haven't, but for those of you that would like this added feature in your environment, here's how:
-Navigate within UCSM to the Admin tab -> User Management -> User Services -> Banners tab.

-Click on the Create Pre-Login Banner Action, and enter a message in the pop-up box.  Only text is currently supported with this feature.

-The banner will appear for both GUI and CLI system-wide logins.

A pre-login banner can also be configured from the UCS command line using the following guide:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/sw/cli/config/guide/2.0/b_UCSM_CLI_Configuration_Guide_2_0_chapter_011.html#concept_5415580F234F4CE1AE4A39395E236E1A

UCS Local Disk Configuration Policy Location

There is a type-o in the Cisco UCS Configuration Guide regarding the location of Local Disk Configuration Policies.  The document describes the location of the Local Disk Configuration Policy to be within the Servers tab -> Service Profile -> Policies tab, when in fact the Local Disk Configuration Policy is located under the service profile in the Storage tab.  You can find it in the top left corner in the Actions box.

Source: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/sw/gui/config/guide/2.0/b_UCSM_GUI_Configuration_Guide_2_0_chapter_011100.html

Bare Metal UCS Blade vNIC Configuration

When configuring bare metal installation of an OS on a UCS blade, you need to take into consideration the fact that the UCS vethernet ports are always trunk interfaces..  To essentially make a vNIC into an "access" port, you would need to configure 1 VLAN per vNIC, with the Native VLAN checkbox checked so that packets set across that trunk are untagged.

Alternatively, you can leave multiple VLANs on the vNIC trunk interface, and configure subinterfaces/trunking at the OS level.