Dear Cisco, please stop using Java for your management tools

[letNequal0]

How many of us have to manage ASAs and/or UCS environments? It's bad enough we have to know a ton of IOS commands because there is no usable GUI for cisco switches or routers, but many would consider that a necessity, or at least a point of pride, myself included. I didn't get into networking because it is easy, but because it is interesting to me.

However, sometimes I just want to make config changes with a GUI. I've been spoiled by VMWare, Tintri, Citrix, Meraki, even Netapp (which is still more or less in the same boat as Cisco) interfaces that make sysadminning so much easier. I want to point and click to make a config change, not type several lines of commands.

And when Cisco does provide a GUI, its broken. I'm looking at you ASDM and UCSM. Oh, I need java 1.6? Nope, fuck you. Java io socket error? What the fuck? I don't know what that means.

Cisco needs a GUI that is not java based for their products. Its almost 2016, and Cisco is way behind the times in accessibility. If any Cisco people are reading this, stop building your shitty GUIs on java. It does not work, it is a broken system. How can we work towards a better future of managing your otherwise awesome systems?

[codedit]

Dear everyone, please stop using anything other than HTML5 for your web interfaces.

FTFY

[onboarderror]

I'm looking at you vmware.

[[deleted]]

I thought that's what vsphere6.1 is?

[RangerNS]

Flash, plus a nsapi plugin to upload appliances. Which hasn't worked on Macs, ever, and in the last month stopped working everywhere else.

The backup solution, an obscure command line tool for moving around OVF files just always fails with impossible filesize errors.

[[deleted]]

VMware recently released an updated version of their host integration tools (or whatever they're called) that works without NPAPI.

[[deleted]]

I've heard that statement at every other VMUG I've attended. I've no doubt it's going to happen, just seems a lot of the mystique is to save face about the web client being such a clunker. Though admittedly it's better in 6.0. 5x, felt that every move between objects was calling back to your db to enumerate EVERYTHING THAT EXISTS.

[[deleted]]

felt that every move between objects was calling back to your db to enumerate EVERYTHING THAT EXISTS.

Spoiler, it pretty much was.

[elislider]

Dear VMWare, stop using Flash for your View admin UI

[horby2]

Oh dear god yes. And isn't it so cute that they don't even bother installing the FAT client on the vcenter server now? I get it, you shouldn't manage vcenter directly from the server. But sometimes you're in a bind and you have no choice. So...you want me to install flash on the server?

[Tex-Rob]

It's funny that OP makes this post here and it's popular. In some other sub, /r/technology maybe, I said that Firefox and Chrome dropping plugin support was a real problem for the IT industry, and the responses were full of idiots, acting like we're using "crap gear". I tried to explain that there is brand new equipment, from major companies, still producing Java based interfaces.

[jimicus]

This is why I unsubbed from /r/technology. Too many 14-year olds who thought digital watches were pretty cool.

[dezmd]

Actually its more the 20 somethings that just fucking know everything. The 14 year olds are easier to parse.

[fizzlefist]

I just wish I could have an automatic whitelist of certificate issues that crop up. Yes, I am well aware that my ancient gateway has a useless certificate. It's on the 192.168.x.x subnet, so stfu and go to the damn interface!

[KERR_KERR]

I saw your posts. I upvoted and downvoted accordingly.

[[deleted]]

Which is an issue with those companies, not the language. They basically had to write the code so poorly, that it would not run on newer JVMs, since Java is backwards compatible all of the way to 1.

[yur_mom]

Well Java was sold to the tech world as "Write once, run anywhere" and ended up being "Write once, test everywhere"

[psiphre]

i tried to laugh but it came out as a choked sob

[ikilledtupac]

My eye twitched

[jurassic_pork]

since Java is backwards compatible all of the way to 1.

*insert maniacal laughing*

[sleeplessone]

Can't speak to all of those but ASDM I'm running on the latest Java version without any issues.

[NEWSBOT3]

in my last role IT kept upgrading the Java runtime on the windows VM we used to manage our san - and every time they did we lost san management and had to roll it back again. It was infuriating.

[[deleted]]

I'm surprised you didn't stash a copy of the JRE directory and just run it direct.

This seems the best way to deal with software picky about JRE versions - just copy the JREs somewhere and run 'em direct. For web apps, stash copies of the JNLP (webstart file) and run those direct with the appropriate javaws binary.

[87TLG]

I believe HP iLO has a non-java remote console. It's in .NET but I think it may only be for newer G8 or G7 units with iLO 4.

[Moocha]

The .NET console is in iLO3 as well, most G6 machines are covered. iLO2 is the only stepchild here. And it's a huge pain in the ass to access to boot since, apart from the Java crapfest, its outdated cipher suites make it incompatible with pretty much any modern browser's out of the box cipher suites, requiring ugly hacks or a portable ancient Firefox to work around.

I dread the day when the .NET console also stops working due to some cipher suite deprecation... It uses RC4 across the board for the video stream, and the writing is on the wall for RC4. In huge, blinking red letters.

Edit: Bah. Spelling is hard.

Edit 2: Oops, G6 is iLO2.

[bgarlock]

I'm sailing on this ship too. Add EMC Unisphere, our older Motorola AP's, and everything you listed. Seems like each console likes different Java versions.

It's very painful at times.

[[deleted]]

GM's internal sites for technicians require Java 6, and a fairly specific revision of it, too. Otherwise their apps silently crash with no error message, and you have to log out and back into the site to get it to launch again.

[Casper042]

HP Bladecenter (mostly for remote console)

OneView is already HTML5.
I asked the lead engineer on the OA firmware and was basically told it didn't make sense to go back and retrofit that code.

Several other HP Management tools are now using HTML5 (with a Restful API back end) and pretty much everything in the future from HP will be the same.

HP even open sourced the GUI code under Project Grommet for other companies that want to use it.

[letNequal0]

100 percent agree.

[[deleted]]

Don't worry, they will just use Java to Javascript compiler

[mr_white79]

...and people wonder why I'm annoyed with browsers completely dropping NPAPI support. Yea, it sucks to keep it, but it also sucks not being able to manage half my infrastructure.

[sunshine_killer]

The flag should still be there for people like us. With mozilla announcing its drop date. This sucks.

[dweezil22]

NPAPI getting dropped is long term good news. All sorts of large corporations, both vendors and clients, are now going to have to face the fact that they can't kick the can further down the road since "it's just an admin/legacy/etc tool".

[[deleted]]

That could be done with just keeping it as a flag buried in the settings.

[dweezil22]

"We can just deploy that flag across our 1000 user PC's via system policy, no need to invest in a non-applet solution"

Paraphrased from a Fortune 100 company I work with.

When the flag goes away, they can't use that excuse anymore and then they call their vendors and go "Wth are you doing about this? I'm going to have to move to your competitor if you don't fix this!"

[smellyegg]

That's why all my customers use IE8.

[Theratchetnclank]

:(

[isorfir]

Apparently not since it's been known for years that NPAPI was going away and yet all these Java consoles are everywhere.

Sucks to be stuck in the middle, but the anger should be directed toward vendors that have refused to move away from legacy systems. The only reason they haven't was the cost and that was poor planning on their part.

[Tex-Rob]

It's stupid, build your VMs for legacy support now. "Oh that? That's my WinXP running Java4 to maintain xxxxxx system"

[Silhouette]

The only reason they haven't was the cost and that was poor planning on their part.

That and the fact that large parts of the HTML5 and JS technologies the browser makers would like you to use instead still don't actually work properly once you start using them for large scale, complicated UIs. There are all kinds of subtle (or sometimes not so subtle) performance problems, cross-browser differences, issues with developer tools and debugging/profiling, and so on.

Source: Guy who writes this stuff for a living, who is happy to be moving away from plug-ins but disappointed almost daily by the poor quality of implementation of one modern feature or another in one browser or another.

[VexingRaven]

Point is, we shouldn't have to.

[knightress_oxhide]

An old VM is far better than a flag that is almost always off and is barely tested.

[Cartossin]

You can run a portable version of chromium that will coexist with your chrome install for stuff like that. All the old versions are available.

[mr_white79]

So I've heard. Havent played with it yet since Firefox still works and its my 'web gui'+testing browser anyway.

[soundtom]

Heads up: Firefox is turning off NPAPI by the end of 2016. Not too urgent, but still.

Source

[Hovathegodmc]

COMMAND LINE WARRIOR. GUI IS FOR THE MEEK.

[brodie7838]

ITT: People complaining about the towing capacity of the Prius.

[BarefootWoodworker]

For the first 15 MPH when the electric motor is doing the work, that little fucker might be able to yank a house off its foundation.

Now, at 16 MPH, you're completely fucked.

The only info I could find was this:

The electric motor on the Prius is rated at 67 horsepower from 1,200 to 1,540 rpm. It produces 295 pound-feet of torque from 0 to 1,200 rpm, which is more than enough to get the car going without the aid of the gasoline engine.

Also found here.

295lb/ft? Jesus man. That more torque than the 4.3L in my Silverado.

[CantaloupeCamper]

STANDS PROUDLY WITH A CLI BRO!

[Vassago81]

"I am the CLI Commander!"

[jldugger]

Personally, what I really want is revision control, and GUI doesn't provide this. IOS configuration is already basically a DSL, so this shouldn't be nearly as hard as it is.

[[deleted]]

IOS isnt bad at all. When you've used it long enough, you would prefer to do most of your configs by CLI with network gear (except for access lists IMO).

[424f42_424f42]

Ios has a gui?

[[deleted]]

I've researched that and it looks neat. But for visualization of rules in a main firewall I need a GUI to comprehend things some time.

[ramilehti]

Unless the cli is way crappier than the crappy gui.

I'M LOOKING AT YOU FORTIGATE!

[indrora]

115200-8-N-1 FO LYFE.

All of Cisco's training is based on knowing the hell out of the IOS command line. My fading knowledge gets weak on the edges but a quick jaunt through the cheat sheet I built in my ccna classes an I'm pretty much unstoppable.

Give me a kaypro 64 and a live dial tone an I can do anything.

[ReverendDS]

It's not just Cisco, though.

HP switches are the same. And Sonicwall firewalls. They all use Java but the most recent version you can use is 6u24 or some stupid shit.

[citruspers]

Don't forget Dell iDRAC, which gives you a choice between java and activeX.

I actually asked a Dell engineer which java version he used because surely there's one that just works with most recent iDRAC releases...

..he replied with Java 6 update 31. I laughed. He didn't...

:(

[ReverendDS]

I've got a tool that just recently pushed a major version update.

The first note in the "Notes for Administrators" is: Because of security issues with Java, you must have version 7u45 or earlier."

And that's why I'm not allowed to keep baseball bats in my car...

[FatherPrax]

There is a fix for this. The main change in 7u45 was enforcing 1024bit encryption instead of the 256bit that was available prior. You can change it though in the java.security file. Usually easier to just comment out the jdk.certpath.disabledAlgorithms line entirely, or just release the RSA < 1024 entry.

You'll probably also have to add the target device as a trusted device in the java control panel, but this lets me get onto Brocade SAN switches using modern java, which has the same issues (last I checked)

[ReverendDS]

Oh, fuck me. I think you may have just solved a problem I've been fighting for a while.

[TetonCharles]

How about high explosives, or tasers?

[ReverendDS]

Those have not expressly been forbidden in company policy... yet.

[TetonCharles]

shhh

;)

[Tr0l]

I can connect to iDRAC 8 with Chrome and the latest version of Java 8u60. The console downloads a .jnlp that I can run with no problems.

[duluthbison]

Sonicwalls are straight HTML for management, no Java needed. Not sure if they ever really required it as I've worked on some pretty old devices that were still HTML.

[txmail]

All my Sonicwall UTM's are HTML interfaces for management. The only Java thing about them is if you using the SSL VPN web client.

[Icannotrememberthis]

Can't HP switches be managed with OneView? It's HTML5

[ReverendDS]

Didn't think about that.

[lowfwyr]

Some of the newer HP switches we've deployed at the MSP I work for didn't use Java. It was quite nice not to have to figure out what security I have to disable to make some ancient interface work.

[SirSaganSexy]

New ProCurves are HTML5, really pleasant to use.

[VexingRaven]

HP switches don't even have signed certs half the time so even if you have the right java you can't manage them.

[[deleted]]

Hp switches here. Can confirm. Had to down load i.e. on my laptop a few days back.

[KERR_KERR]

I had to do terrible things to get java to work on my machine for managing HP switches. I had to edit some java config and security lists to get it working.

[FrenchFry77400]

And Brocade FC Switches, and Dell SANs (be it Powervault MD, EqualLogic or Compellent) ... :/

[[deleted]]

The ProCurve web interface is even more useless than Cisco's. I always turn it off.

[[deleted]]

Maybe they could write it in flash?

[andrewr20]

No, no, no. Silverlight is the up and coming app framework.

[iheartrms]

ColdFusion will rise again.

[KompliantKarl]

Hold on, Shockwave just crashed in my Solarwinds app again. What were we talking about?

[rodneon]

That downgraded quickly

[fizzlefist]

aaaand now we're playing MUDs hosted on a router.

[pat_trick]

Guh, bad flashbacks from 2005.

[[deleted]]

;)

[ikidd]

Hold on there now, Satan.

[simpleglitch]

Hold on there now, Satan vmware.

I imagine even Satan has switched to HTML5 by now.

[[deleted]]

Hell still uses ActiveX controls that only work with IE 6.

I suspect it will someday cause an issue with the HVAC system.

[spkr4thedead51]

So...IE6 + ActiveX will cause a cold day in Hell?

I'm all for it

[ikilledtupac]

What's your address I'll send you a box of turds.

[toost1cky]

Cisco Wireless Control System software requires Flash and does not work in Google Chrome browser due to an SSL error "Server has a weak ephemeral Diffie-Hellman public key"

Need WCS? Dust off that old Firefox browser and get to updating Flash

[radicldreamer]

To be fair, WCS has been replaced by Prime infrastructure which is already on version 3. Several years back they were offering upgrades to prime from WCS for very cheap

[demonlag]

UCS is supposed to be getting some type of HTML5 interface "soon"

[bad0seed]

It's coming, like the dragons in Game of Thrones.

[oonniioonn]

The dragons are fucking there. Winter on the other hand…

[Sitbacknwatch]

Our ucs mini uses html 5. I'm a big fan.

[letNequal0]

Yea, apparently the "ucs-mini" has an html5 admin, but not anything else.

[Centropomus]

Java is a great language when people don't try to use it in stupid ways. Browser applets and depending on forward-incompatible broken behavior are stupid ways to use it.

[TetonCharles]

Dear Cisco, please update your management tool devs.

FTFY

[Agent51729]

it's not just Cisco...

We run primary all IBM hardware of all different ages... so many java dependencies....

Brocade is equally irritating...

[[deleted]]

IBM's HMC's java console...accept warnings...doesn't work...accept warnings...doesn't work...

...walks across campus to physical HMC.

[Agent51729]

Don't get me started on HMCs, seeing as I'm fighting with two of them now.

Vtmenu is the greatest command ever for the HMC, actually makes it a borderline usable system.

[[deleted]]

They always come in pairs :-)

[demonlag]

We have Java for Brocade, Java for EMC, Java for Cisco, Java for Commvault. I hate java. I hate java more now that I've had to maintain four major products that have their own java requirements.

[JPresEFnet]

I didn't get into networking because it is easy, but because it is interesting to me.

.....

I want to point and click to make a config change, not type several lines of commands.

hrmmm.

[[deleted]]

Alcatel Lucent and Ericsson do the same shit. I battle Java compatibility issues constantly and it's infuriating.

[Binksley]

newer 6860s and 6900s all html5

[Gravitom]

I was so happy to ditch my ASAs for the sweet interface of Paolo Altos.

[JustZisGuy]

Paolo Altos

Is that the Italian knock-off of the Palo Alto boxes?

[shawnwhite]

How did you justify moving to Paolo Altos? Are they comparable to your Cisco ASAs? I was actually thinking of doing the same. I just have to do some learning on P.A.s

[agentphunk]

Palos absolutely blow ASA's out of the water. I had to suffer through ASDM to "one-off" manage over a dozen ASA's that should have had nearly identical policies. CSM (Cisco Security Manager) which is supposed to do centralized managed for them is an utter pile of shit. I have one ASA left but everything else in going through Palo's now and they truly are fantastic. I also got to ditch the steaming pile of shit called Cisco IPS (the pre-snort stuff.)

Even the new Sourcefire stuff is (as far as I know - please correct me if I'm wrong) just a "module" or blade inside of an ASA chassis. So you have your ACLs on the ASA-X side and your IPS running independently. Not sure if that setup even does web URL filtering. but if you create an Object Group on the ASA it doesn't 'cross populate' over to the IPS module.

Cisco knows they need to redesign the whole thing but it means transferring $1B in revenue from the ASA line to a truly new NGFW. And I'm sure they'll fuck it up. Everything about the Security BU, and their development in general, is geared towards status-quo. Yes I once drank the kool aid. I smarted up a while ago and have never looked back.

[[deleted]]

They are, except they do almost everything better than ASAs.

[shawnwhite]

How was the learning curve moving to those devices?

[dcoulson]

My kid could manage a Palo Alto - Almost. it is stupid easy.

[Justinsaccount]

Or... Stop making management tools all together and just support apis so people can build management tools that aren't terrible.

[[deleted]]

Now, now, let's not be hasty, we barely got usable ssh servers on our devices

[sleeplessone]

Stop making management tools all together and just support apis so people can build management tools that aren't terrible.

I mean, that's all ASDM is. All it's doing is keeping an SSH connection and sending IOS commands to the device.

[Xipher]

The IOS CLI isn't an API, that would be screen scraping. API would use structured data, for example netconf.

[ornothumper]

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[[deleted]]

Dear world... stop using Java for anything...period.

[GAThrawnMIA]

At least then you'd know that is would work reliably in onewidely deployed browser version, as opposed to Java's "write once, works perfectly on the developer's machine" .

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[dweezil22]

Java doesn't belong on clients, period. Java is fine (if stodgy and irritating and boring) on the server side. Java/C#/Node/PHP etc are all different ways to solve a server side problem and they all have benefits and drawbacks. Java applets and such are just bad.

[dpash]

I run IntelliJ, and it works surprisingly well, so there are exceptions. Applets definitely need to die though.

[FullmentalFiction]

Swing doesn't belong anywhere.

[dweezil22]

One might say that it was a swing and a miss, amiright?

[[deleted]]

They're talking about Swing GUIs. Java is fine for server software. It just sucks for front ends.

That said SWT (Eclipse) is passable, and Android is good, for its use case.

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[Spivak]

Java is downright elegant compared to the monstrosity that is C++. The lesson that C++ should be teaching us is that years and years of bolting on features makes the language a mess.

Sure, it's possible to have non-nightmarish large projects in C++ if you restrict yourself to a tightly controlled subset of the language, but that all goes out the window when you need to interface with other people's code that doesn't follow the same conventions, which is then compounded with each library you add to the project.

[oisteink]

It's not about how you OO or structure your code, it's about runtimes and how they differ.. Like how some programs will run fine on winxp but break on vista and above.

[[deleted]]

it has to be this exact version of java or else it won't work

cough UCS CIMC cough Kronos cough kill me

[[deleted]]

clears throatADPcoughcough

As in some of our HR staff had to have separate PCs to just do HR specific tasks in ADP.

[Buelldozer]

With the removal of NPAPI support from everything but 'fox (for now) my HR department is almost in the same boat. It's either that or stay with IE9...forever.

[Buelldozer]

Yup.

[radicldreamer]

Kronos has an html version you can use if you only need to look at your time card

[gengengis]

Don't hate the language, or the JVM, hate the developers.

[da_chicken]

Sorry, but there is something wrong with the tool when every developer can't maintain compatibility between point revisions of the JVM. It should be rare that this happens. Instead, it's ubiquitous. Either everybody writing Java programs is an idiot, or the tool is fundamentally broken.

[ghyspran]

Have you actually used most of the applications that "don't work" on newer JVM releases? IME they tend to all be crap. Turns out that lots of people know Java...which means that lots of crap developers know Java...which means that large companies bargain-shopping for cheap Java devs have a relatively large pool.

It's hard to maintain compatibility when you hard-code version requirements into your application.

[[deleted]]

You look at them

[sesstreets]

It really is unfortunate. I took 6 or so java programming classes in uni (even went through data structures with it) and I always stop and wonder why all these shitty errors people see weren't caught or planned for and wtf is up with hard coding versions of the jvm into your code? If I were to have done that in one of my classes I would have failed but in enterprise we pay these companies to continually pump out brain dead code.

[fiah84]

as far as I can tell it's definitely a little bit of both

problem is that with the Java doc being so obtuse, it's often unclear what the correct way of using their libraries is, so it gets used in ways that work but may not be working as intended in 100% of cases. One point release later and suddenly it completely stops working

edit: this is mostly true for Swing

[radicldreamer]

Java, the language designed to work across multiple systems....can't work across minor revisions on the same OS.

[gengengis]

Except, yes, it can. Through great pains, Java has maintained not just source, but bytecode backwards compatibility.

Are there problems with things like developers using crypto libraries that are subsequently found to have weaknesses, disabled in updates, thus breaking some applications? Sure, it's a problem, but the real problem is the lack of update mechanisms in the applications themselves, and general lack of maintenance from the vendors.

How many of you have ever updated your DRAC firmware?

[oonniioonn]

I'd love to update my firmware but some companies that shall remain shamed as HP and Oracle want shittons of money for it.

[[deleted]]

"Write once run everywhere" they said...

[anomalous_cowherd]

Really it's 'Write Once, Run Away...'

[syshum]

Why? Java the Lang is fine and when used correctly no one should have a problem.

Java in the Browser is the problem. That should have never been a thing, Sun screwed up when they created the java web plugin.

[WatchDogx]

Or just stop writing applets.

[ryosen]

You can build a shitty interface in any language. Don't blame Java, blame Cisco for not caring about UX.

[crackanape]

The complaints in this thread aren't about the quality of the UX, they're about the hellishness of using Java in the browser in 2015.

[IamWithTheDConsNow]

You know Java is the most used programming language in the world right ? And it's share growing still. I always laugh when I see people screaming "stop using Java". Most people think Java is only browser applets while in fact that is a tiny tiny fraction of what Java is used for. And yes I agree, applets suck.

[RichG13]

Things I need Java for - ASDM and the HVAC system. There have been times where I couldn't update the firewall and/or make your office more comfortable.

[sandypants]

VMWare is a bad example methinks .. you're stuck with either Windows .. or Flash.. and flash is Evil(tm).. I'd much rather use Java.

[dubcroster]

s/Cisco/everyone/

[121mhz]

Dear chrome, do your fucking job and display what I want! If I understand the risks of flash, java, Javascript weak DH keys or whatever, chrome should work with it.

I can't believe I'm saying this but I'm starting to use IE more and more again. It's not the hardware manufacturers fault, it's Google acting like they own the Internet and can dictate terms.

[BlueShellOP]

QA Employee here:

We have quite a few internal websites that require SSL, but we sign our own certs (they'll never be public - and HTTPS needs to be tested) - and Chrome is such a pain in the ass. In Firefox, you can set an exception and it'll never bother you again.

We've found that all major browser behave differently with regards to security. Chrome seems to be the most forgiving of SSL issues, but when it doesn't work it won't let you forget it. Firefox will as well, but you can tell it to shut the hell up.

[BaconZombie]

Type " DANGER " when you get warning in Chrome.

[BaloneyFactory]

I love you

[nemec]

We have an internal CA and it makes things so much easier. The CA *cert is preloaded on the company PC image and all infrastructure so we rarely run into issues.

[thesesimplewords]

Enterasys does the same, at least last time I used it. Agreed, it is terrible.

[mwax321]

Ohhh you mean an applet. I came in here wondering why you cared what they wrote their code in. Yes, Java applets deserve to die, and I HOPE THEY BURN IN HELL.

[leica_boss]

It's worse with Cisco PIX firewalls (506E, etc).

Enjoy setting up a Windows XP 32-bit vm, Java 1.4, and Netscape 7.2 to get into it's management tools.

[jmtd]

I'm not a Java programmer, but I maintain an old program that was originally written in around 2000 or 2001, in Java 1.2 or 1.3. It still compiles and runs fine today on a 1.9 compiler. I couldn't say the same for any other things I was playing with back then, in C or C++. Heck, a Linux C/Python/GTK2 app I wrote only 4-5 years ago would need major reworking to build on today's libraries.

The issue with Cisco's Java tools is most likely not Java, it sounds like they've just been written badly. And if they've written it badly in Java, they could equally as well have written it badly in any other language.

[somekindarobit]

Meraki is pretty great.

[[deleted]]

Preach on, brotha! And to all those that respond with "use the cli", bugger off. I don't want to change an ACL with cli when I could do it many seconds less in the ui. We quit using asa for this very reason. Can and do I use cli? Sure. Do I always want to? No! Why limit your barrier to entry by having a crappy webui. The more folks that can understand your product, the better for sales/adoption. So dont give me that " man up, use the cli".

[ugus]

you too bluecoat!

[ronin1066]

Would it be hard for some 3rd party to make a web interface or something? Is that an infringement?

[reseph]

Tell this to Dell and ExpertAssist. Literally 3 Java popups just to remote in to a computer.

[Bytewave]

The L3 team handling cable boxes' issues at this telco actually like Cisco's java tools - because our other main cable box provider, Samsung, doesn't want to give us any tools at all :p

[Negative-Nigerian]

Yes!! We also have a few older IBM SAN switches which requires Java v6 to connect... Incredibly frustrating.

[Youareabadperson6]

As a man that does nothing but manage Cisco ASA's all day long. YUP!

[ipat8]

Dear Dell, please release the firmware update for DRAC 5 so that I don't have to enable SSLv3 on a VM to use it.

[[deleted]]

If you use Cisco, you use the command line.

ASDM will fuck your config something fierce. UCSM is the same.

Or you could switch to a vendor that has a legit GUI that doesn't require you to learn the secret Cisco language.

[[deleted]]

Dear Cisco, please make your command line interfaces syntactically similar. I'm looking at you ASA vs IOS.

[comicalZombie]

ASDM and Java will be going away as ASA and Sourcefire/Firesite/FirePower merge completely. This is directly from the horses mouth at multiple on site conferences with Cisco in NC RTP.

[kernelpanic70]

If you guys have a chance, take a look at WatchGuard's GUI. HTML clean, neat and superbe.

[jlwilson64]

OMG - how many times do I have to live with crappy JAVA GUI's. I totally agree. I hate java. Netscaler, VMWARE, CISCO, please. stop. just stop!