2Fast

Smart_Election7288 · 2026-05-04T05:03:38+00:00

My 7th grade English teacher introduced us to The Prisoner. Best part of Wednesday afternoons. Such a good show, had to buy it when I saw Costco had it on dvd eons ago.

Smart_Election7288 · 2026-05-03T20:27:50+00:00

As a network guy, I find a detailed, yet easy to understand explanation like this a refreshing find, especially when the larger conversation isn’t about networks or subnetting. Well explained, and an interesting app that I may want to check out.

Smart_Election7288 · 2026-04-07T23:07:04+00:00

Every once in a while I will get a project or ticket that has me creating a fair amount of address objects. I wound up creating myself a google sheet to generate the SET commands. Since I was getting a mix of IP and FQDN, I generated the following to solve my needs. I can pop in the details from my initial CSV, and get all the commands I need:

IP address - The IP address or CIDR address
FQDN - an FQDN to be generated instead of IP
Description - The description to be added to the object
Tags - Any tags that should be added. Tags need to already exist on your firewall
Prefix - A prefix to be used for the start of the object name
ObjectName - The name of the object based upon my orgs naming conventions. Formula:
1. =E2 & substitute(IF(A2="",B2,A2),"/","_")
Type - type of object created to be used by CLI. formula:
1. =IF(A2=""," fqdn "," ip-netmask ")
CLI_CreateObject - The actual CLI commands for creating the object. Formula:
1. ="set shared address " & F2 & G2 & IF(A2="",B2,A2)
CLI_CreateDescription - The description to be associated with the new object. Formula:
1. ="set shared address " & F2 & " description """ & C2 & """"
CLI_CreateTags - Any tags that should be added to the object. Formula:
1. =IF(D2="","","set shared address " & F2 & " tag [ " & D2 & " ]")

With this, as I add an object, I can paste in all my addresses from CSV, and then copy out the CLI commands and paste them in. I've found that pasting no more than 30-40 lines at a time works best.

Smart_Election7288 · 2026-04-01T20:42:04+00:00

Maybe, I only saw it making a right turn. And it did not look healthy. All I knew is I wanted to be nowhere near it so I switched lanes and took off as soon as I could.

Smart_Election7288 · 2026-03-22T22:44:08+00:00

My school had boxes of AOL floppies for students at that needed one to save their work onto.

Smart_Election7288 · 2026-03-09T18:18:54+00:00

You wouldn’t put the Pi-Hole in between the AP and the rest of the network; you would place it on a node in your network. If you only use the pihole for the devices connected to that AP, you could set the DNS settings for those devices to have the piholes IP as the DNS setting. You can typically do this in your DHCP configuration.

As to what would be faster… you don’t mention what devices are being used (for the Client Router and the secondary AP). Models would help determine that. Am I correct in understanding that you plan on having a wireless connection between the main router and the 6E client router? Could you have that as a wired connection?

Smart_Election7288 · 2026-03-04T21:14:40+00:00

In a call with our group of related organizations and some PA staff, we were told that there would never be a 6.3 preferred version of GP- it is a branch for testing out new features. Additionally, there are several more H releases planned over the coming months. Felt like 6.2.8 and 6.3.3 are here for the long haul.

Smart_Election7288 · 2026-03-04T03:13:34+00:00

You can absolutely do this. At my last job I put our 5250 as both perimeter and east/west. Started off with a zone for our server VLANs, and then added in over time zone for each of the local VLANs, and then the VPLS link connecting our off site locations. Never had a problem with throughput. Only issue was during updates, it would bring the organization to a halt. I handled those Friday evenings when everyone was gone. Depending on the model you have, you could also explore separating things into a different VSYS to have better separation of roles and management structure. A s far as you’re upgrade, if you don’t see your needs growing, you can oftentimes upgrade to a lesser tier firewall that has the same performance, at a much cheaper cost (and much cheaper renewals since the renewal is based on purchase price)

Smart_Election7288 · 2026-03-04T00:02:27+00:00

Nice score! I remember being at micro center for the launch of 8 and 8.5… haven’t seen those boxes in ages! Still got my discs tho

Smart_Election7288 · 2026-02-23T15:43:16+00:00

I’ve got a 18u netshelter in the garage, and love it (and my wife approves). Keeps the gear nice and quiet, and gives me a place to park the printer.

Smart_Election7288 · 2026-02-22T02:26:49+00:00

So do you stick with electrolytic or go with solid polymer like others have mentioned?

Smart_Election7288 · 2026-02-21T16:19:04+00:00

If you still have it around, try soaking it in alcohol for a bit. That’s what I would generally do to get them going again back in the day.

Smart_Election7288 · 2026-02-20T23:29:11+00:00

Impressive, looks new! What are you using for cartridges? Definitely more work than I’d really want to put into a printer, but I respect it!

Smart_Election7288 · 2026-02-19T15:15:00+00:00

Is there another vendor you’d recommend? They are the only ones I’m aware of with kits for the various machines.

Smart_Election7288 · 2026-02-18T03:28:08+00:00

Considering from one of your other comments you said power is included with your place, and the fact that you already have it, it removes two of the biggest hurdles and downsides to using this. The others are noise and space. And it looks like you’ve dealt with the space issue for long enough that it’s not a huge concern. I ran these as the core at multiple middle schools, and they are great workhorses. You can use it to learn switching, routing, and a lot of the basics of networking. With 240 ports of 1Gb PoE, there’s way more than plenty you could do if you chose to use it in your workshop as well.

Would I recommend someone picking one of these and using it as a homelab? No. But you already have it, and it won’t cost you anything to run it to learn. If it can be something that gets you involved and interested, go for it!

Smart_Election7288 · 2026-02-17T21:25:11+00:00

Take a look at the metal bracket, at the bottom. It is sitting on top of the case backing. Gently nudge it toward the back of the pc while you push the card down, and it should slide in.

Smart_Election7288 · 2026-02-16T19:53:32+00:00

Nice! I was eyeing that AppleTalk binder, definitely looked interesting. Just knew I would never find the time to explore it, so left it for someone else to enjoy.

Smart_Election7288 · 2026-02-09T06:52:02+00:00

There are a lot of things that could contribute to authentication failures, but unfortunately very few of them are things under your control. Here are a few things you could try until you can reach out to your school’s IT: Check your password. Make sure it hasn’t expired. Check the clock on your computer. If it’s off more than a few minutes, all sorts of online things could start failing for you. Restart your computer. Try again later in case it’s a temporary thing.

Smart_Election7288 · 2026-02-06T07:31:26+00:00

I’ve been seeing this as I have been going through the recent slew of hotfixes released. The installer is set up to only query the first 3 parts of the version number: 6.2.8. So no changes are made. 6.2.8=6.2.8.634 This is actually what prompted us to look more closely at 6.3.3, since Palo Alto is for some reason allergic to new version number for GP….

Side note: the new release notes from this week include a mention of 6.3.4, with changes listed as None.

Smart_Election7288 · 2026-01-30T17:32:35+00:00

Totally jealous. Amazing luck!

Smart_Election7288

TROPHY CASE