More Cisco SDM Stuff

Well after 3 full days, I was able to get SDM up and working in GNS3. I know I've ran into issues in the pass but I wasn't smart enough to document how I resolved them really. This time I written down the exact configuration I need to have in order for SDM to run properly. You pretty much HAVE to install and use SDM if you plan on studying the CCNA: Security because most of the configuration you're going to do is based off of it. Today I was able to install AAA via SDM and some CLI which went fairly smooth. I had to setup AAA to user the routers AAA local user and password info since I don't have a RADIUS or TACACS server setup. This is good information though because we have a ACS server in our environment that uses AAA but only the older Cisco equipment is setup to use it as neither my colleague or myself are experienced in using it. We plan on beefing up and standardizing our network in the near future but we're just swamped with preparing for some very big network upgrades.

Role-Based CLI Configuration

I spent sometime this morning playing around with different roles you can assign, similar to the privileged levels that you can assign for specific users in the IOS. I created a role called "simple" that only allowed for looking at the running configuration on the router and that's it. the show parser view shows what role/view you're in. The default "root" view is the only view that allows you to create other views...it's like a riddle I know but it makes sense once you play around with it.

I also learned how you can help prevent DoS attacks on the IOS itself. You can limit the amount of times someone can try to access a Cisco device within a certain time period. If someone attempts to login unsuccessfully within a certain amount of time, the IOS can block out any further attempts within a specified time period. As shown in the picture above, this command is called the login block-for and login quiet-mode.

Risk Management

Today I read through more of chapter 1, it's one of the longest chapters I've ever read through in an IT book. I'm on page 91 with at least 10-20 more pages to go. I read up about basic risk management and the ways that you can analysis risk within a business. It's all about weighing the benefits between cost and security along with some guess work about if the risk will ever happen i.e. a tsunami hitting the middle of Missouri. I hope to have the rest of the chapter knocked out by tomorrow or Wednesday.

System Design Life Cycle

This weekend I read through a good portion of Chapter 1 in the Cisco IINS book regarding the System Design Life Cycle (SDLC) and how to create a security policy. I played around with a low-level network scanner tool called Nmap. It's pretty cool, it can scan various things in your network such as UDP/TCP ports and can even graph a simple network topology out of it! I also played around with Cisco's security policy creator template which creates a ready to go security policy with pretty much everything you need. Starting this week I'm going to begin really digging into my studies work and weather permitting. I'm honestly not sure if I'll sit this exam but i do want to up my knowledge on security, even if it's just general knowledge.