Contents:

1) Campus Traffic Stats
2) IRIS Update
3) Cisco 4006 Switch News
4) Windows Networking Class
5) Web Caching by CacheFlow
6) Mac OS9 Performance Issues
7) HP Switch Name Change
8) NAS Homepage Update

1. Campus Traffic Stats

Campus Traffic Stats can be accessed at the URL http://www-commeng.cso.uiuc.edu/stats/traffic/. This site gives some useful aggregate information about the network activity on various campus nets. Accessing the Off Campus Traffic webpage at http://gush.cso.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/traffic.cgi will display Internet traffic stats for the machine your web browser is on, and the campus totals.

2. IRIS Update

The latest release of IRIS, version 3.3 is now available at:
   https://www-s1.cso.uiuc.edu/iris/
The updated user reference guide, consistent with version 3.3, is also available online at:
   http://www-commeng.cso.uiuc.edu/nas/iris/IRISreference.html
The guide contains information on the various features, and limitations of IRIS, and a link to Contact Manager.

3. Cisco 4006 Switch News

Most of the problems with the Cisco 4006 switches are definitely software-related. A number of bugs have been fixed in later releases that most switches are running. The minimum version we want to be running now is 5-5-6. Please be sure you upgrade any switches you get before you install them. There are some big security issues with earlier releases. CCSO staff are working on upgrading all of the switches out in buildings that are sw- switches, but non sw- switches should also be done, typically by their net admins, with help from NAS if needed.

For campus use, this can be found via on cub (130.126.113.5) in /cat4000/cat4000.5-5-6.bin
tftp on cub should be readable for any system in 128.174 or 130.126 if you encounter problems with it, please let NAS (admin-help@uiuc.edu) know, or e-mail net-trouble@uiuc.edu.

Note: The release notes are available on the cisco web site if you want to read them for yourself.

Any 4006 os except 5-5-5 and 5-5-6 can be upgraded with this command:
download 128.174.81.9 /cat4000/cat4000.5-5-6.bin 1
and answer "y" [change address to cub's if needed]
It will NOT reboot when it's done downloading the code, so you can do this at any time and schedule to login later to do a restart. It will not take effect until the switch has been rebooted.

For 5-5-5 or greater (but not the 6.1.x releases, which also use "download") you need to use "copy tftp flash" and set the boot variable when you're done.
Here's an example:

Step 1: Downloading the code
sw-fr2> (enable) copy tftp flash
IP address or name of remote host [128.174.5.41]? 128.174.81.9
Name of file to copy from []? /cat4000/cat4000.5-5-6.bin
Flash device [bootflash]?
Name of file to copy to [cat4000.5-5-6.bin]?
12084400 bytes available on device bootflash, proceed (y/n) [n]? y
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
File has been copied successfully.

Step 2: setting the boot variable:
sw-fr2> (enable) sho boot
BOOT variable = bootflash:cat4000.5-5-5.bin,1;bootflash:cat4000.5-4-3.bin,1;bootflash:cat4000.5-4-2.bin,1; CONFIG_FILE variable =
Configuration register is 0x2
ignore-config: disabled
auto-config: non-recurring
console baud: 9600
boot: image specified by the boot system commands
sw-fr2> (enable) set boot system flash bootflash:cat4000.5-5-6.bin prepend
BOOT variable =
bootflash:cat4000.5-5-6.bin,1;bootflash:cat4000.5-5-5.bin,1;bootflash:cat4000.5-4-3.bin,1;bootflash:cat4000.5-4-2.bin,1;
sw-fr2> (enable) sho flash
- -#- ED --type-- --crc--- -seek-- nlen -length- -----date/time------ name
1 .. ffffffff 266566f2 3b9ad0 17 3643984 Feb 08 2001 07:53:59
cat4000.5-5-5.bin
2 .. ffffffff 5434c325 733fcc 17 3646588 Feb 13 2001 21:11:03
cat4000.5-5-6.bin
8437812 bytes available (7290828 bytes used)
sw-fr2> (enable) clear boot system flash bootflash:cat4000.5-4-3.bin
BOOT variable =
bootflash:cat4000.5-5-6.bin,1;bootflash:cat4000.5-5-5.bin,1;bootflash:cat4000.5-4-2.bin,1;
sw-fr2> (enable) clear boot system flash bootflash:cat4000.5-4-2.bin
BOOT variable = bootflash:cat4000.5-5-6.bin,1;bootflash:cat4000.5-5-5.bin,1;
sw-fr2> (enable) sho flash
- -#- ED --type-- --crc--- -seek-- nlen -length- -----date/time------ name
1 .. ffffffff 266566f2 3b9ad0 17 3643984 Feb 08 2001 07:53:59
cat4000.5-5-5.bin
2 .. ffffffff 5434c325 733fcc 17 3646588 Feb 13 2001 21:11:03
cat4000.5-5-6.bin
8437812 bytes available (7290828 bytes used)
sw-fr2> (enable) q
- --

4. Windows Networking Class on April 13th, in 1330 DCL

The second NAS training session for Spring 2001, will cover Windows Networking. The class will be held in room 1330 DCL, on Friday, April 13th, from 2:00pm to 5:00pm.

5. Web Caching by CacheFlow

Web caching is now available to all uiuc networks. Details on the CacheFlow web caching appliance can be found at http://www.cacheflow.com/technology/whitepapers/proxy.cfm. On a typical day 60% of the webpages accessed are previously cached pages, and 40% of the bytes of data transfered are from the cache. Web caching would thus improve browsing speeds, for 60% of the pages accessed, by approximately tenfold, allowing access to cached webpages within 170ms to 300ms versus 190ms to 2700ms for non-cached pages. NetAdmins may request web caching for their network, or subnets on their network, by e-mailing net-trouble@uiuc.edu

6. Mac OS9 Perfomance Issues

A performance issue related to the use of IP multicast with Mac OS9 caused unduly high traffic over several campus networks. Multicast IP was disabled in few department routers (Chem Sci, Life Sci, Housing Lab) and browsing from within the 'Network Browser' tool was limited to local networks.

7. HP Switch Name Change

All the HP swithes managed by CCSO on campus had their names changed from sn- which denoted that it was not automatically configuration checked, to sw- which denotes auto config checked. Due to a bug in IRIS, which has been fixed now, the change in switch names caused a large number of switches to appear missing in IRIS on March 8th and 9th.

8. NAS Homepage Update

The NAS Homepage has been updated. The new page features quick links to a few of the popular administrative tools used by Network Administrators. The NAS homepage can be accessed (as always) at http://www.uiuc.edu/ph/www/admin-help