01
General
NOC Thoughts, Rewired
A look at the rebuilt NOC Thoughts website, what survived the migration, and how to navigate the new signal.
COMPLETE TRANSMISSION INDEX
Signal archive
53 field notes spanning unified communications, automation, infrastructure, Linux, and the incidents between.
02
PowerShell
RUCKUS SmartZone Backup Retriever
Because Of Course Backups Got Weird There are some tasks that sound simple until they run head first into the real world. SmartZone backups are one of those things. The normal answer is something along the lines of…
03
General
NixOS & My Configs
Well Hello There! Howdy! Been a while, hasn't it? While you've been off, I don't know, working, living life, struggling to keep up with the verbiage anyone "younger than you" uses, binging Baldur's Gate 3... where was…
04
General
Hyprland - NOCThoughts Dotfiles
A Closer Look At My Dotfiles As a Unix based system user, I understand the crucial role that dotfiles play in shaping our system environment.
05
General
Automating mRemoteNG - PuTTY Session Creation
Automating mRemoteNG and PuTTY Session Creation: A Comprehensive Overview In the information technology landscape, efficiency is not just a preference—it's a requirement.
06
Linux
Linux - Automating SSL Cert Trust Install
Automating Certificate Chain Import and Trust with a Bash Script In an increasingly interconnected world, the importance of secure communication cannot be overstated.
07
Linux
Modding Fallout 4 on Linux
And Now For Something A Little Different Hey there! A little off topic to most that visit that blog, normally I'm prattling on about Cisco Unified Communications! Not today...
08
Linux
Virt-Manager, Firewalld, & Missing libvirt Zone
What Are We Doing Here Well, that's a good question. As part of a "30 day challenge" that may just end up being permanent, I've challenged myself to switch my daily driver PC from Windows 11 to Linux.
09
Cisco
CCNP Collab CLCOR Post Mortem
Recertified, Again! Well, I managed to pass the CCNP Collab CLCOR exam to refresh the expiry date on my Cisco certifications.
10
Cisco
Cisco UCCX Health Checks
𝄞 This Is How We Do It 𝄞 And here it is, my list of commands and checks that I run against Cisco Unified Contact Center Express (UCCX) servers for most changes that take place. It's useful output to collect prior to…
11
VMWare
VMWare ESXi Toolkit Script
Trying Something New In The New Year Well... 2023 is here and with it a rush to ban ChatGPT from being used in academia, MidJourney causing controversy with its use in creating AI generated artwork for a Children's book…
12
Cisco
Cisco UCSyslogParser Script
The Nail That Stands Out Gets Hammered Down If you're an administrator for a Cisco Unified Communications Manager (UCM) server, you know how important it is to keep track of syslog messages. Syslogs can provide valuable…
13
Cisco
Cisco CVE-2022-20968 Validation
A Little Background Cisco has published a PSIRT/Security Advisory for CVE 2022 20968 relating to a Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) Stack Overflow Vulnerability affecting the Cisco 78XX and 88XX series IP Phones.
14
Cisco
Health Checks - VCS/Expressway
𝄞 This Is How We Do It 𝄞 And here it is, my list of commands and checks that I run against Cisco VCS C/E & Expressway C/E servers for most changes that take place. It's useful output to collect prior to changing…
15
SQL
Voice Mail Profile SQL Queries
Another Audit Using SQL This one's been on the backburner for a bit considering the audit where my queries were developed was fulfilled in late 2011... but hey, better late than never, right?
16
Unified Communications
Automating Memory Checks for Cisco VCS
Gotta Do It With Faster... With No Hands As a follow up to my prior post Verifying Memory Usage on VCS using Python, I’d like to spotlight some changes that were made to the script on GitHub.
17
Unified Communications
Verifying Memory Usage on Cisco VCS
Gotta Do It Faster Today I had the same question that many, many people have had throughout history: “How do I do this particular thing better, or faster?” or, in the IT space, how do I automate this? What is this…
18
SQL
Verify Trace Levels using SQL on Cisco UC
Elevated Traces are Risky Hey there! I bet you’ve got experience troubleshooting issues in a UC VOS device, like CallManager, UCCX, CER or otherwise… and you’ve likely had to increase trace levels to Detailed because of…
19
Cisco
Calculating VMEM Usage on Cisco UC
This Process Is Burned Into My Mind So if you’re here you’re likely aware that there are multiple ways that we can review system resource utilization on a Cisco UC VOS appliance — we’ll use Cisco Unified Communications…
20
Cisco
Check Phone and SIP Trunk using ZEEP
Let's Try Out ZEEP As I probe different ways to pull information from Cisco Unified Communications Manager I often run across other modules that I can try in the future. My last attempts at pulling phone registration…
21
VMWare
VMWare ESXi Boot Device Discovery
We Need To Know Where It Boots From Oh how I love ISV1 SmartNET contracts. Provided that we have an ISV1 contract available we’re able to contact Cisco TAC to assist in VMWare ESXi Hypervisor issues.
22
Cisco
Health Checks - CUCM - CallManager
𝄞 This Is How We Do It 𝄞 And here it is, my list of commands and checks that I run against CUCM nodes (7.x 12.x) for most changes that take place. It's useful output to collect prior to changing configurations like…
23
Cisco
Health Checks - IMP/CUPS - IM & Presence
𝄞 This Is How We Do It 𝄞 And here it is, my list of commands and checks that I run against IM & Presence nodes for most changes that take place. It's useful output to collect prior to changing configurations like…
24
Cisco
Checking Device Registration Using Python
When You Really Want To Use Python Hey! You there! Yes, you! Are you sick of only checking Cisco Phone registration in Cisco Unified Communications Manager through the GUI, having to take the time to log in, wait for…
25
Python
Building a Toolbelt for UC w/ Python
Like Batman's Belt, But Not As Cool In my last post I share a script that I created with the help and guidance of some current and former colleagues. It used BeautifulSoup and regular expression to parse html code and…
26
Python
Using BS4 To Parse Cisco Phone WebGUI
When You Just Want Some BeautifulSoup I want to start this blog post off by prefacing the below script I'm providing by stating that I am not formally trained, nor have I studied at length Python or coding in general. I…
27
SQL
Jabber Video Calling SQL Query
We Need To Know If Video Calling Is Enabled Another day, another query. This time the request was not up for interpretation in terms of 'Can you pull this kind of data from CUCM?' where I can take a look at what might…
28
Cisco Unified Contact Center
Call Drops On Agent Delivery
Some Context and Story This one's a bit of a mess, and I'll provide some context that I did not have the benefit of knowing going into it. The issue was reported as "Calling XXX XXX XXXX and pressing Option 2 for French…
29
Unified Communications
Who has Jabber? Where are they?
Who Is Your Father And What Does He Do? The requests just keep coming... and always for a slightly different set of information requiring the combination of multiple SQL queries or the development of a new one if I…
30
Unified Communications
Updating Primary Extensions The Fun Way
How to Update Primary Extensions the Fun Way Today's post covers a workaround turned update method for the 'Primary Extension' field in CUCM's End User Page. We were asked to build out a new DN and assign it to the user…
31
Unified Communications
Bulk Accept and Relay Config Update SQL
Update I've been refreshed by my colleague Mark on the importance of querying for the tables I need, the db structure, and understanding table naming (tbl globaluser [editable] vs vw globaluser [viewable]). After a bit…
32
Unified Communications
CCM Synced End Users -- And How To Delete Them
When You Delete The Parent Before The Child With Cisco's Unified Communications Manager and Unity Connection products we have a few options when it comes to user accounts for both Endpoint/Permissions management, and…
33
Unified Communications
Windows NTP Is Not Supported In Cisco UC
Windows NTP Is A No Go So as we all know as part of the UC VOS Deployments, NTP Servers are one element that needs to be configured during install time... and occasionally needs to be updated as things change on the…
34
Cisco
Health Checks - CUC - Unity Connection
𝄞 This Is How We Do It 𝄞 Now for the third technology on my list, Cisco Unity Connection. And for this I've provided the list of commands and checks that I run against CUC nodes (7.x 12.x) for most changes that take…
35
Unified Communications
Securing SCCP Media Resources in IOS
Gotta Secure Those Media Resources An interesting change I was involved in recently that was more of an oddity to me was setting up a CA in IOS, signing a certificate for Media Resources and registering it against a…
36
Unified Communications
Finding Orphaned Devices & Device Profiles
A New Query Approaches I have to admit, I haven't been doing much SQL work lately as... due to the holidays and other factors... it's been pretty quiet. The occasional phone firmware upgrade here, troubleshooting call…
37
VMWare
Importance of Documentation - ESXi to VM
Preface Now, if you're in an environment where you have access to vCenter, or, you have a small deployment in which you only have two ESXi hosts with a Primary and Secondary/DR site, this likely isn't going to help you.…
38
Cisco
Call Block or IOS/XE on SIP/H.323
Gotta Block Those Calls, Man A common request that we get is to perform call blocking. It's usually due to an irate customer, irate former employee, or general solicitations. By now our clients have call blocking…
39
VMWare
Making ISOs Bootable for Lab Use
For When You Just Need It To Boot So once again it's lab season as I'll be re certifying in the CCNP Collaboration exam, as I don't want to lose my CCNP Data Center/Collab and my CCNA Route/Switch and Wireless…
40
VMWare
VMWare ESXi & VCSA Lab Setup
Time To Set Up A Lab Here we go. Setting up a home lab for vCSA, ESXi and Windows Server for DNS. This is the guide I created, and steps I followed to get the very beginnings of my home lab set up. This won't work for…
41
VMWare
UC & UCC Best Practice - LRO and IR on ESXi
Let's Talk About Best Practices Over the past few years I've been involved fairly often (from the ESXi/UCS perspective) in troubleshooting issues with network latency/connectivity wherein only a single VM is impacted.…
42
Cisco
Basic Commands For ESXi on UCS
Let's talk about ESXi and UCS Every so often I need to perform a CIMC Firmware upgrade due to a bug, such as the infamous memory leak per bug CSCun88303, CSCus63934; noted under Field Notice FN63943...
43
Cisco
CDR Export to Billing Server Failing
Let's Talk Billing Servers Billing servers are used in UC environments to collect CDR/CMR data and display them (ideally in a much better fashion than CDR Analysis & Reporting), make them searchable and provide insights…
44
SQL
Dial Plan Dump using SQL
Context I get a lot of reporting requests. It could be for the Home Cluster enablement on a given (or all) End Users on UCM (we have a post for that!) or it could be for a dump of all the dialable numbers in the…
45
SQL
Mobile Agents, CTIOS, & Crashes
Today's Topic Mobile Agents using CTIOS and some crashes. So here's another "Priority 1" or "Sev 1" issue that I troubleshot last week, and oh boy, it was an interesting one.
46
SQL
Check Call Forward Configs Using SQL
How to Check CFWD Configs using SQL Faster There's an SQL query I run against CUCM Pub in instances where a user has call forward enabled and I have a suspicion this is causing the problem, but I don't always want to…
47
Unified Communications
Detecting a Dial Plan Overlap
User Report & Context All users at Site A is experiencing issues making calls from Site A (Santarem) in Brazil to Site B when calling from Cisco IP Phone. When calling from Cisco Jabber the call works fine.
48
Cisco
Health Checks - CUBE/VGW - IOS/XE
𝄞 This Is How We Do It 𝄞 As mentioned on the blog, I work for a Managed Services Provider. As such I am not a prototypical System Admin that knows a particular environment in and out, backwards and sideways. Often…
49
Cisco
And Boom Goes The Storage Controller
The Story Begins Story time. It's a wonderful day in early April. The birds are singing, Spring is upon us. We had a lovely drive in to work, it was an easy morning. We break for lunch and have some pizza delivered to…
50
Unified Communications
VCS/Expressway 8.7 & Old Host Keys
A Wild Permission Denied Has Appeared So here I am trying to access a VCS C/VCS E pair using SSH like I would for any other device any other day. I load up PuTTY and jump to a linux box (proxy) and attempt to SSH to the…
51
Unified Communications
Identifying Static Phone Loads With SQL
What Is Our Mission As part of the process of upgrading phones to new firmware I've formed a habit of verifying if there are any phones of the particular model (or models) that I'm upgrading that have a static phone…
52
Unified Communications
Pulling Device Defaults Like A Pro
What Is Our Mission To pull a list of device defaults (like the Device Device Defaults GUI page) to gather the device default firmware for a set of phones. In this case we are specifically pulling the device defaults…
53
Unified Communications
Home Cluster And Service Profile Check
What Is Our Mission Pull a list of users where Home Cluster (islocaluser) is Enabled (t) only. Do not display if the user does not have Home Cluster enabled (f). We also want to do the following: