Author: Bob Lin

Q: Our Cisco 2960-XR comes with 2 fixed 10 Gigabit Ethernet SFP+ uplinks. Can we purchase SFP ports to connect to out server with 10GB NIC? 

I search online and someone says: “The uplink port on the switch is usually a higher-speed port used to connect smaller local network to a larger network or connect to another higher-speed switches in the topology”.  My question is if we can use the SFP+ uplink ports as normal ports to connect our new server.

A: If both server and switch NIC are SFP, that will work. However, adding 10GB NIC on server isn’t benefits for the serve. 10GB is more benefits for SAN or accessing data storage.

if server not support SFP based NIC card, only option for you 1G X 2qty port  – Port-channel  2GB you can do.

If the uplink ports on the 2960-XR series switches are fixed, meaning if they are SFP+, they only support 10Gig optics and not 1Gig optics.

Make sure you enable QoS on those ports — because you will really, really need it.

1. With the Outlook open, Click File

2. In Account Information page, click Change under Account Settings

Note: If you don’t see the profile image and don’t have Change option,click Account Settings. You will see Change Profile option under Account Settings.

3. The Outlook will link to https://outlook.office365.com OWA page. If it prompts for the credentials, please enter your email address and domain password to login.

4. Click Upload photo under the current image. Then browse to the image.

5. Click Save.

6. Now, you should see the company logo under My account.

1. Configure Storage Sense or run it: In windows 10, click Settings>System>Storage. If it is off, turn it on.

2. Manage Storage spaces: In Settings>System>Storage, you have an option to manage Storage space.

3. Run Disk Cleanup. Type cleanup in search bar and run it.

4. Delete Personal files  or move them to different drive:

• Open File Explorer.

• Under This PC in the menu on the left, check these folders: Videos, Music, Pictures, and Downloads.

To see the size of the files in a folder, select View > Details. Right-click in the open space and then select Sort by > Size to show the largest files at the top of the list.

• If there are files you no longer need on your device, you can either delete them or move them to an external storage device like a USB drive or an SD card.

5. Uninstall apps you don’t use anymore: Open the Start  menu and select Settings  > Apps > Apps & features. Highlight the program and click on uninstall.

6. Move files to another drive

• Connect your removable media to your device.
• Open File Explorer from the taskbar and find the files you want to move.
• Select the files, go to the Home tab, and then select Move to > Choose location.
• Select your removable media from the location list, and then select Move.

Please view this step by step video:

With Microsoft teams, we can chat, meet,  call, collaborate, video conferencing, screen sharing, file sharing, and more. There are many ways to share your computer screen with Teams. This article will show you how to share screen with external people.

1. With the Teams open, click on Calendar.

2. Click on New meeting.

3. In the New meeting window, enter the info such as Title,  attendees, date, time and message. You also have options to repeat, add channel, location. Then click Send.

4. Now, the meeting should display in your calendar. Click Join to start the meeting.

5. Attendees will receive meeting email. Click Join Microsoft Teams Meeting to process.  

6. In the meeting room, you have options to modify video, audio, add a room. If you click setting icon, you will have more settings. now, click on Join.

7. Now, you should have a screen showing Waiting for other to join.

8. As Attendees, you click Join Microsoft Teams Meeting from the email received, you may have 3 options:

• Download the windows app

• Continue on this browser

• Open your Teams app

9. After you open Teams, you have options to enter your name, setup video/audio, and other settings. Click Join Now to join the meeting.

10. You will have message: We’ve let people in the meeting know you’re waiting.

11. On the owner computer, you click on Admit to allow the people to get in.

12. To share the screen, click on share Tray icon.

13. Select the screen you want to share and click Screenshare.

14. You also have options to share entire screen, Application window, Chrome tab. Click Share when you are ready.

15. Now, you should be able to see the shared screen.

16. Give control or request control, move the mouse to the top, click Give control username. Now, you are controlling the remote computer.

17. To stop sharing, click on Stop processing. 

Please view this step by step viedo:

Situation: The client configures dual site to site VPN connecting to AWS using two ISPs, AT&T and Comcast. They configure both Active-active load balance and failover. They would like to know how to switch between Balance and Failover.

Resolution: assuming both configuration are correct and they are using Active-active balance, you just need to check Fail Over under Monitor Profile by going to Network>Network Profile>Monitor.

Commit to save the change.

Q: We configure dual site to site VPN connecting to AWS using two ISPs, AT&T and Comcast. This is Active-Active load balance Tunnels. How can I test to make they are working?

A: You may have many options.

1. Use Paloalto firewall command: ping source IP host IP. For example if the AT&T local IP is 12x.x.130 and AWS private host IP is 10.2.2.35, run this command: ping source 12x.x.130 host 10.2.2.35. If the comcast local IP is 50.x.x.125, run this command ping source 50.x.x.125 host 10.2.2.35
2. You can disable one tunnel for testing another tunnel. Go to Network>IPSec Tunnel. Highlight one of tunnel, for example AT&T to AWS tunnel 1.

Click Disable. Click Yes to confirm disable the tunnel.

Commit to save the change.

Ping the AWS private IP address, 10.2.2.35. If it works, you are connecting the AWS using the different tunnel.

1. show routing route

For example

2. ping source IP host IP

3. traceroute host IP

4. test routing fib-lookup IP

blin@HSA-Firewall> test routing fib-lookup virtual-router default ip 10.2.2.36

runtime route lookup

virtual-router: default
destination: 10.2.2.36
result:
via 12.x.x.129 interface ethernet1/1, source 12.1x.x.130, metric 10

runtime route lookup

virtual-router: Test
destination: 10.2.2.36
result:
via 50.x.x.126 interface tunnel.100, source 169.x.x.250, metric 10

5. test vpn ipsec-sa

blin@HSA-Firewall> test vpn ipsec-sa

• tunnel test for given VPN tunnel
  | Pipe through a command
  Finish input

blin@HSA-Firewall> test vpn ipsec-sa tunnel
ADP-Tunnel:net1 ADP-Tunnel:net1
Azure-Tunnel Azure-Tunnel
Comcast Comcast
Home-VPN Home-VPN
ipsec-tunnel-1 ipsec-tunnel-1
ipsec-tunnel-2 ipsec-tunnel-2
test for given VPN tunnel

blin@HSA-Firewall> test vpn ipsec-sa tunnel Comcast

Start time: Sep.25 19:03:48
Initiate 1 IPSec SA for tunnel Comcast.

Q: Is there a way to add Public Calendar into Favorites? I try it but the public Calendar doesn’t show up in the top of Favorites.

A: If you right click on the Public Calendar, you do have an option to add the Public Calendar ton the Favorites. However, it will show up in Public Folder Favorites, not the top Favorites which is Mail favorites.

You may drop the Public Calendar to the calendar if that will be easy for you to navigate.

The client has two ISP, AT&T and Comcast. They would like to configure fialover site to site VPN connecting to AWS. This article will show you how to configure dual IPSec VPN failover using Tunnel Monitoring on Paloalto Firewall.

The configuration is based on this topology.

1. Make sure you have Tunnels configured. Please refer another video for IPSec Tunnel Configuration.

* Login Paloalto firewall and go to Network > Interface > Tunnel 

* Network > IPSec Tunnels

2. There are two ways to do VPN tunnel traffic automatic failover:

1) Failover using Tunnel Monitoring – is used to make sure the VPN tunnel is passing traffic. If the primary VPN tunnel (1) in our example) goes down or if there are traffic issues over the VPN, the tunnel monitoring will detect it and will bring the primary tunnel interface down. Thus the route through the Primary tunnel interface tunnel 1 will be removed from the Forwarding table and the route through the Secondary Tunnel interface tunnel 100 will take over.

* To configure a Monitoring Profile.

Network > Network Profiles > Monitor > Add

Make sure “Fail Over” Option is selected.

* To enable Tunnel Monitor on the IPSec Tunnels

Network > IPSec Tunnels > Primary-Tunnel (1), make sure Enable is checked for Tunnel Monitor.

Configure the destination IP to be monitored and select the configured Monitor Profile “tunnelMonitor”. Note: if you don’t see Tunnel Monitor, click on “Show Advanced Options”.

Repeat above to configure the destination IP to be monitored and select the configured Monitor Profile “tunnelMonitor“ on Secondary Tunnel 100.

Note : For Tunnel monitoring to work the Tunnel Interface will have to be configured with an IP address. 
Once the Primary Tunnel monitoring on the Primary tunnel fails, the tunnel interface status is forced to Down.
Network > IPSec Tunnels.

Once the Traffic through the Primary Tunnel recovers, the tunnel monitoring will come up and the route through tunnel.1 will be installed in the Forwarding table.

Once the Tunnel monitor is goes DOWN or UP the below logs can be seen under System logsMonitor > Logs > System

2) For configuring Failover using Static Route Path monitoring, please view another article.

Please view this step by step video:

After following this article

• How to backup and restore WeChat on a computer

You may wonder where the backup file located?

It is located in C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Packages\tencent….. as shown below screen screenshot.