Posts Tagged ‘IOS’

Exporting Mobile Configuration Profiles from Apple Configurator

Friday, January 9th, 2015

As I’ve secured my main Wi-Fi network with WPA2 Enterprise, my Apple Airport devices are pointed at a RADIUS server, which in turn is pointed at an LDAP directory which contains the user details. The LDAP directory does not store the password in the clear which means that authentication methods like CHAP, MSCHAP and MSCHAPv2 don’t work as they require the original password. I need to use EAP-TTLS with PAP authentication however iOS and OS X clients will not attempt this method by default.

It’s theoretically easy to make iOS and OS X clients use this method, you simply install a Mobile Configuration Profile (a file with a .mobileconfig extension) which amongst other things instructs the client how to connect to a given Wi-Fi network. The tricky part is generating this file if you maybe don’t have access to an OS X Server. Apple originally provided the iPhone Configuration Utility (iPCU) which has been deprecated in favour of the Apple Configurator utility. This works fine for iOS devices that you can attach directly by USB but sometimes you might want to transfer a profile to someone via e-mail or install it on an OS X client. It’s not obvious how to export a profile from the tool, but there is a way.

When you open Apple Configurator it looks like this:

ac1

If you enable Supervision the Profiles section changes to allow you to click + and create a new profile:

ac2

In my profile as a minimum I needed to import the root certificate of the authority used to sign the certificate on my RADIUS server. Then configure my Wi-Fi network with the SSID, Security Type, EAP Type of TTLS and then select PAP as the Inner Authentication. I also trusted the certificate I’d just imported which prevents iOS and OS X prompting you to trust it. By not setting the Username and Password this keeps the profile generic for any user. Then after saving the profile you can then export it:

ac3

This gives you the familiar .mobileconfig profile which can then be imported on any iOS or OS X client.

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Posted in Mac OS X | No Comments »

Elasticsearch clusters plugged into Cisco switches

Friday, May 31st, 2013

I was building up an Elasticsearch cluster as a storage backend for Logstash. Using the default Zen discovery method, I found that some of the nodes in the cluster could not automatically find each other.

Zen uses multicast to locate other nodes and by using tcpdump I could see that some nodes weren’t receiving the multicast traffic. This lead me straight to the network layer and I found the culprit; a Cisco Nexus 5000 switch.

Normally a switch often treats multicast traffic much like broadcast traffic, it floods the packet to every port on the same VLAN. However Cisco switches try to be clever and learn which ports are interested in receiving the traffic by listening for IGMP packets, (referred to as snooping), but IGMP is only sent if there’s a multicast router on the network, (note also I’m not trying to route multicast, all nodes are on the same VLAN).

The solution was to enable a feature on the Nexus known as an “IGMP querier”. What this does is mimic enough of a multicast router that nodes report which multicast groups they’re interested in receiving traffic for and the switch can then learn which ports to forward multicast traffic on.

On the Nexus 5000, I needed to add the following configuration: 

vlan configuration 1234
  ip igmp snooping querier 1.2.3.4

(If you have a Catalyst switch running IOS, the configuration should be very similar)

The VLAN should match whatever VLAN the nodes are attached to, and you can basically make up the IP address used here, the switch sends IGMP packets with it as the source, but it’s never used as the destination for packets, nodes use a specific multicast group instead.

As soon as I added this configuration my Elasticsearch cluster sprung into life.

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Posted in Networks | No Comments »

Using SNMP to upgrade IOS on Cisco devices

Friday, April 29th, 2011

Following on from my previous post regarding using SNMP to initiate TFTP backups, it’s also possible to use SNMP to remotely upgrade IOS on a Cisco device.

I’ll reuse and extend the setup and configuration from the previous article so apply that first. The IOS device then needs the following additions: 

router(config)#snmp-server view myview ciscoFlashOps included
router(config)#snmp-server view myview lts.9 included
router(config)#snmp-server system-shutdown

The first command grants SNMP write access to allow us to manipulate the flash storage in the device. The remaining commands allow us to trigger a reload/reboot of the device remotely via SNMP.

On our “management station” we’ll need a few more MIB files installing under ~/mibs or wherever you put them:

  • CISCO-FLASH-MIB
  • ENTITY-MIB
  • OLD-CISCO-TS-MIB

Update the $MIBS environment variables to include them, you’ll need something like the following: 

# export MIBS=+CISCO-CONFIG-COPY-MIB:CISCO-FLASH-MIB:OLD-CISCO-TS-MIB

Now, my devices don’t have enough flash storage to hold two IOS images so I normally have to delete the current version (which is loaded into memory, so it doesn’t affect the operation of the device) to free up space and then upload the new version, reload, and pray it works.

To find the filename of the current IOS image we can use the SNMP equivalent of dir flash:/: 

# snmptable -v 3 -l authPriv -a MD5 -A authsecret -x DES -X privsecret -u myuser -Cb -Ci -Cw 80 192.0.2.254 ciscoFlashFileTable
SNMP table: CISCO-FLASH-MIB::ciscoFlashFileTable
 
 index           Size     Checksum Status                                Name
 1.1.1      576 bytes        "0x0"  valid                                   /
 1.1.2 16459360 bytes "0xDEADBEEF"  valid c870-advsecurityk9-mz.124-15.T9.bin
 
SNMP table CISCO-FLASH-MIB::ciscoFlashFileTable, part 2
 
 index      Type Date
 1.1.1 directory    ?
 1.1.2   unknown    ?

The index is a composite of the flash device, partition and file, so 1.1.2 is the second file on the first partition of the first flash device. Unless you have multiple flash devices and/or partitions you can largely ignore these details, take a look at ciscoFlashDeviceTable & ciscoFlashPartitionTable if you want more information.

With the filename, we now need to construct a request to delete it. This sort of operation along with tasks such as erasing the flash, etc. uses the ciscoFlashMiscOpTable SNMP table. Using the same technique I demonstrated in the previous article insert a new row and activate it: 

# snmpset -v 3 -l authPriv -a MD5 -A authsecret -x DES -X privsecret -u myuser 192.0.2.254 \
ciscoFlashMiscOpCommand.23 i delete \
ciscoFlashMiscOpDestinationName.23 s c870-advsecurityk9-mz.124-15.T9.bin \
ciscoFlashMiscOpEntryStatus.23 i createAndGo
CISCO-FLASH-MIB::ciscoFlashMiscOpCommand.23 = INTEGER: delete(3)
CISCO-FLASH-MIB::ciscoFlashMiscOpDestinationName.23 = STRING: c870-advsecurityk9-mz.124-15.T9.bin
CISCO-FLASH-MIB::ciscoFlashMiscOpEntryStatus.23 = INTEGER: createAndGo(4)

Note that I’m using createAndGo instead of active for the row status because it’s part of the same initial set request. Now check the table to see if the operation was successful: 

# snmptable -v 3 -l authPriv -a MD5 -A authsecret -x DES -X privsecret -u myuser -Cb -Ci -Cw 80 192.0.2.254 ciscoFlashMiscOpTableSNMP table: CISCO-FLASH-MIB::ciscoFlashMiscOpTable
 
 index Command                     DestinationName                 Status
    23  delete c870-advsecurityk9-mz.124-15.T9.bin miscOpOperationSuccess
 
SNMP table CISCO-FLASH-MIB::ciscoFlashMiscOpTable, part 2
 
 index NotifyOnCompletion         Time EntryStatus
    23              false 0:0:00:56.24      active

It worked so checking the flash storage should confirm the file is now absent. Now we can upload the new IOS image, you’ll need to have it copied to /tftpboot on your TFTP server. This uses another SNMP table but the procedure is exactly the same, insert a row describing the operation we want to perform: 

# snmpset -v 3 -l authPriv -a MD5 -A authsecret -x DES -X privsecret -u myuser 192.0.2.254 \
ciscoFlashCopyCommand.23 i copyToFlashWithoutErase \
ciscoFlashCopyProtocol.23 i tftp \
ciscoFlashCopyServerAddress.23 a 192.0.2.1 \
ciscoFlashCopySourceName.23 s c870-advsecurityk9-mz.124-24.T4.bin \
ciscoFlashCopyEntryStatus.23 i createAndGo
CISCO-FLASH-MIB::ciscoFlashCopyCommand.23 = INTEGER: copyToFlashWithoutErase(2)
CISCO-FLASH-MIB::ciscoFlashCopyProtocol.23 = INTEGER: tftp(1)
CISCO-FLASH-MIB::ciscoFlashCopyServerAddress.23 = IpAddress: 192.0.2.1
CISCO-FLASH-MIB::ciscoFlashCopySourceName.23 = STRING: c870-advsecurityk9-mz.124-24.T4.bin
CISCO-FLASH-MIB::ciscoFlashCopyEntryStatus.23 = INTEGER: createAndGo(4)

Chances are this operation will take a minute or two to complete, keep checking ciscoFlashCopyTable until it completes: 

# snmptable -v 3 -l authPriv -a MD5 -A authsecret -x DES -X privsecret -u myuser -Cb -Ci -Cw 80 192.0.2.254 ciscoFlashCopyTable
SNMP table: CISCO-FLASH-MIB::ciscoFlashCopyTable
 
 index                 Command Protocol ServerAddress
    23 copyToFlashWithoutErase     tftp     192.0.2.1
 
SNMP table CISCO-FLASH-MIB::ciscoFlashCopyTable, part 2
 
 index                          SourceName DestinationName RemoteUserName
    23 c870-advsecurityk9-mz.124-24.T4.bin                               
 
SNMP table CISCO-FLASH-MIB::ciscoFlashCopyTable, part 3
 
 index               Status NotifyOnCompletion         Time EntryStatus Verify
    23 copyOperationSuccess              false 0:0:05:03.71      active  false
 
SNMP table CISCO-FLASH-MIB::ciscoFlashCopyTable, part 4
 
 index ServerAddrType ServerAddrRev1 RemotePassword
    23           ipv4    "192.0.2.1"              ?

With the new image uploaded it’s time for the coup de grâce, reloading the device: 

# snmpset -v 3 -l authPriv -a MD5 -A authsecret -x DES -X privsecret -u myuser 192.0.2.254 \
tsMsgSend.0 i reload
OLD-CISCO-TS-MIB::tsMsgSend.0 = INTEGER: reload(2)

Your device should now reboot and after a short while come back up running the updated IOS image. You can confirm the source of the reboot request with the following: 

router#show version | i reason
Last reload reason: snmp shutdown request

Powerful stuff. Needless to say, don’t make this accessible to the world with an SNMPv2 community of “private”.

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Posted in Networks | 1 Comment »

Using SNMP to trigger Cisco TFTP backups

Sunday, April 24th, 2011

I recently discovered you can use SNMP to trigger a Cisco device to write its configuration to a remote TFTP server. Apparently this feature has existed in Cisco devices in one form or another for over a decade, but somehow I’d missed it completely. This seems a far better alternative to getting in a muddle with Expect-style scripts to telnet or SSH into the device. One or more Access Control Lists can also be utilised to restrict access.

First of all, let’s configure the IOS device which will need to be running at least IOS 12.0. The first thing to do is create an Access Control List which matches the IP address of the “management station” which will be issuing the SNMP commands and for simplicities sake is also the TFTP server: 

router(config)#access-list 20 permit host 192.0.2.1
router(config)#access-list 20 deny any

Next we define an SNMP view that restricts how much of the tree is writable, allowing write access to everything is both unnecessary and inadvisable: 

router(config)#snmp-server view myview ccCopyTable included

Now we create an SNMP group that ties the ACL and view together: 

router(config)#snmp-server group mygroup v3 priv write myview access 20

Note that I’ve specified SNMPv3 along with the authPriv security level, not all devices support that so adjust accordingly. I’ve also not specified a read view so it will use the default v1default view which can read pretty much everything. Next create a new user as a member of this group: 

router(config)#snmp-server user myuser mygroup v3 auth md5 authsecret priv des privsecret

Finally, restrict which TFTP servers can be written to, triggered by SNMP. This stops someone from making your device write files to an arbitrary TFTP server somewhere: 

router(config)#snmp-server tftp-server-list 20

That should be all of the configuration needed for the Cisco device.

Now on our “management station” which can be anything provided it has a recent version of Net-SNMP installed, (CentOS 5.x works fine), first make sure TFTP is installed and running. Normally the TFTP server cannot create new files so create an empty file ready: 

# touch /tftpboot/router.conf

Now install the various MIB files we’ll need. You don’t need these but for the sake of readability it’s easier to use the symbolic names rather than raw OID strings. You’ll need to download the following MIB files:

  • CISCO-CONFIG-COPY-MIB
  • CISCO-SMI
  • CISCO-ST-TC

Put them in a directory such as ~/mibs and then configure Net-SNMP with the following two environment variables: 

# export MIBDIRS=+${HOME}/mibs
# export MIBS=+CISCO-CONFIG-COPY-MIB

You should be able to test that everything is configured correctly: 

# snmptable -v 3 -l authPriv -a MD5 -A authsecret -x DES -X privsecret -u myuser 192.0.2.254 ccCopyTable
CISCO-CONFIG-COPY-MIB::ccCopyTable: No entries

Now we need to create a row in this table describing the copy operation we’d like to perform. Without getting too heavy into how SNMP tables work, we basically need to use a unique index number to refer to the row. As we’ve already shown, the table is empty so pick any random number, umm, 23! Create a new row with the following column values: 

# snmpset -v 3 -l authPriv -a MD5 -A authsecret -x DES -X privsecret -u myuser 192.0.2.254 \
> ccCopyProtocol.23 i tftp \
> ccCopySourceFileType.23 i runningConfig \
> ccCopyDestFileType.23 i networkFile \
> ccCopyServerAddress.23 a 192.0.2.1 \
> ccCopyFileName.23 s router.conf
CISCO-CONFIG-COPY-MIB::ccCopyProtocol.23 = INTEGER: tftp(1)
CISCO-CONFIG-COPY-MIB::ccCopySourceFileType.23 = INTEGER: runningConfig(4)
CISCO-CONFIG-COPY-MIB::ccCopyDestFileType.23 = INTEGER: networkFile(1)
CISCO-CONFIG-COPY-MIB::ccCopyServerAddress.23 = IpAddress: 192.0.2.1
CISCO-CONFIG-COPY-MIB::ccCopyFileName.23 = STRING: router.conf

Now if you re-run the snmptable command (with some extra flagsoup to help readability) you’ll see there’s now a row: 

# snmptable -v 3 -l authPriv -a MD5 -A authsecret -x DES -X privsecret -u myuser -Cb -Ci -Cw 80 192.0.2.254 ccCopyTable
SNMP table: CISCO-CONFIG-COPY-MIB::ccCopyTable
 
 index Protocol SourceFileType DestFileType ServerAddress    FileName UserName
    23     tftp  runningConfig  networkFile     192.0.2.1 router.conf        ?
 
SNMP table CISCO-CONFIG-COPY-MIB::ccCopyTable, part 2
 
 index UserPassword NotificationOnCompletion State TimeStarted TimeCompleted
    23            ?                    false     ?           ?             ?
 
SNMP table CISCO-CONFIG-COPY-MIB::ccCopyTable, part 3
 
 index FailCause EntryRowStatus ServerAddressType ServerAddressRev1
    23         ?              ?              ipv4       "192.0.2.1"

This won’t initiate the operation until we set one more column to activate the table row: 

# snmpset -v 3 -l authPriv -a MD5 -A authsecret -x DES -X privsecret -u myuser 192.0.2.254 \
> ccCopyEntryRowStatus.23 i active
CISCO-CONFIG-COPY-MIB::ccCopyEntryRowStatus.23 = INTEGER: active(1)

Now check the table again: 

# snmptable -v 3 -l authPriv -a MD5 -A authsecret -x DES -X authsecret -u myuser -Cb -Ci -Cw 80 192.0.2.254 ccCopyTable
SNMP table: CISCO-CONFIG-COPY-MIB::ccCopyTable
 
 index Protocol SourceFileType DestFileType ServerAddress    FileName UserName
    23     tftp  runningConfig  networkFile     192.0.2.1 router.conf        ?
 
SNMP table CISCO-CONFIG-COPY-MIB::ccCopyTable, part 2
 
 index UserPassword NotificationOnCompletion      State  TimeStarted
    23            ?                    false successful 5:0:20:49.92
 
SNMP table CISCO-CONFIG-COPY-MIB::ccCopyTable, part 3
 
 index TimeCompleted FailCause EntryRowStatus ServerAddressType
    23  5:0:20:51.39         ?         active              ipv4
 
SNMP table CISCO-CONFIG-COPY-MIB::ccCopyTable, part 4
 
 index ServerAddressRev1
    23       "192.0.2.1"

You can see the state column now reads successful so check the empty file you created under /tftpboot, it should now have the contents of the current configuration for your device.

The row in the table will be automatically removed after a few minutes but you can also explicitly remove it: 

# snmpset -v 3 -l authPriv -a MD5 -A authsecret -x DES -X privsecret -u myuser 192.0.2.254 \
> ccCopyEntryRowStatus.23 i destroy
CISCO-CONFIG-COPY-MIB::ccCopyEntryRowStatus.23 = INTEGER: destroy(6)
# snmptable -v 3 -l authPriv -a MD5 -A authsecret -x DES -X privsecret -u myuser 192.0.2.254 ccCopyTable
CISCO-CONFIG-COPY-MIB::ccCopyTable: No entries

There’s still a fair bit of functionality that I’ve skipped over, you might be able to use something other than TFTP or generate an SNMP trap on completion. Experiment with changing the Access Control Lists and stopping the TFTP server to see how the table output changes.

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Posted in Networks | 2 Comments »