10 days to go - alias: If I fail, I am blaming Bethesda

I am nearly into the single-digit countdown towards the five-digit number I am working hard to gain.

I say working hard, more like trying to work hard. Speed is improving, short-cuts are being learned, and the number of stupid errors I am making is reducing. So, in many ways, its looking promising.
However, yesterday I downloaded Fallout Shelter onto my iPhone, and ended up losing an entire evening.

It's good to have something to take away the monotony of study, to give yourself a break every now and then, but really, I shouldn't have picked such an immersive game.

I love the Fallout games, so was keen to have a play with this, but that was Sunday night gone. No study, no reading through notes, no practice, I just played. In a way it was nice though, as it took my mind off of the study and gave my brain a rest.

However, it's all about dedication and self-control. These next few days are critical, and I need to be dedicated if I am to pass the CCIE lab.

So, here is my goal(s) for the next few days - lab and work on my aliases.
Since spending more time labbing (predominantly Cisco 360), I have seen that I do use the same commands over and over again. It makes sense, therefore that I make these commands as easy as possible.

This is where the alias command comes in to play. Whilst I don't think that walking in to the lab with a long (mental)list of alias commands to write is sensible (after all who wants to spend more time writing a fantastic list of all the possible aliases that you could need, at the expense of the short time limits imposed by the exam), having one or two is sensible.

My go-to command is "sh ip int bri | e unas", Takes a second or two to type, but (as with anything) is prone to typing mistakes. Therefore adding these commands, can make life easier:

R7(config)#do sh ip int bri | e unas
Interface         IP-Address      OK? Method Status   Protocol
Serial1/0         10.8.1.1        YES NVRAM  up       down
Serial1/1         10.7.1.2        YES NVRAM  up       down
Serial1/2         10.9.1.1        YES NVRAM  up       down
Loopback0         172.20.1.1      YES NVRAM  up       up
Loopback1         172.20.2.1      YES NVRAM  up       up
Loopback2         172.20.3.1      YES NVRAM  up       up
Loopback3         172.20.4.1      YES NVRAM  up       up

R7(config)#alias exec shint show ip inter bri | e unas
R7(config)#alias configure shint do sh ip int bri | e unas
R7(config)#shint
Interface         IP-Address      OK? Method Status   Protocol
Serial1/0         10.8.1.1        YES NVRAM  up       down
Serial1/1         10.7.1.2        YES NVRAM  up       down
Serial1/2         10.9.1.1        YES NVRAM  up       down
Loopback0         172.20.1.1      YES NVRAM  up       up
Loopback1         172.20.2.1      YES NVRAM  up       up
Loopback2         172.20.3.1      YES NVRAM  up       up
Loopback3         172.20.4.1      YES NVRAM  up       up

R7(config)#exit
R7#shint
Interface         IP-Address      OK? Method Status   Protocol
Serial1/0         10.8.1.1        YES NVRAM  up       down
Serial1/1         10.7.1.2        YES NVRAM  up       down
Serial1/2         10.9.1.1        YES NVRAM  up       down
Loopback0         172.20.1.1      YES NVRAM  up       up
Loopback1         172.20.2.1      YES NVRAM  up       up
Loopback2         172.20.3.1      YES NVRAM  up       up
Loopback3         172.20.4.1      YES NVRAM  up       up

R7#

I have configured the alias "shint" under both exec mode, and under configuration mode. This command will either do "sh ip int bri | e unas" in exec mode, or if in configure mode, it'll do "do sh ip int bri | e unas". So now, I have one command which will get me the same output, no matter where I am in the cli - this is because you can't do "do <alias>" and get the same output:

R7(config)#alias configure shlo sh run int lo0
R7(config)#do shlo
                ^
% Invalid input detected at '^' marker.

R7(config)#alias exec shlo sh run int lo0
R7(config)#exit
R7#shlo
Building configuration...

Current configuration : 64 bytes
!
interface Loopback0
 ip address 172.20.1.1 255.255.255.0
end

R7#

Now I just need to pay attention to the commands I frequently use, and make suitable aliases for these. It should save a few (crucial) seconds here and there, and (more importantly) reduce chances of error. Now that get's a big thumbs up!

Anyway, a short post today, I have vault dewellers that need water studying to do.

P.S. Hope you like the CSS change on the console output, green text on a black background is easier to read, and looks better I think.

Author : Unknown

CCIE #49337, author of CCNA and Beyond, BGP for Cisco Networks, MPLS for Cisco Networks, VPNs and NAT for Cisco Networks.

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