Network Warrior, 2nd Edition

Miscellaneous

The following items are things that trip me up again and again in the field.

Remote Access

To be able to telnet or SSH to your ASA, we must specify the networks from which we will do so. You do this with the telnet and ssh commands:

ASA-5540(config)# telnet 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 inside
ASA-5540(config)# ssh 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 inside

Saving Configuration Changes

If you read the first edition of this book, you may remember that I complained of the PIX not accepting wri as an abbreviation for write memory. I’m happy to report that wri does work on the ASA platform. Of course, Cisco will tell you that you should use copy run start, but I’m a curmudgeonly old pain in the ass who dislikes change:

ASA-5540(config)# wri
Building configuration...
Cryptochecksum: 7401aa77 0584c65f 9ff42fa9 d5ed86ab

3191 bytes copied in 3.280 secs (1063 bytes/sec)
[OK]

The copy running startup command works, but it’s ugly:

ASA-5540(config)# copy run startup-config

Source filename [running-config]?
Cryptochecksum: 7401aa77 0584c65f 9ff42fa9 d5ed86ab

3191 bytes copied in 3.280 secs (1063 bytes/sec)

When you’re configuring the active ASA in a failover pair, each command should be sent to the standby PIX automatically after it’s been submitted. And when you’re saving changes on the active ASA, the write memory command should write the configuration to the standby ASA. To force a save to the standby PIX, use the write standby command:

ASA-5540#write standby Building configuration... [OK] ...