TCL Script – Ping Test

One of the major parts of the CCIE Lab Exam is ensuring you have full reachability in your network.

How do you ping all your addresses?

TCL script or “Tickle Script” as it is usually pronounced is the answer to your problems.

It is a very simple process which should not take any longer than 5 mintues and will be invaluable at the end of the day.

• Harvest all  your IP addresses
• Create the TCL Script in Notepad
• Paste the script into every device
• Fix the networks that are unreachable
• Pass the CCIE Lab Exam!

Maybe the last one is not as easy at that, anyway lets step through the process.

Harvest all your IP addresses

On each device run the command sh ip alias hold down the alt key and select the block of text that contains all the IP addresses and paste this into notepad

R1#sh ip alias
Address Type        IP Address      Port
Interface                150.19.8.8
Interface                183.19.28.8
R1#

Then add the following text to the notepad file

foreach address {
150.19.8.8
183.19.28.8
150.19.2.2
183.19.28.2
183.19.123.2} { ping $address
}

This has to be the exact syntax or it will fail.

foreach (space) {
1.1.1.12.2.2.2
3.3.3.3
4.4.4.4}(space){ping(space)$address

}

If you put an enter after the last curly bracket it will run the script right away – if you don’t you will have to hit enter on each device.

Then once you have all the IP’s from every one of your devices go onto one of your routers and enter the command tclsh this will drop you into the tcl shell.

R4#tclsh
R4(tcl)#

Then paste in the contents of your notepad file and hit enter

R4(tcl)#tclsh
R4(tcl)#foreach address {
+>150.19.2.2
+>183.19.28.2
+>183.19.123.2
+>150.19.1.1
+>183.19.17.1
+>183.19.123.1} { ping $address
+>}

Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 150.19.2.2, timeout is 2 seconds:
!!!!!
Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 56/58/60 ms
Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 183.19.28.2, timeout is 2 seconds:
!!!!!
Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 56/59/60 ms
Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 183.19.123.2, timeout is 2 seconds:
!!!!!
Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 56/57/61 ms
Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 150.19.1.1, timeout is 2 seconds:
!!!!!
Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 112/114/117 ms
Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 183.19.17.1, timeout is 2 seconds:
!!!!!
Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 112/113/116 ms
Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 5, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 183.19.123.1, timeout is 2 seconds:
!!!!!
Success rate is 100 percent (5/5), round-trip min/avg/max = 112/115/120 ms
R4(tcl)#

Type tclquit to leave the tcl shell

It will take you less than 5 minutes to knock this together and if you run it a few times through your lab after you have dealt with redistribution it could highlight some potential issues.

If you want to reduce the pings from 5 to 2 simply add re 2 at the end of the ping command. I would leave it at the default of 5 as it runs pretty quick.

{ ping $address re 2

Good luck with your studies.

Roger