Restricted Active Directory Accounts with Cisco VPN 3000 Concentrator

Let’s pretend the couple of hours spent troubleshooting why an otherwise valid Microsoft Windows Active Directory (2003) account wouldn’t authenticate to a Cisco VPN 3000 Concentrator never happened.   The VPN 3000 Concentrator log showed the IKE/167 event below which only hints to a username or password issue, and it definitely didn’t seem like there should be any issue with the username (triple-checked) nor the password (quadruple-checked).

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The gloomy side of Clouds

With all the infatuation (and mostly well-deserved I will add) to Cloud computing, a gloomy side of Clouds — no pun is safe here — is on the horizon.  When troubleshooting networking issues, source IP addresses often need to be tracked down to their rightful (and/or abusive) owner. 

Enter the Cloud, and now you’re chasing source IPs that come and go as quickly as a cloud dissipates on a hot day.  Forget DNS reverse lookups, as you’ll gain no additional knowledge that what you already had from a whois with ARIN.net.

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