Hidden Commands – Test Crash and CSIM

Fryguy — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 22:10:52 +0000

I was working on some stuff the other day in the lab and needed to demonstrate how to tell why a router reloaded. Did it reload by the reload command? SNMP string? or some random Error (not withstanding Solar Flares). Well, the first two are easy to demonstrate, but the third one is a little difficult. Or is it…
As we all know there are some hidden commands out there – a popular one is CSIM (Call Simulator). It is used to generate a call from a Cisco router to test a dial-peer and trunk configuration. If you are on Cisco router, you can type
(quick housekeeping)
Router/Switch Output
Commands
Notes
PSTNGateway.PA# csim start 6105551212
csim: called number = 6105551212, loop count = 1 ping count = 0
csim err csimDisconnected recvd DISC cid(1170604)
csim: loop = 1, failed = 1
csim: call attempted = 1, setup failed = 1, tone failed = 0
PSTNGateway.PA#
That command, CSIM, will tell the router to dial 6105551212 and place a call. They usually returned with a failed state, but I can assure you my phone rang (I changed the number in the post)
OK, I digress a bit there but I wanted to provide a hidden command that would not be destructive that you can look at.
So, how does one show a fellow engineer what a crash looks like, well TEST CRASH is the command. And yes, it is a hidden command that will crash the router.

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Hidden Commands – Test Crash and CSIM