My journey to CCIE #

Strategy check! :)

2008-12-27T00:09:00.000-08:00

If, you actually look at my blog not many posts below you will find that I had posted a brief topic wise break-up for BGP ..which is also referred to as the expanded blueprint for BGP. Now I did that 1) because BGP was tending to be a very vast topic for me to tackle 2) I just wanted to be sure, how much of BGP to expect on CCIE RnS lab. I had also decided to score off the completed topics as I would go through.

Now this approach came to me, after going through many many blogs and success stories. Untill recently a similar approach was posted on the IEBlog as well. So I am happy that I was headed in the right direction. Although what I am still finding difficult is how to hold up so much of info about these technologies that I have completed mastering. Which has made me add the following to my strategy, listen to audio lectures every night before you sleep and build ready reckoner charts for a group of features of a specific technology. Now this should make it simpler for me to hold up all those nitty gritty details about a specific protocol. :)

I will be doing those tech reckoner charts, early in the morning before my day starts & will try to keep them posted here. As far as the audio lectures are concerned, I have acquired IPExperts Audio Class, which seems to have voice of Scott Morris.

So are you guys set as well!?

Happy new year to all!!

2008-12-24T21:39:00.000-08:00

Hey,

Wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!! What better way than, saying it with this e-card from cisco. Oh look look ..its snowing here as well. :D

Have a blast!!

BGP CheatSheet.

2008-12-10T09:12:00.000-08:00

While I was doing some casual surfing, this is what I found. It made me remind of the texbuddy charts that I use to use for my CCNA prep/quick revision. Well inspite of it being of very basic nature, I still thought its a good one.

Wouldn't we all love one for all the technologies including all the details about them at the CCIE level, I mean a one stop chart. Makes me wonder what that chart would be like!? Perhaps, its time for those CCIE course prep vendors to come up with. :P

And ya, all credits for the work go to Jeremy Stretch. If you want a pdf version of it you can get one from his site.

Internetwork Expert WB VOL 1 - BGP Lab 10

2008-12-08T21:03:00.000-08:00

10)BGP Bestpath Selection – Origin

Objective: Modify the BGP Origin code in AS 2 so that traffic from R3’s Ethernet segment going to VLAN 5 is first sent to R1.

Ok, when it comes to ORIGIN ..here is the order of preference IGP-> EGP-> INCOMPLETE. Using this logic I first examined the routing table of R3 and configured it with the below shown configuration.

access-list 1 permit 155.1.5.0 0.0.0.255

route-map NEW_ORIGIN permit 10
set origin egp 1

router bgp 2
neighbor 155.1.0.5 route-map NEW_ORIGIN in
end

Worked like a charm, although over here the WB changes the ORIGIN to ? ie INCOMPLETE!! And also since our objective clearly says that this only needs to be done for traffic going to VLAN 5 from R3, it wouldn’t hurt to match on that specific network prefix using that mentioned access list 1. I just left it out here though, hmm ok next.

Internetwork Expert WB VOL 1 - BGP Lab 9

2008-12-08T08:04:00.000-08:00

9)BGP Bestpath Selection – MED

Objective: Configure the BGP MED in AS 1 so that traffic from R3’s Ethernet segment going to VLAN 5 is first sent to R1.

Ok, this above objective is slightly tricky! Actually before I give my solution for this problem I would like to throw some quick light on concept of WEIGHT, LOCAL_PREFERENCE and MED.

Now this is what, WEIGHT is used for: When we have two paths/links ending up on a single router, and you want to influence the way your traffic leaves your AS from this router then you can make use of the WEIGHT attribute. Higher the value of WEIGHT, the more likelihood of that path being chosen or in other words higher the WEIGHT better it is.

LOCAL PREFERENCE, is just like WEIGHT ..the only difference here is that in case of WEIGHT its scope was restricted to a router which in case of LOCAL PREFERENCE is restricted to an entire AS! So, when we have multi-homed AS we can change the LOCAL PREFERENCE attribute to influence how traffic leaves our AS. Again higher the value of LOCAL PREFERENCE better it is.

In case of MED, it is an attribute that you use to manipulate how traffic enters your multi-homed AS! Lower value of MED the better it is, and scope is only limited to an AS.

Now, let us carefully read our objective ..What it is asking you is to influence the way traffic leaves AS 2 and you know you need to achieve this by using MED, but what you can’t do is change this value of MED on the routers of AS 2. Hence we change the value of MED on AS 1 routers and then have them send these changes in the outbound updates. This is the config that was done on R5 and R4, actually its really not required on R4 ..but no harm with some extra configuration and getting in lines with the objective.

On R5,

access-list 1 permit 155.1.37.0 0.0.0.255

route-map NEW_MED permit 10
match ip address 1
set metric 100

router bgp 1
neighbor 155.1.0.3 route-map NEW_MED out
end

And on R4,

access-list 1 permit 155.1.37.0 0.0.0.255

route-map NEW_MED permit 10
match ip address 1
set metric 50

router bgp 1
neighbor 155.1.146.1 route-map NEW_MED out
end

Right, now on to the next lab.

Internetwork Expert WB VOL 1 - BGP Lab 8

2008-12-08T07:54:00.000-08:00

8)BGP Bestpath Selection – Local Preference

Objective: Configure the BGP Local Preference attribute in AS 2 so that traffic from R3’s Ethernet segment going to VLAN 5 is first sent to R1.

Ok, this was simple as well. Below is the config,

route-map NEW_LOCAL_PREF permit 10
match ip address 1
set local-preference 50

access-list 1 permit 155.1.5.0 0.0.0.255

router bgp 2
neighbor 155.1.0.5 route-map NEW_LOCAL_PREF in

I could have also, applied slightly different logic. Instead, increase the local-pref value for updates being received from R1. That also would have served the purpose.

Bgp topics to be covered!

2008-11-20T16:31:00.000-08:00

1) Establishing Peerings

TCP Transport
Update Source

2) Authentication

3) EBGP

4) iBGP

Route Reflection
Confederation
Next-Hop Processing

Next-Hop Self
Route-Map

iBGP Synchronization

Redistribution into IGP
BGP over GRE

5) Bestpath Selection

Weight
Local Preference
AS-Path Prepending
MED

6) Originating Prefixes

Network Statement
Redistribution
Aggregation

Summary-Only
Suppress-Map
Unsuppress-Map
Filtering Specifics
Filtering Aggregate

Conditional Route Injection

7) Default Originate

8) Communities

No-Export
No-Advertise
Local-AS
Numbered
New Format
Local AS

9) Conditional Advertisement

10) Outbound Route Filtering

11) Dampening

12) Peer Groups

13) Regular Expressions

14) Remove Private AS

16) Timers

17) Fast External Fallover

18) Max Prefix

Hmm, I plan on completing all this in around next 12 days! Let's see how far can I get.

Internetwork Expert WB VOL 1 - BGP Lab 7

2008-11-18T19:04:00.000-08:00

7)BGP Bestpath Selection – Weight

Objective: Configure the BGP Weight attribute on R3 so that traffic from R3’s Ethernet segment going to VLAN 5 is first sent to R1.

Hmm, over here ..I was again in line not with the solution though. The WB solution is more general, where as I decided to come up with the a more specific solution that only modifies the weight for VLAN_5 prefix!! I am more correct here, being more specific on the lab always helps.

Anyways this is what I Have done,

ip prefix-list VLAN_5_PREFIX seq 5 permit 155.1.5.0/24

route-map MODI_WEIGHT permit 10
match ip address prefix-list VLAN_5_PREFIX
set weight 100

router bgp 2
neighbor 155.1.13.1 route-map MODI_WEIGHT in
end

Worked like a charm! Hmm seven labs for the day, with some theory of bgp are good enough. I will call it a day, will try to do more tomorrow.

Internetwork Expert WB VOL 1 - BGP Lab 6

2008-11-18T19:02:00.000-08:00

6)Transiting Non-BGP Speaking Devices – Tunneling

Objective: Configure the network so that hosts on VLAN 5 can reach hosts on VLAN 43. R3 will not participate in BGP routing. Configure a GRE tunnel between R1 and R2 to accomplish this.

Alright, I will try and make some quick changes to the previous lab config and see if I get this correct.

Yep, It’s correct! Had no difficulties at all. Next please.

Internetwork Expert WB VOL 1 - BGP Lab 5

2008-11-18T18:58:00.000-08:00

5)Transiting Non-BGP Speaking Devices – Redistribution

Objective: Configure the network so that hosts on VLAN 5 can reach hosts on VLAN 43. R3 will not participate in BGP routing. Redistribute BGP into IGP in AS 2 to accomplish this.

Ok, see here ..that makes my job easier and saves time too! This scenario maps to solution 2 mentioned in the previous lab post. Nice! Let's hit it.

Yeah I nailed it straight, I mean I did configure this same thing in the previous lab just out of curiosity. The only difference between me and the solution in the WB was that, I dint find necessary to resolve the next-hop ip address as they were ending up as rib failed routes. The book does use the next-hop-self command, hmm fair enough!

Next.

Internetwork Expert WB VOL 1 - BGP Lab 4

2008-11-18T18:49:00.000-08:00

4)iBGP Synchronization

Objective: Configure BGP per the diagram to obtain connectivity from AS 1 to R4 and R5's loopback interfaces. R4 and R5 should have static default routes pointing towards R1 and R2 respectively. BGP synchronization should be enabled on R1 and R2.

Wow, this was a big step ..the topology was much better here. Let me get moving and then blog more on this one. Well to understand this lab better here is the bgp rule of synchronization, as quoted by Brian of IE:

‘Paths marked as "not synchronized" in the show ip bgp longer-prefixes output. If BGP synchronization is enabled, which it is by default in Cisco IOS® Software, there must be a match for the prefix in the IP routing table in order for an internal (iBGP) path to be considered a valid path. If the matching route is learned from an OSPF neighbor, its OSPF router ID must match the BGP router ID of the iBGP neighbor. Most users prefer to disable synchronization using the no synchronization BGP subcommand. See the Synchronization section in Using the Border Gateway Protocol for Interdomain Routing for more information.
• Note: Synchronization is disabled by default in Cisco IOS Software version 12.2(8)T and later.’

Actually it’s a legacy rule, which was designed for a specific purpose, which is “Designed to prevent traffic black holes, in an transit AS”. As CCIE candidates it’s important to understand its purpose and how it works, irrespective of whether it is on or off and what are the possible solutions to prevent black-holes in our transit AS!!

And yes, btw what are black-holes?! In an transit AS, whenever you see a non-BGP speaker chances are that the packets will be dropped.

To prevent this black-hole problem, I am going to go ahead and list some of the possible solutions,

1) Run full mesh iBGP within the transit AS. (synchronization is off)
2) Redistribute BGP into the IGP, thereby making the two to be in sync with each other. (synchronization is on)
3) Impelement tunnels, (synchronization is off)

Gre
IPIP
MPLS ..et all

I went ahead and using the same topology, I did make all the three above mentioned solutions work!! Towards, the end of the day I will again work with solutions, as I really want to have it wrapped around my head.

Let’s proceed to our next lab.

Internetwork Expert WB VOL 1 - BGP Lab 3

2008-11-18T18:46:00.000-08:00

3)BGP Update Source Modification

Objective: Configure a BGP peering relationship between R1 and R3. R1 should peer with R3's Ethernet interface, while R3 should peer with R1's Serial interface. R1 should use the source address 31.0.0.1 when sending BGP packets to R3.

Ok, this I had already done in the above lab, one good point to note here is that the update-source command will still work if its present on just one router, I mean after all we only need one active tcp session between the two routers. So we are good here, in the lab though it would definitely be better to configure the update-source command on both R1 and R2!

Internetwork Expert WB VOL 1 - BGP Lab 2

2008-11-18T18:41:00.001-08:00

2)BGP Update Source Mismatch

Objective: Configure a BGP peering relationship between R1 and R3. R1 should peer with R3's Ethernet interface, while R3 should peer with R1's Serial interface.

Yep yep, I did this lab and it did take not more than 10 minutes! I know too much time there ..an ip on the fa 0/0 of R1 cuased me some problem, but nothing major. I need to be a bit more attentive whilst doing these labs I guess.

Anyways configuration was correct, I did it w/o any problems ..infact I went ahead and used the neighbor 13.0.0.3 update-source serial 1/1 command, which actually fixed and made the bgp peering come-up successfully.

Internetwork Expert WB VOL 1 - BGP Lab 1

2008-11-18T18:34:00.000-08:00

1)Establishment of BGP Peering Relationships

Objective: Configure a BGP peering relationship between R1 and R2

Hmm, about this lab, well what can I say ..very very basic. Was done in about 5 minutes, after that I did explore some more about bgp using these three debug commands ..

debug ip packet detail
debug ip bgp events
debug ip tcp transactions

Ok, so onto the next one ..Yep btw, I did answer all the questins that followed with ease. I am really looking forward to reading the breakdown of these labs!

Restoring hibernation in Windows Vista after disk cleanup

2008-10-05T12:01:00.000-07:00

This is rather interesting post, yeah I know excuse me here as its is yet another non cisco post ..but still a good one.

On windows vista, this is what happened ..I decided to run the Windows Cleanup tool, which enables you to clear your disk of unnecessary files. Main reason was that I was running out of space on my C:\ partition. So I only selected my C:\ drive to be cleaned up. After selecting the Disk Cleanup tool this dialog poped up:

Selecting the C:\ drive to be cleaned up ..and following certain other screens, this is what I would be able to free.

Which is all good uptill here. Infact was glad that I would be able to give myself some room on c: drive for time being. So I went ahead and clicked ok, and yeah I had some free space.

Latter in day I realised that that I was no longer able to hibernate my laptop, I mean all I did was just cleared up some space on c: drive ya. It latter dinged me that perhaps since I had checked the "hibernation file cleaner" option in the above cleanup process, that now hibernation was no longer and option, pitty isn't it. :)

Anyways after spending some time on the Microsoft site I figured how to get it back, and here are the steps:

1. Click Start , click All Programs, and then click Accessories.

2. Right-click Command Prompt, click Run as administrator, type powercfg -h on, and then press ENTER.

The command line tool powercfg.exe enables users to control the power settings on the system. An overview of all parameters that can be passed to the tool can be found by running the command "C:\Windows\system32>powercfg /?" from the command prompt.

For the hibernation we need the following:

-HIBERNATE, -H [ON|OFF]
Enables-Disables the hibernate feature. Hibernate timeout is not
supported on all systems.

Usage: POWERCFG -H [ON|OFF]

After running the command above with the hibernation parameter "powercfg -h on" the problem is solved and I can again hibernate my Windows Vista system. Btw, dont forget to bring up the command prompt as an administrator, else you will be slapped with yet another error. :D

HTH!

I am Alive..! :)

2008-09-30T12:30:00.000-07:00

Well well I am very much alive and ticking, was just that I had been assigned a CCSP bootcamp to be conducted. So that pretty much got me occupied, it was a lot of toil as it was my first full fledged camp for this course. Point being I had to prepare through a lot of new presentations which was good, but had kept me away from blogging and other leisure activities. And the end the camp did turn out to be upto the expectations of the students and the institute, which is nice. :) Btw, I am still to take my CCSP exams, some of which I plan to attempt this month. So that is what I will be blogging about. :)

Will try and post on few other things as well. As always when it comes to cisco, have always been learning new stuff as the days go by. Hopefully I will be able to put some across on this site.

Motivational Quote

2008-08-18T18:55:00.000-07:00

“The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at a time.”

Greets!

20% off Cisco Exams!!

2008-08-07T15:57:00.000-07:00

Well, thats true. :)

I came across this voucher on one of the blogs that I follow regurally and have availed of 20% discount on the list price for the CCIE R&S written exam. Finally I have an appointment scheduled for this test.

Infact I was to take this test, by the end of July 08. But then somehow that din't work for me. Anyways gald that I had to commit to test, no matter what served as an excuse. Btw, I am an old aspirant when it comes to CCIE. Infact I'm pretty much through with the 5 core topics including lab practise for the same ..they being Frame Relay, IGPs, BGP, IPv6 and Switching. So guess the written was long due.

Next all I hope is to clear the test, asap!

Greets!

PS: Here is the referral code if you like to avail the offer, Promo Code: xxxxxxx. You need to punch the code, when scheduling your exam through Pearson Vue.

Edit: I had to remove the code, because of certain distribution policy.

Motivational Quote

2008-08-06T16:59:00.000-07:00

Ok, here is the quote for today:

" Sometimes I look at myself and I see an imperfect person, trying just to do my best in any way possible. One of those ways is to never let people kill my beliefs and faith that help me to face life everyday. This world already has so much evil and negativity that I REFUSE to add more into my own world. My dream is that someday I see myself old and feel the big satisfaction that I had the opportunity to help many in my life, that I can remember my life with a smile and die with the feeling of peace and happiness that I had done my best."
- Maria Uman

Greets!

Motivational Quote

2008-08-05T16:56:00.000-07:00

Alright,

Well I have decided to post a inspirational quote everyday, it will serve majorly two purposes for me: a) It will keep me in the right frame of mind for the day, as I can see really tough days ahead. b) It will keep this blog live and ticking. :)

Ok, so here it is for today.

"Believe it is possible to solve your problem. Tremendous things happen to the believer. So believe the answer will come. It will."
- Norman Vincent Peale

I can not agree more to this, I think its all about believes, one just has to keep his head up in the positive direction, no matter what lies ahead ..for mankind has survived for eons on hopes and positive believes!

PS: As of Monday, my daily schedule will be 10 hours at work, around 2 hours of travelling and lets see how much ccie prep can I squeeze in. I'm aiming at 3-4 hours daily. :)

Dynamips Tutorial

2008-08-01T19:50:00.001-07:00

Ok, this is a brief tutorial of how to use dynamips for your ccie lab prepration. This tutorial was originally created by folks at internetworkexpert.com and is freely available for all. Thought I would post it here. :)

Btw, I'm speechless when it comes to dynamips, simply funtabulous work of art!!

Part 1 of 3:

Part 2 of 3:

Part 3 of 3:

Enjoy!

CCIE Worldwide Statistics Updated!

2008-08-01T18:51:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

Cisco has a new update to the CCIE Worldwide Statistics page, check the link below:

http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/le3/ccie/certified_ccies/worldwide.html

See here the progress since January 2006:

http://pwp.netcabo.pt/amsoares/wwccies/wwccies.htm

Greets!

My progress so far

2008-08-01T17:42:00.000-07:00

I aim to score off each and every topic as I complete them in forth coming days. Btw, I wont be following the exact order actually. What follows is the blueprint of the ccie lab topics:

Bridging and Switching
Frame Relay
IP IGP Routing
- EIGRP
- RIPv2
- OSPF
- GRE
- IPV6
- GRE
- ODR
BGP
- IBGP
- EBGP
IP and IOS Features - August 4th 2008
- IP addressing
- DHCP
- HSRP
- IP services
- IOS user interfaces
- System management
- NAT
- NTP
- SNMP
- RMON
- Accounting
- SL
IP Multicast - August 4th 2008
- PIM-SM, bi-directional PIM
- MSDP
- Multicast tools, source specific multicast
- DVMRP
- Anycas
QoS - August 4th 2008
- Quality of service solutions
- Classification
- Congestion management, congestion avoidance
- Policing and shaping
- Signaling
- Link efficiency mechanisms
- Modular QoS command lin
Security - August 4th 2008
- AAA
- Security server protocols
- Traffic filtering and firewalls
- Access lists
- Routing protocols security, catalyst security
- CBAC
- Other security features

Why this blog ..?!

2008-08-01T15:36:00.000-07:00

I am using this as a means to track how my studies are going, I know pretty selffish of me. Perhaps! I think using the art of blogging I can sought of keep it going at all times and this place will serve as a good archive for me to look up any info on a specific topic that I stumbled upon, thereby serving as a ready reckoner.

Its very fresh so bare with me, as I was not all that keen at first and thought blogging will actually take some time away from me. As you know that time is scarse when you have a full-time job and ccie studies to manage. But what the heck lets give it a try ..

Feel free to comment… I like it when you do because it makes me feel like someone is actually listening and I am not just typing this to myself. :)

Btw, I will be doing the Routing and Switching track!!

Greets!