IEWB Vol III Ver. 4.1 Lab3

Some things for this lab -

• I noticed that there wasn’t particular VTP modes mentioned to set the switches to at the very beginning, but I did notice a VLAN 2569 on the segment between R5, R6, R2 and SW3. I remember that VTP can only handle VLAN numbers up to about a 1000, so that immediately told me transparent mode. There wasn’t a switch that didn’t touch the 190.1.0.0 subnet, so all had to be transparent.
• For the Switching section, I did my trunking and then my port-channeling before VTP configuration. This way all the VLANs were propagated; I just had to assign them to interfaces. Then I changed the switches to transparent mode. This “locked” the VLANs in.
• I also had to remember that the trunking needed to be configured on the switch ports first before the port-channeling, then trunking configured again on the port-channel.

All in all, I am thinking clearer and looking at the sections before tackling them to get an idea what will be needed. I am starting to be able to see issues before doing the tasks by looking at the diagram and each section at a time. Pretty soon, I’ll be able to look at the whole lab paper and see the issues as well.

One thing I have considered is doing the FR section first, reboot and then work on the Switching while they reboot. I’ll have to try and see how that will work.

IEWB Vol III Ver. 4.1 Lab2 continued…

A couple of things for this week. I have been hammered with redistribution tasks with this one. Well, I think I went about it all wrong. I configured mutual redistribution on R2 and just moved on without checking anything, assuming that redistribution at one spot shouldn’t have any issues. I then went to do the same on R4 and R5 and created a mess.

A couple of things to learn.

• Verify connectivity within each routing domain first. This way you know everything was good to go before releasing the floodgates.
• Take it step by step and test after each step. Redist one way, test. Redist the other way, test. Make sure that what you think should happen, does happen.
• Remember AD. The higher protocol will take precedence in contention for the routing table.
• When redist, the routing protocol that is being redist into will take all the routes of the source protocol that are active in the routing table for that protocol. Next, it will grab the routes advrtised by the network command of the source protocol. 

On that last point, let’s say a connected loopback is advertised into a protocol and then that protocol is redist into another routing protocol. The loopback network isn’t redist, because it doesn’t meet any of the requirements of the last bullet. Also, it is seen by the router as directly connected (which it is),with an AD of 1, so the protocol won’t even place it in the routing table, so it won’t get pivked up by that criteria either.   It may be in to protocol database, but redist doesn’t even look there to grab routes. Hmmm… Any ideas? The only solution I could think of is to redist the connected loopback the destination protocol directly. Go figure… If there is a requirement that prohibits this, what do you do?

IEWB R&S Vol. III Ver 4.1 Lab 2

This is one jacked up lab. The solutions are from Lab1 and the backbone routers are not configured very well. I have had to hack the BB1 router to get EIGRP to neighbor up (it had authentication that I didn’t know about). The FR to BB1 was not getting Inverse ARP mappings, so rather that dink with it, I static mapped it and moved on. Getting two incompatible network types to work together is impossible. The routes will be sent and in the OSPF database of each neighbor, but no goey into the routing table. Banged my head for some time. They nighbored up when you change the hello and dead timers, but still nogo. The task seems like it was telling you to acomplish the impossible.

It was a frustraing evening. At one point, I started to think that I would never be ready, but I cleared away that thought quickly.

Lessons learned… not too many. Just stupid stuff. I am going to finish it and move on. Chalk it up for experience.

IEWB Vol III Ver 4.1 Lab 1

Studies revealed tonight that I need to remember that RIP needs a metric specified in order for it to redistribute into another protocol. This caused some frustration while I was trying to figure out why only one way was working of a mutual redistribution task. I slapped a metric on there are the routes rushed in like a crashing wave.

The other lesson was that I forgot that you can use a deny statement in an ACL being called by a route map to prevent particular routes from being redistributed. I was trying to figure out how to use tags to do the same thing, but denying the network worked pretty well. I need to know how to use tags to do it though. I need to do more redistribution tasks to get good at it and wrap my mind around the logic.

All in all, a good evening full of great brain squeezing…

Back at it again

I’m now back at it again. It’s amazing how much didn’t go away from my brain during my break.

Big lesson for this session – do a “no shut” on all interfaces on your switches right from the beginning. This allows CDP to run all switch interfaces and give you a map of the physical topology. I didn’t do this and it took me longer than it should to draw my map. Once this was done, figuring out the links and where they went was much easier. Was a duh! moment.

One week to go to studying again…

Well, seven days until I am studying again. It has been a nice break, but I often feel the urge to open a telnet session and get back to work.

My wife and I have worked out a schedule to make this all happen. I will study 4 hours in the evening on Mon, Wed, Fri and she will have the evening off on Tue and I will have the evening off on Thurs evenings. Sat I will study half day and Sun no study. We will work this plan until it need to be revised. I’m sure that as the test date comes closer, I will study more and more.

My plan thus far is to start IEWB Labs. I don’t know quite yet the plan of attack, but I will know by next week when I restart. I will do it this time. I have to.

Just thinkin…

So, I have officially set my date for July 25th.

This time off has really got me thinking. I have about 6 months before my second attempt and I need to nail this exam this time. So, I’m trying to come up with a plan on how to accomplish this. I have been using Intenetwork Experts v4.1 workbooks I, II & III along with CoD series. From what I have seen on other blogs, some candidates make a goal of a certain number of labs completed in a certain amount of time. Some do book study intermingled. I am at the point where I need to do more labs and gain skills deciding on various solutions. I also need reading time to read on those topics that I am not strong in. I guess I have to decide what is best for me. With work, family and such, it seems impossible, but I need to do it!