IEWB Vol II Ver. 4.1 Lab3 finished…

Finally finished. This has a few difficult ones in the System Management section.

• Getting an image from from another router in case of failure – I never would have figured this one out. I really didn’t even know where to look in the DocCD. I opened the SG and took note of the alias parameter for the ftp-server command. That one was a needle in a haystack.
• Autoinstall – interesting concept. I guess the big this with this is being allowing the DHCP/BootP requests through and allow for directed broadcast on the subnet the DHCP server is on. I didn’t think to use the .255 when only the VLAN was given.
• I spent a lot of time on the very last task in the lab. I was thinking of using the parser-view commands to get the only the needed commands for the user, but the solution was just using privilege level. I don’t agree since the “only” keyword was used, but anyways…

I got a 69 on this lab, better that my 50 on the last difficulty 6 lab I did (IEWB Vol 2 Lab 3). I am improving, but I need to move on to a difficulty 7 and see how I do. I have about 8 weeks to get really where I need to be to feel ok about this lab exam.

I have been hammering a lot of QoS – reading, configing (if that’s a word), and reading some more. It does help that I am writing a QoS Basics course at work. I do get somewhat mind-jumbled between the devices that I am writing the course for at work and Cisco QoS. I am really taking in the QoS for switches and now need to put the whole picture together. Man, just understanding the ratios, formulas and such can make my head spin.

I’ve already started on IWEB Vol 2 Lab 4. I spent too much time on frame relay, because I was so exhausted I couldn’t think. I need to get more sleep (and get my 18 mo. boy sleeping in his own bed). Maybe more solid sleep would help, ya think?

IEWB Vol II Ver. 4.1 Lab3

This lab was flyin’ at the beginning, but can to a quick slow-down when I got to BGP. I literally had up to IGP done in about 4 hours. I was elated!

A couple of things…

• I really got skunked on task 5.2. I was racking my brain on how to filter BGP routes at the border of the AS without doing any configuration on the EBGP routers themselves. I tried the neighbor filter command, but that only works on the local router. I peeked at the SG because I was so stumped and just saw one word – communites. The light bulb came on instantly. I then immediately knew that no-export was it. Man, I felt challenged.
• Task 5.5 grabbed me and gave me a shake, too. I was thinking to myself, how do I advertise a BGP prefix down a “backup” link? Again, my brain was challenged. OK – define an advertise-map non-exist list. Go figure. I need more practice with those for sure. Arrrrgggg…

Well, onward to MC. I assume it will go a bit better. I am also trying to grasp QoS, too. It does help that I am developing a QoS course at work as well. The devices that I work with at work are a bit different than Cisco, so hopefully it will all work out in my brain.

It has been a tough week and weekend. Me and my whole family have been sick and it has slowed things down a bit. Onward and upward, though…

Final Update… IEWB Vol II Ver 4.1 Lab 2

Well, after tallying up all the points and himming and hawwing as to whether I would have gotten some points for a few of them, I got a blazing score of… ready?… 50! I have way more work to do.

Overall, I’m not too sad. There were a few little stupid mistakes, but it really showed me where I sit right now. Trouble areas include redistribution (of course), QoS, Multicast. The IP Services ans Security I did what I knew how to do and winged the rest. I should have used the DocCD more (don’t get me started on the UniverCD). More on that later…

No… I’ll address it now. The DocCD has spiraled downhill. The Master Index for 12.4 is gone. Several of the Cat3550/60 docs are redirected to general cisco.com pages. BGP for 12.4 just doesn’t exist at this time. OK, so what will it be like in the lab? I’ve heard everything from it was the “old” format to they are letting access to links that go outside of the DocCD. So, what if the topic is completely gone? I don’t imagine that they are trying to fix that. The only resource in the lab is jacked up. From the posts on Groupstudy, people are passing, so it must not be that bad. I just needed to seriously gripe.

It’s on to Lab 3 this week. It looks a little tougher, but I will put all I have into it. I will pass this beast in July!

Update… IEWB Vol II Ver 4.1 Labs 1 & 2

OK, It’s been over a month since I last logged my progress. I did have a burn-out for about half a week about two weeks back. So, now back on track.

I have accomplished the first two Vol II IE labs. I am doing OK, but making silly mistakes. I am going through the corrections of Lab 2 and I am finding that I didn’t read the question all the way or missed an item, so I got no points for the task. For example, I missed setting the “primary” talker for LACP; all the other items were right, but just forgot this simple one.

These labs are a level 6 and I seem to be comfortable with this level (not counting the little slips). I will be attempting Lab 3 next, a Level 6 as well. I contemplated moving on to a Level 7, but figured with the small mistakes I’ve been making, I’ll try to work the Level 6 a bit more.

At times when I haven’t been able to connect to the home lab, I have been using dynamips on my laptop to do the BGP Labs of IEWB Vol I. This way I can continue to work on problem areas and still get time with the IOS. This helped a lot with OSPF filtering in all the different scenarios.

The topics that I need to buckle down on learning well are QoS and Multicast (more specifically Anycast and Source-Specific Multicast) and good old Redistribution. CoDs for these, here I come… again.