Internetwork Expert Volume II: Lab 3

This was another diffculty level 6 lab so according to most people this won’t be that difficult. My approach for atleast first 10 labs is to take my time and understand exactly what they are asking. This is what Brian Dennis recommends to focus on understanding rather than rushing through the tasks. I was surprised to see the core section had a total of 66 points.

• Task 1 - Switching: I have a simple goal for first 10 labs when it comes to switching section, learn AS MUCH as I can so by the end of the day I am very solid in switching. I have a pretty good handle at 90% of switching concepts but every now and then something wierd comes up. Task 1.2 asked to configure “bridging” that I had to look up in Cisco Documentation.  Task 1.7 had a nice drill to master SNMP configuration that will come handy. I had to look that up in the documentation. Task 1.8 was related to Layer-3 EtherChannel but did not have any difficulty setting that up. Overall this section was not bad. However, I have to admit that after “reading” this section, I was SCARED that I don’t know anything.
• Task 2 - Frame-Relay: Nothing really stood out in this section but I did have to read the section over and over again to get a feel for the question. As always it’s good to know all the different options when you are configuring Frame-Relay.
• Task 3 - PPP: I configured this section using CHAP but after looking at the Solutions Guide found out that they wanted PAP. According to SG - the different was that the task asked for clear-text password
• Task 4 - IGP: For OSPF, I can’t stress enough on how important it is to know the OSPF Network Types. I had to play them a little and reviewed my notes but got OSPF working. I will write up a nice post on OSPF Network Types in the near future. Task 4.4 asked for a backup link scenario and the first thing that came to my mind was “backup-interface”. Well last statement in the question said “do not use backup interface” so to say the least, I was not excited. After a few tries I reviewed the SG and found out that we can also play with the cost Also for OSPF authentication, you HAVE to remember the two types of authentication methods and the way they behave. I am talking about Interface Authentication & Area Authentication. This also had a nice task to test your autocost configuration skills along with doing simple multiplication and division. EIGRP configuration was not that bad along with RIPv2. Then came the REDISTRIBUTION task 4.9. I spent good 2-3 hours working through this task and was really close. But as they say, either you are right or you are wrong. So I was wrong. I knew all the redistribution points, but messed up where they wanted to route through different routers for different networks. I just get scared everytime I see redistribution even though I never had problems with it in real life. I think I think way too much and make it difficult for myself. I think I am doing the right thing by tackling one thing at a time but I need more practice and need to play around with metrics a little. This is one thing that I hope to master by the time I am done with Lab 10.
• Task 5 - BGP: This task asked for too many adjacencies so I had to keep a track of them all on a new drawing. Once I was done with that, configuration was straight forward. Pay close attention to the words, redundancy or loadbalancing in BGP means USE LOOPBACKS! Rest of the tasks revolved around playing with the different attributes. Everytime I see BGP Filtering or AS-PATH, I think about RegEXP! This is not good because you don’t have to use RegEXP all the time.
• Task 6 - Multicast: Multicast section was a combination of Sparse and Dense mode. I have some work to do in multicast and already ordered a book that hopefuly will help out. Overall this section was not difficult but I had a hard time working through it.
• Task 7 - IPv6: Another section that I am not 100% perfect at. I was able to configure exactly what they were asking but chickened-out while configuring the tunnel. Should have been simple but staying up late night contributed to this.
• Task 8 - QoS: Didn’t have much trouble with traffic-shaping task thanks to IE’s GREAT explaination during lab 1. That was a life saver and now I always look forward to traffic shaping. Don’t get me wrong, I still struggle with it but I always have that feeling that “I know I can do it”.  There was a RSVP task in this section that I looked up on the Documentation site but wasn’t that bad. This task also helped me to find out more about time-based ACLs. Overall, I think QoS is one of those sections that I am not 100% with.
• Task 9 - Security: Reflexive ACLS! I know the concept but need to master the configuration. I am getting comfortable with Tcp Intercept though. Once again, I have to read the Documentation for Security over and over again.
• Task 10 - System Management: I looked up this section on Documentation site and wasn’t bad to configure. Key is to find out where everything is documented.
• Task 11 - IP Services: It was almost 130am and I had no energy left by the time I got to this section. I was able to stumble my way pass the finish line but could have done better.

Overall, this was another great lab and I am glad I attempted it. I learned a few things that I didn’t know and finding out different commands in Cisco Documentation was the fun factor. It’s the long weekend so I have 3 full days that I can dedicate to my labs. Plan is to finish Lab 6 by monday. Moving on to Lab .