Internetwork Expert Volume II: Lab 4

Another Level 6 lab with almost 65 dedicated to core technologies but I don’t mind that at all. This lab had some initial configuration errors that we had to fix aka troubleshooting. I was able to locate 2 of the 4 errors because I was being lazy. Well here is a brief review of IEWB Vol 2 Lab 4:

• Task 1 - Switching: Had some basic trunking related questions along with vtp, spanning-tree. There was this nice udld config that I never attempted before along with spanning tree guard loop.  Task 1.7 was related to storm-control and then a nice QoS task to change IP Prec values. Not too bad but I took my time working through it. I won’t say I was 100% right on all the solutions.
• Task 2 - Frame-Relay: I did time Frame-relay and finished it in 10min. I have still some ways to go but I under stand the basics of FR so it’s just a matter of playing elimination game to get to the right solution.
• Task 3 - PPP: Task 3.1 asked to configure ppp authentication and used both chap and pap. I was able to get the pap running but had a little trouble with chap. Ofcourse it was my fault and had to read more about chap. Hopefuly they will have more of these in other labs so I can master the concept. Task 3.2 was about link efficiency and I was not able to look this up. Finally looked at the SG and found out the two compression types: Stacker & Predictor. Stacker is CPU intensive and Predictor is Memory intensive.
• Task 4 - IGP: Didn’t have any issues other than messing up on the OSPF network type. Well I went with a different solution than SG but I was sure I didn’t violate the rules of the task. Just to be sure, I deleted my config and configured according to SG. There was this GRE tunnel that I was able to spot since we can’t have Virtual-Link going through a stub area. Now I know what Brian Dennis was talking about in the CoD, “A CCIE should be able to look at a network and point out the flaws”. RIP was not bad either and had a nice EVEN subnet task where we had to use the ACL. Thanks to Narbik’s great explaination, this was easy. Finally came the task 4.10 aka redistribution. I was able to draw it all out nicely and knew exactly where my redistribution points would be. I messed up a little on reading the task so ended up redistributing without changing the metric of VLAN 43. I have to do better on redistribution especially when it comes to metrics.
• Task 11 - BGP: Well I skipped to BGP after IGP because I wanted to finish my core tasks first.  As always I made a separate BGP drawing  and traced all my sessions. This made it easy for me to spot any issues and I was able to figure out where to use nexthopself and bgpmultihop. Filtering was not that tricky but in the end I had connectivity issues. I was able to spot the problem but did not know what to do with it. Well sometimes its OK to redistribute selective BGP routes into your IGP
• Task 5 - Multicast: Nice multicast section that asked for Auto-RP configuration. I was so close but missed out a command or two. Now I have the Auto-RP concept down! Task 5.3 screwed me up a little and once again reading it better would have made this easier. Never forget IP PIM NBMA-MODE. Also found out about multicast rate-limiting on my own without documentation help.
• Task 6 - IPv6: IPv6 was not bad either but messed up a little on summarization. I went ahead and wrote a post on IPv6 summarization too but now I think I am good with summarization.
• Task 7 - QoS: Basic QoS configs and nothing that stood out. All I know is that QoS will need more practice.
• Task 8 - Security: Needed a reflexive ACL and Unicast RPF check.
• Task 9 - System Management: Task 9.1 was related to a basic SNMP config and task 9.2 asked to configure a user menu. Basic stuff but had to look through the documentation for this.
• Task 10 - IP Services: This section had a little DNS issue along with a HSRP configuration. Basic stuff again but I need to practice more because I am making silly mistakes.

Over all this lab was not difficult but I took my time going through it. As of right now I am not worried about the speed and I am trying to see the details behind every solution. I am running late so it’s time to take a little break and start Lab 5. Goal was to finish Lab 6 by tomorrow