Sandman748's CCIE Collaboration thread

sandman748

Hello all,

Here's my contribution to the CCIE forum. Wrote the written exam already back in June. Have the lab scheduled for January. Bootcamp at beginning of December.

Currently working through IPExperts collaboration workbooks and INE's lab prep videos. Was supposed to use my first rack rental time last night but didn't go so well.

Bought 3 9971's and 3 7961's in addition to a 48 Port 3750 POE switch with 2611XM router to go with 200 hours of rack rental time. Go to load advanced services IOS onto the router and discover it's only got 32 DRAM and 16 flash

That's what I get for spending 26 dollars on ebay for the router and not bothering to read the description. So now waiting for my new 2611xm with 256/48 to arrive in 4 days. First lab will now be October 18th.

Feel free to chime in with any comments or questions.

sandman748

Just received confirmation of my scheduled lab date. 90 Days and counting. No going back at this point. Picking up new router and first lab in two days.

Not even close to ready.

sandman748

Well that was one hell of an agonizing experience.

Configured the new router and 3750 for the VPN connection to proctor labs. Can telnet to R1 and all is looking good.

But wait. Theres a password. What the hell is the password? Look through the topology, lab guide, all the guides I can find under the vrack details, and nothing. Just an address for a telnet session but no credentials anywhere to be found.

Ok.... maybe there's some old config. Lets try reloading the rack to the start of Lab 2(Done once already but who knows. )

Hmmmm... stuck at 50% configuring. Won't turn off, won't reset, wait 15 minutes. Still 50% configuring. Log out and back in again. Now I can reset back to lab 2 start again. 50% configuring. 15 minutes later. 50% configuring. Proctorlabs.com cannot be found in web browser. Oh wait, I can get to the main page. Lets check status of routers. Proctorlabs cannot be found.

Time for support. Proctorlabs.com/searchfaqs cannot be found. UGGHHHHH!!! Chat unavailable. Lets try this online library link they have for questions and answers. Some sort of site unavailable error. Looks like the page doesn't even exist anymore.

Overall, my first experience was an hour of smashing my head against a wall before giving up. At least the labs I had planned for tonight were just basic tftp, dhcp , ntp etc... just to get my head around the whole lab rental thing. Will skip those and move on to the good stuff next time, assuming I can get ahold of someone in support to figure out wtf went wrong tonight.

21ctl

i know the password for connecting to devices is your proctorlab login credential

sandman748

21ctl wrote: »

i know the password for connecting to devices is your proctorlab login credential

Thanks. I completely dropped the ball on that one. All of the information I needed was in the "how to" video that I decided not to watch.

RTFM right?

Third attempt at completing my first lab tonight.

dicodread

Sounds good.
I am also with IPExpert and I just ordered my 2801 router and 3750 switch. Lets hope my 35.00 will get a working VPN connection from day 1.

Have you done the written as yet? If so how do you rate the preparation from IPExpert?