[300-101] CCNP Route - here we go

negru_tudor

By the time I'm done with ROUTE, I'll be dreaming of LSA types - there's a lot of meat to these; a lot more than I anticipated anyway.

negru_tudor

So finally wrapped up OSPF and all its chubby areas Onto Route Redistribution, PBR and the Final Boss - BGP

I have a ton of respect for people who have passed ROUTE through honest work and hard study!!!

Cisco Inferno

negru_tudor wrote: »

So finally wrapped up OSPF and all its chubby areas Onto Route Redistribution, PBR and the Final Boss - BGP

I have a ton of respect for people who have passed ROUTE through honest work and hard study!!!

OSPF is nice! make sure you have md5 authentication down pat. Also virtual links including stub areas/nssa/total and know what kind of LSAs make it through to these areas and which do not.

Redistribution is a pain, but you can do it! Not that hard once you get it as you literally break some of the features of certain protocols when you redistribute.

I also really hated route-maps!

negru_tudor

Cisco Inferno wrote: »

OSPF is nice! make sure you have md5 authentication down pat. Also virtual links including stub areas/nssa/total and know what kind of LSAs make it through to these areas and which do not.

Redistribution is a pain, but you can do it! Not that hard once you get it as you literally break some of the features of certain protocols when you redistribute.

I also really hated route-maps!

Yeah - it looks more like the "engineer's routing protocol" although it kind of forces you into a certain architecture - which isn't necessarily a bad thing if you're structured about building the network out. The RouterGods webinars on OSPF/LSAs really blow everything I've seen so far out of the water.

I can see how route-maps might cause pain but I think it comes to the way they're used; used class-maps / policy-maps (plain and nested) for VoIP QoS which can get very confusing very fast; had to lab those for about 1 week straight (just that, not much else).

Moved a lot slower than I would have liked due to crazy amounts of overtime recently but still got my sights on the goal.

Welly_59

I found pbr and redistribution really simple compared to ospf.

For BGP all you really need to know for the blueprint is how to form neighbours. You can go as deep as you want though and it won't do any harm. In probably going to go over a bgp only course at some point after tshoot as I missed quite a bit out as I was struggling big time with study fatigue by that point on route

negru_tudor

Welly_59 wrote: »

I found pbr and redistribution really simple compared to ospf.

For BGP all you really need to know for the blueprint is how to form neighbours. You can go as deep as you want though and it won't do any harm. In probably going to go over a bgp only course at some point after tshoot as I missed quite a bit out as I was struggling big time with study fatigue by that point on route

Thank you for the help. So far I know that BGP uses unicast to form neighbors - I'll go through as much stuff as i can without getting too much into the weeds (if possible); I hear BGP being brought up often in the circles I'm in and I feel frustrated like an end-user when engineers start going deeper into it - feels like I'm missing out on the fun so need to get me some of that sweet BGP know-how

Cisco Inferno

negru_tudor wrote: »

Hmm I actually do for another 2 months or so. Let me check that stuff out. Thank you for the tip.

Make sure you check out his Youtube Channel. I had no idea he was instructing on INE until now.

He's a community college teacher and records videos of his labs for every topic. He literally broke down every CCNP lab I had to do for university. Great teacher.

negru_tudor

Cisco Inferno wrote: »

Make sure you check out his Youtube Channel. I had no idea he was instructing on INE until now.

He's a community college teacher and records videos of his labs for every topic. He literally broke down every CCNP lab I had to do for university. Great teacher.

Just browsing through his YT Channel now (https://www.youtube.com/user/travispbonfigli1969/videos) - great amount of material. Gonna try to do a deeper dive into a couple of his chained vids; see he has a lot of them.

negru_tudor

Finally made it to redistribution. Have to say that route tagging seems pretty cool - makes things way easier when redistribution and filtering are involved

Things have slowed down a little bit at work for the holiday season so I plan to hit the gas pedal on the ROUTE studies and make up for some of the lost ground during these past 2 months.

joshuamurphy75

Yeah, route tags are cool. I'm glad you are still working on this. It's too easy to slow down.

negru_tudor

joshuamurphy75 wrote: »

Yeah, route tags are cool. I'm glad you are still working on this. It's too easy to slow down.

Well if i leave loose ends I would have wasted a lot of time for nothing so I will be seeing this through

Was talking to my wife telling her about route tagging and filtering and she came up with the coolest analogy ever:

We play the Settlers of Catan with friends and one of the things players can do in their turn is to swap resources with others. So she said that route taghing/filtering sounds exactly like when you're trying to trade in a resource that you have plenty of (ex. sheep) and accepting a different type of resource in return (ex. ore) so declining sheep from other players because you're trading that in to begin with lol.. sounds funny but this will stick with me for life

negru_tudor

Cool OSPF command for easily identifying ABRs and ASBRs in the domain:

#show ip ospf border-routers

negru_tudor

Finally made it to Chapter #13: BGP Having done SWITCH helped a LOT with CEF and IP SLA / tracking objects and CVOICE helped loads with PBR which feels similar to how class-maps and policy-maps worked for voip traffic; those could be applied in both inbound and outbound directions on an interface.

PBR only works inbound so one less direction = less complications lol.

Being able to make a little bit more progress these days sure helped put some more wind in the sails / boost enthusiasm.

Targeting sitting the exam either February 13th or February 20th. Still some time left though.

negru_tudor

Well CBT Nuggets had a very good course 642-661 on BGP. Going through some of it right now for BGP (ROUTE seems to be light on the topic). Seems to be a LOT better than what they have for the whole ROUTE series

negru_tudor

Useful BGP stuff for noobs like myself:

- iGBP mostly used when you're a transit AS. Customer dead-end AS won't necessarily want/need to do this.

- iBGP peers don't add anything to the AS_PATH or next-hop. Use case would also be when 2 enterprise routers run BGP but are in different countries etc. - some paths would be "closer" through one country vs the other.

- eBGP neighbors over redundant paths require the ebgp-multihop command to form an adjacency when an underlying IGP is used (OSPF, EIGRP etc)

- if you're a transit AS then the no synchronization command can help with BGP route propagation without having to rely / wait on the underlying IGP to have the same route; this seems to have been used some time back when eBGP routes were being redistributed into the underlying IGP which is not the case anymore. This can cause issues though & situations that BGP routes from an iBGP neighbor show in the BGP table but not populate in the routing table (can be "fixed" / patched with the next-hop-self command).

- We Love OLives As Oranges Mean Pure Old Refreshment for BGP Path Attributes (makes no sense but had to distinguish between Originated Locally and Origin codes)

- When iBGP neighbors are formed but the underlying IGP doesn't necessarily have routes to an eBGP neighbor, using the next-hop-self command on iBGP neighbor statements (ex. neighbor 2.2.2.2 next-hop-self) gets the routes in the BGP/routing tables without having wait on the IGP to have a route to the place / node the route originated from OR​ simply fail due to the the IGP not having a route to said node. The next-hop-self command rewrites the next hop address as the route propagates through the network.

- dirty way of doing eBGP summary routes from our AS BGP border routers (to not flood the ISP with VLSM subnets) is by:

1) creating a static #ip route <summary_prefix> <prefix_length> route pointing to the null interface
2) on the same AS border routers, advertise this route using the network command

> any more specific routes within our AS will still work because the manual null summary is a poorer choice
> the ISPs would not be flooded with whatever VLSM-subnets we created within our AS for customers (if we're a transit AS) or our own devices if we're an enterprise; they'll only get the summary route

That 642-661 material is killer

negru_tudor

Well the OCG can't beat the CBT Nuggets 642-661 course; it's still good but the CBT one is so easy to assimilate and get stuff off the ground.

negru_tudor

300-101 ROUTE exam now booked for the 20th of February, 08:00 UTC.

I also took Fridays and Mondays off from the 19th of January until the 19th of February to allow additional review, labbing and study / filling in the cracks.

Countdown has begun

HappyBearIT

Looks like we're at about the same spot in our preparation. What are you using for studying Netflow? I thought I had my head wrapped around it until a Boson preTest threw my confidence in the topic off the side of a cliff.

negru_tudor

HappyBearIT wrote: »

Looks like we're at about the same spot in our preparation. What are you using for studying Netflow? I thought I had my head wrapped around it until a Boson preTest threw my confidence in the topic off the side of a cliff.

I can't say I found 1 single resource to cover Netflow properly. Most of what I have / looked up are bits & pieces from:

- https://networklessons.com/cisco/ccie-routing-switching/introduction-to-cisco-netflow/
- YouTube / CBT
- INE (https://ine.com/products/ccie-routing-switching-deep-dive-network-services) cover NetFlow as part of their CCIE Deep Dive series for R&S

Don't have access to this one but LiveLessons (Cisco Press) seem to have a course on Netflow:

- http://www.ciscopress.com/store/cisco-netflow-livelessons-big-data-analytics-for-cyber-9780134469850

Best of luck with studies / review & exam!

negru_tudor

Welp did my first Boson ExSim test for ROUTE and failed with a 670 score. NetFlow topics, GRE over IPSec. uRPF and IPV6 NAT got the best of me.

HappyBearIT

The GRE/IPSEC problem threw me too because I learned the topic with tunnel protection and IPSec profile, so I was confused when it asked me to configure it the old way via crypto maps. Now, I know that after configuring the ISAKMP policy, Preshare key, IPSEC transform set; I now have to option of configured the last piece with either a crypto map or an IPSEC profile.

negru_tudor

HappyBearIT wrote: »

The GRE/IPSEC problem threw me too because I learned the topic with tunnel protection and IPSec profile, so I was confused when it asked me to configure it the old way via crypto maps. Now, I know that after configuring the ISAKMP policy, Preshare key, IPSEC transform set; I now have to option of configured the last piece with either a crypto map or an IPSEC profile.

I just sat down and did a Random exam - didn't choose any of the existing templates and I got hammered with sims and netflow questions The OCG, FLG or any of the other resources I've been looking up for ROUTE have very little information on some of the topics the Boson environment throws at you for the ExSim tests. Even got detailed HSRP questions come up lol - lucky I did SWITCH already

HappyBearIT

I'm pretty sure I took the same Boson Pre-test last week because I had the same level of questions for both, and did just a bad as you with each of those topics.

While completing the exam, I stumbled on the fact that Ctrl+A shows the answer instead of taking you back to the beginning of the line. After my exam was graded, I used this feature to go back and review the Boson write up for each of my wrong answers. Then, I kept grading the exam answer by answer until all of my answers were correct. Add in the INE videos you shared with me regarding Netflow, and some other online reading; and I passed the "B" version of the simulated pre-test last night with an 800. I'm going to hold off on Pre-test "C" until I feel more than ready for the real thing, so that I don't waste my last simulated testing experience.

negru_tudor

HappyBearIT wrote: »

I'm pretty sure I took the same Boson Pre-test last week because I had the same level of questions for both, and did just a bad as you with each of those topics.

While completing the exam, I stumbled on the fact that Ctrl+A shows the answer instead of taking you back to the beginning of the line. After my exam was graded, I used this feature to go back and review the Boson write up for each of my wrong answers. Then, I kept grading the exam answer by answer until all of my answers were correct. Add in the INE videos you shared with me regarding Netflow, and some other online reading; and I passed the "B" version of the simulated pre-test last night with an 800. I'm going to hold off on Pre-test "C" until I feel more than ready for the real thing, so that I don't waste my last simulated testing experience.

Yeah the Boson tests are tough but it's better if they're this way. It's good to do these once you finish with the entire study phase and doing reviews. Going to do a thorough review of all topics in the syllabus and the slippery ones mentioned before.

HappyBearIT

@Negru_Tudor,

I came across this INE video on Netflow to go along with the one you shared with me. So far, this one has already covered several topics I was unsure of on the Boson PreTest:

https://streaming.ine.com/play/09c1fc30-a6c2-4b96-8256-997abf7138df/netflow#/

negru_tudor

Well so far, haven't passed any of the 4 Boson exams I took - got very close 2 times but no dice.

Problem areas:

- OSPF and network types, DR/BDR elections
- IPv6 services like Netflow for IPv6, DHCP relay for IPv6, NAT
- DMVPN phases in detail
- TCP / UDP detail stuff
- PPPoE phases, timers / timeouts

Starting to doubt what I've been studying for since August. I mean, the amount of "route" in this seems to be a lot less than you'd anticipate for an exam which is labeled "ROUTE".

Anyway, best get back to reviewing stuff 1 more month to go..

shortstop20

negru_tudor wrote: »

Well so far, haven't passed any of the 4 Boson exams I took - got very close 2 times but no dice.

Problem areas:

- OSPF and network types, DR/BDR elections
- IPv6 services like Netflow for IPv6, DHCP relay for IPv6, NAT
- DMVPN phases in detail
- TCP / UDP detail stuff
- PPPoE phases, timers / timeouts

Starting to doubt what I've been studying for since August. I mean, the amount of "route" in this seems to be a lot less than you'd anticipate for an exam which is labeled "ROUTE".

Anyway, best get back to reviewing stuff 1 more month to go..

It seems they are moving away a little bit from hammering people on the routing protocols(OSPF, EIGRP, BGP) and making the test more well rounded.

I think it's a good thing personally.

negru_tudor

shortstop20 wrote: »

It seems they are moving away a little bit from hammering people on the routing protocols(OSPF, EIGRP, BGP) and making the test more well rounded.

I think it's a good thing personally.

Absolutely but some of the Boson questions i got on these technologies (non routing protocol related) go very much into the weeds. So it's not enough to know why Netflow is used and how to turn it on.. You'll get asked questions on Flexible Netflow monitors, configuring them and how you'd diagnose them.

This is very cool stuff to learn and all (I'm all about learning new features if they're useful) but if Boson's ExSim is is somewhat of an accurate approximation of what the exam can throw your way, then anything goes I guess. Some of it seems pretty much like trivia

joshuamurphy75

That's what the real test felt like to me when I took it.

negru_tudor

Well been reading up on some of the weaker areas that I was able to identify with the help of Boson's ExSim test.

Did 2 randomized exams today from their overall pool of questions and managed to pass both of them. At this point I'm going to be backing down from doing any more of their exams as I'm not sure if I passed because I genuinely know some of this stuff better or just got used to the questions (some of them I ran across in my earlier attempts).

I'll focus my attention on doing labs now on all ROUTE areas for a practical review. Found some labs from the previous CCNPv6 ROUTE material.

The labs seem to be available on the Cisco Learning Network site for free: https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/servlet/JiveServlet/previewBody/10182-102-1-37273/CCNP%20ROUTE%206.0%20SLM.pdf

I'll also be doing as many labs as I can from GNS3Vault: https://gns3vault.com/labs/

I feel like I'm starting to forget some of the cool stuff I loved while studying for ROUTE so need to brush up on several topics. Really haven't come across much on BGP for example in any of the Boson ExSim tests I did. Now I expect that BGP wouldn't have the monopoly on frequency but so far not one question on it which kinda makes me sad.