Check Point Newbie

Greetings All,

Well I been on this site a while but this is my first time in this section of the forums. I am a Jr. Network Engineer at my company and pretty much just deal with the Cisco stuff (Routers, Switches, and ASAs). This morning my boss tells me that he wants me to start managing the firewall and is sending me to training in June. I've been doing research and have come across the CCSA/CCSE certifications. Since I don't know anything, I would like to do more research before starting the training. Can anybody recommend any good books, websites, or any advice in general about the world of Check Point and the CCSA/CCSE certifications.

Thanks!!

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Turgon

IT Man wrote: »

Greetings All,

Well I been on this site a while but this is my first time in this section of the forums. I am a Jr. Network Engineer at my company and pretty much just deal with the Cisco stuff (Routers, Switches, and ASAs). This morning my boss tells me that he wants me to start managing the firewall and is sending me to training in June. I've been doing research and have come across the CCSA/CCSE certifications. Since I don't know anything, I would like to do more research before starting the training. Can anybody recommend any good books, websites, or any advice in general about the world of Check Point and the CCSA/CCSE certifications.

Thanks!!

Find out the checkpoint version you will be supporting at work and go from there. You can download an evaluation from the checkpoint website. If you are getting checkpoint training you are onto a winner. My checkpoint training back in 2000 amounted to taking the horrible firewall 1 books home and pouring over them in the evening while I taught myself how to build and swap the company checkpoint firewall. It was installed on NT 4 back then and proxy arp was a landmine. Today you will find nokia devices running checkpoint. Obtain PDFs off the checkpoint website and surf amazon for used books if your checkpoint version is not the latest.

nel

theres a ton of documentation on there website for each version. For the R70 the only material i have found so far is the coursebook which they give you on the training course - this can also be bought directly for $600 without doing the course. For older versions of checkpoint ive noticed cbt nuggets have a video series (think its r65) and there are a few books on amazon.

Apparently you can lab alot of it up in vmware too.

SubnettingGoddess

Back in the day, phoneboy had all the Check Point answers. But I checked his website and he now refers people to: CPUG: The Check Point User Group - Powered by vBulletin

Turgon

SubnettingGoddess wrote: »

Back in the day, phoneboy had all the Check Point answers. But I checked his website and he now refers people to: CPUG: The Check Point User Group - Powered by vBulletin

Ah phoneboy..the joys of getting NAT working and secureremote

Bl8ckr0uter

SubnettingGoddess wrote: »

Back in the day, phoneboy had all the Check Point answers. But I checked his website and he now refers people to: CPUG: The Check Point User Group - Powered by vBulletin

I might get neg'd for this again but that place is braindump(ers) city. You have been warned.

SubnettingGoddess

You mean phoneboy steered me wrong??

Don't worry about me...no punative desire on my part - I appreciate the warning.

Bl8ckr0uter

SubnettingGoddess wrote: »

You mean phoneboy steered me wrong?? Don't worry about me...no punative desire on my part - I appreciate the warning.

No it isn't that. The general community is good for learning checkpoint stuff. I learned a good amount about them in the few days I was active there but you have to get through thread after thread off "Give me ****" or "I passed and I have ****"

It honestly makes me question the value of the certs. The sad thing was people were dumping CCSA/CCSEs like it was nothing. Idk maybe I have gotten use to this tame, controlled, honest atmosphere but going there was like going to some sort of 3rd world country. The one called Phone Boy still has a blog and I think he might actually run the site.

Turgon

knwminus wrote: »

I might get neg'd for this again but that place is braindump(ers) city. You have been warned.

Anyone who relies on **** to pass Checkpoint exams is overqualified and a liability on a production network. The official course is actually the easiest kosher way through the exam, as the coursebook you get is golden for the test.

Without that you have to leverage hands on experience at work or in a home lab. Read lots of PDFs. Read some reputable books. Try out the meagre ligit practice tests out there. The test is geared for Checkpoint course attendees so this may be one reason why it is so heavily dumped.

One problem is that the exams tend to test on feature awareness and capabilities as opposed to the grind of supporting the product in very complex networking settings. This can leave the candidate qualified but shy of what it takes to deal with production issues and migration headaches. There is more to a Checkpoint installation than just Checkpoint. IPSO, Provider 1, VRRP, Nokia Clustering to name but a few things all provide headaches.