CCSA Lab

BobMead

If you need help on building a Lab for your Check Point studies let me know.

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Turgon

BobMead wrote: »

If you need help on building a Lab for your Check Point studies let me know.

Thanks Bob. What do we need to do?

BobMead

Well you want to start out with a choice of do I want a firewall to see real traffic or do I want a virtual lab. You can build a Check Point Splat firewall in about 15 minutes in either case. I usually recommend most people start out with vmware and boot from a splat ISO available from Check Point. You will need atleast two network interface cards, one for incoming and one for outgoing packets. For your Smart Center Mgmt server you only need one interface.

vm-settings
512MB Ram
20Gb HDD
CD = ISO R65 or R70
2 or more interfaces for a FW, 1 for Smart Center
basic video
no usb
no sound
no floppy

Boot for the splat ISO and hit enter within 90 seconds and follow the on screen options.

GT-Rob

I have been thinking of putting together lab at work, partly for preparing for the exam, and also to try and learn the CLI some more (just use dashboard most of the time).

Is there much difference between R65 and R70? We are on 65 now, but probably jump to R70 with a few other upgrades next year (unless we buy ASAs that is :P )

BobMead

GT-Rob wrote: »

I have been thinking of putting together lab at work, partly for preparing for the exam, and also to try and learn the CLI some more (just use dashboard most of the time).

Is there much difference between R65 and R70? We are on 65 now, but probably jump to R70 with a few other upgrades next year (unless we buy ASAs that is :P )

Smart Defense is now called IPS in R70 and licensing of products is a little different. The command line structure is about the same. Do your self a big favor and keep Check Point. The gui tools are the best thing about CP.

devilson911

BobMead wrote: »

If you need help on building a Lab for your Check Point studies let me know.

Hi,

i want to build a hardware lab for CCSA study what do you recommend i dont like to use Vmware....

devilson911

devilson911 wrote: »

Hi,

i want to build a hardware lab for CCSA study what do you recommend i dont like to use Vmware....

any Help

BobMead

devilson911 wrote: »

any Help

Sorry for the delay in this response, Been really busy finishing the CCSE Cbtnuggets series.

I would get a P4 desktop with two to three 10/100 network interface cards and install splat on the machine. You can get a demo of the software from checkpoint.com.

My CCSA Series will walk you through step by step on the install an config of a firewall & smart center (Mgmt)

broc

Hi Bob,

I've got a Nokia IP330 at home, it's been given to me last week. I haven't had much time to look at it yet but I think I can only load up to R60 on it.

I am more of a Cisco guy (ASA, PIX) and have very little experience with Checkpoint but was wondering how much difference there was between the R60 and the newer R65/70?

Is it worth me playing with the Nokia on R60 or should I invest and install R65 on splat.

I'm thinking of studying for my CCSA/CCSE as soon as I find some free time!

Thanks,

broc

Turgon

Looks like the evaluation of Checkpoint available is R70. I would like R65 if anyone knows where this can be downloaded.

Turgon

BobMead wrote: »

If you need help on building a Lab for your Check Point studies let me know.

Bob,

It looks like the only eval going on the Checkpoint site is R70. How much good will that do you if you are preparing for the current CCSA NGX exam? I was hoping to obtain R65 but no such luck.

On training there are a few 3rd party books out there and PDFs on the CP website. Boson do a practice test. Attending an expensive CP class is out of the question which is a shame because if I could get the course notes that would be all I would need.

GT-Rob

I would say you can get through CCSA NGX R65 easily with R70. There is not a whole lot changed on the front end from my experience, and according to the objectives I can't see you learning the 'wrong' things by using R70.

If you purchase the coursebooks (no idea where to get it, it came with my class), it comes with all of the software on disks. Ive even got an extra one if you reeeeally want it

On a side note, R60 is already end of support, and R70 will have an exam/course out very soon. Depending on when you plan to take the exam, you might as well look into taking R70 anyway. Again, in my experience so far, R65 vs R70 is not a huge leap like Win2k to Win2k3 for example. More like, IOS 12.3 to 12.4

GT-Rob

On the topic of classes, they literally follow the coursebooks and IMO, not worth the cost.

If you can get your hands on the course books, all you need is a computer with VM server running, and you can run through all the labs and material in full.

broc

Thanks for the info GT-Rob.

I am in the same situation than Turgon, the course are way too expensive! I don't think there is any way to get the course book without doing a class... which is a big shame.

I knew that R60 was end of life but can you tell me if there is much difference between R60 and R65? Is playing with R60 a waste of time?

Turgon

GT-Rob wrote: »

I would say you can get through CCSA NGX R65 easily with R70. There is not a whole lot changed on the front end from my experience, and according to the objectives I can't see you learning the 'wrong' things by using R70.

If you purchase the coursebooks (no idea where to get it, it came with my class), it comes with all of the software on disks. Ive even got an extra one if you reeeeally want it

On a side note, R60 is already end of support, and R70 will have an exam/course out very soon. Depending on when you plan to take the exam, you might as well look into taking R70 anyway. Again, in my experience so far, R65 vs R70 is not a huge leap like Win2k to Win2k3 for example. More like, IOS 12.3 to 12.4

I have just got off the phone with a reseller who may be able to sort me out with an evaluation for R65. I have been working with Checkpoint since 4.1 but the cert was always a low priority. It would be useful to get CCSA in R65 to tick a box and I would rather get that for the moment as opposed to R70 in terms of work requirements out there. Will PM you.

GT-Rob

broc wrote: »

Thanks for the info GT-Rob.

I am in the same situation than Turgon, the course are way too expensive! I don't think there is any way to get the course book without doing a class... which is a big shame.

I knew that R60 was end of life but can you tell me if there is much difference between R60 and R65? Is playing with R60 a waste of time?

Without having used R60, I would still say its worth playing with. Its a matter of using the smart center, and understanding how the policies are pushed to the firewalls, as well as things like database revisions, object managements, NAT, etc.

Just to note though, R70 is a FREE trial (15 day), which you can reuse over and over again, and the requirements are quite low (like, P3).

I have a feeling the book is hard to get because then no one would take the over priced course :P

Turgon

At the moment Im blasting Windows 2003 Server 30 day evaluation on a couple of Proliant G1s. I have an evaluation code for R65 and I have ordered a media kit. Meanwhile Im going to see if I can get R70 installed on one of these servers to be going on with. Have downloaded R70 and extracted. Not exactly sure what to burn to CD though..