Interview Questions for CCNP level Interview.

themagicone

b1tbuck3t wrote: »

You are mostly correct. It indicates a layer 2 (or layer 1 if the cable between the switches was unplugged) issue. The layer 2 keepalives are not making it between the neighbors therefore both neighbors think they are active.

I would then follow up with another simple question of how you would troubleshoot the layer 2 issue.

It's great to see people dig their own hole if they don't know what they are doing. For people that do have experience we quickly move on to other things. The whole point is to not ask a trick technical question but something that demonstrates experience and understanding.

Btw. I wouldn't ask about HSRP unless it is part of the job description or on the person's resume.

My second favorite thing is when someone who has only worked in small enviroments but has BGP (and every other protocol) on their resume.

In that case I would probably ask "You have a working BGP connection and you just added a new network statement to advertise a new netowrk prefix. What is the next thing you would do?" (This one is closer to textbook and only would expect a CCNP level person to be able to answer if they had the experience and BGP was on their resume)

I dug myself a hole at the last interview I was at. They asked me a simple question on "User A can't get to website X" - what do you do? Nervous I started tackling it like a network issue and what not. The interviewer came back with "Why didn't you ask User A if they can get to any other websites?". I fatally forgot that step.

cisco_trooper

keenon wrote: »

some just want to know if they just like you and not what you know

Always remember, no one knows everything. A lot of times if you show good thought processes in solving a problem, even if you fail, that will get you a job. The best recruiters and IT managers can spot someone who is capable of doing the job based on how they approach a problem, even if that someone doesn't currently have all the tools to do so. If you are interviewing for a position that is going to have a lot of team interaction your personality can become a HUGE factor in the hiring decision. As long as they like you and they think you are capable of learning what they need you to learn then you have a good shot at landing the job. This obviously varies across different organizations.

nethacker

pham0329 wrote: »

I'm not sure what a CCNP level interview is, but I share some of the questions I was asked recently for my interview

1. What is STP and why is it used?
2. Why would you want to influence the root bridge selection?
3. What is UDLD and why would you use it?
4. What is HSRP and why would you use it?
5. Under HSRP, what does the "track s0/0" command do?
6. Under HSRP, what does the preemption command do?
7. How would you inject a host route into EIGRP?
8. How would you inject a host route into BGP?
9. What command must you enter into BGP if you're using a loopback for neighbor relationship?
10. How would you filter inbound/outbound BGP updates?
11. What are soft refresh, and why would you want to use it?
12. In an ASA, what does "show xlate" do?
13. What are class-maps and policy-maps?
14. What is a route map and what is it used for?
15. How do you do PBR?
16. If you receive a call about a slow connection, what would you do?
17. How does trace route work?
18. Why would you want to summarize routes?

There were more questions but that's all I can remember.

pham, can you tell me the answers to 10 and 11

pham0329

You filter BGP updates as you would any other routing protocol - distribute lists. The only difference is that BGP are filtered on a per neighbor basis.

For 11, I meant route refresh, maybe that will ring a bell? It allows BGP neighbors to essentially re-send their updates without having to tear down the tcp connection, which would bring down the neighbor. When you modify a distribute list, sometimes you have to do a route refresh for the update to take effect.

Forsaken_GA

pham0329 wrote: »

What command must you enter into BGP if you're using a loopback for neighbor relationship?

iBGP or eBGP?

I'm guessing they were fishing for eBGP and multihop, but it'd be nice if they left the question ambiguous and the candidate had the presence of mind to realize it.

pham0329

Haha, tbh, I went with the iBGP answer because in our current implementation, we only have 1 link to each ISP so peering to a loopback would be pointless. Whoops!

instant000

themagicone wrote: »

First part is that no one else at that site is having issues. Just follow simple troubleshooting procedure. Did this problem just start happening? Is it just attachments from a specific person or everyone? Could be as simple as the sender saved it in a incompatibility version. May be open the email on your side and see what happens. Overall doesn't seem like a network issue.

Yeah. I had to troubleshoot one of these "my spreadsheets corrupted" issues, excepting that I wasn't allowed to look at the spreadsheet, to see what they were referring to

The people who opened the message in Outlook would get the spreadsheet as he intended to see it.
The people who opened the message on the Blackberry would see something else.

The explanation?


Turns out the CFO had sent out a spreadsheet to different departments with bonus information on it.
His mistake: the very first tab of the spreadsheet had everyone's bonuses/salaries on it.
When he saved the spreadsheets, he'd modify the second tab, and then save it, then send it to the department.

I even made a thread on ATT forums about it.
Attached Spreadsheet Differs Between Outlook and B... - AT&T Community Support

cxzar20

b1tbuck3t wrote: »

I like to ask questions that do not come from certification exams but indicate experience.

One of my favorite Enterprise experience questions is "You have two routers configured as HSRP neighbors, both are showing as Active. What does this mean and how would you troubleshoot it.

Easy question for anyone that has had to support/troubleshoot HSRP in an enterprise enviroment.

I actually had this in production before. The reason was that both interfaces were showing up but the fiber link to telco on one circuit had stuck bits in their ONS. An easy and quick way to determine this would be if neither router see each other as standby in the "show standby" output.

jamesp1983

b1tbuck3t wrote: »

I like to ask questions that do not come from certification exams but indicate experience.

One of my favorite Enterprise experience questions is "You have two routers configured as HSRP neighbors, both are showing as Active. What does this mean and how would you troubleshoot it.

Easy question for anyone that has had to support/troubleshoot HSRP in an enterprise enviroment.

I actually just had this issue yesterday. An engineer on my team copied and pasted one SVI's config to the rest of the SVIs (roughly 15) on two 6500s. He didn't change any part of what he copied and pasted. It was a quick fix, but would definitely be good to test experience on an interview.

nethacker

pham0329 wrote: »

You filter BGP updates as you would any other routing protocol - distribute lists. The only difference is that BGP are filtered on a per neighbor basis.

For 11, I meant route refresh, maybe that will ring a bell? It allows BGP neighbors to essentially re-send their updates without having to tear down the tcp connection, which would bring down the neighbor. When you modify a distribute list, sometimes you have to do a route refresh for the update to take effect.

Got ya.. My mind went totally elsewhere

cxzar20

pham0329 wrote: »

You filter BGP updates as you would any other routing protocol - distribute lists. The only difference is that BGP are filtered on a per neighbor basis.

For 11, I meant route refresh, maybe that will ring a bell? It allows BGP neighbors to essentially re-send their updates without having to tear down the tcp connection, which would bring down the neighbor. When you modify a distribute list, sometimes you have to do a route refresh for the update to take effect.

BGP ORF would save bandwidth and processing power for eBGP updates from telco as opposed to distribute lists only.

pham0329

Interesting...learn something new everyday! Here's a great link to INE explaining BGP ORF for those who doesn't know what it is (like me!)

Understanding BGP Outbound Route Filtering (BGP ORF)