New guy going for CCIE

reaper81

Lot of multicast labbing yesterday. Even a simple issue can be very timeconsuming in multicast. Had an issue where I thought I had checked everything but turned out to be a simple thing like not enabling PIM on a transit interface. Will not have time for stuff like that at the lab. There are lots of stuff to check when using sparse mode. Is PIM enabled? What neighbors do we see? Is the (*,G) join coming in on the RPF interface? Has the RP been configured? Has the receiver joined the shared tree? Guess I just have to find a method of checking these things in a quick manner and also as I get more comfortable with multicast I should spot these issues a lot faster.

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

Did two ASET labs yesterday. First one went very smoothly. Second one was a bit more tricky. The bad thing is that you only get the final configs you don't actually have an explanation why config is as it is.

Just like the old days with ccbootcamp workbooks then. Configs only no walk through. You should be able to understand why the config is what it is by now

ASET labs are worth doing.

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

Lot of multicast labbing yesterday. Even a simple issue can be very timeconsuming in multicast. Had an issue where I thought I had checked everything but turned out to be a simple thing like not enabling PIM on a transit interface. Will not have time for stuff like that at the lab. There are lots of stuff to check when using sparse mode. Is PIM enabled? What neighbors do we see? Is the (*,G) join coming in on the RPF interface? Has the RP been configured? Has the receiver joined the shared tree? Guess I just have to find a method of checking these things in a quick manner and also as I get more comfortable with multicast I should spot these issues a lot faster.

With multicast, do the hands on exercises in the workbooks multiple times and be sure to study the verification commands they show you. Dont forget mroute statements, no ip pim nbma and tunnelling

reaper81

Turgon wrote: »

Just like the old days with ccbootcamp workbooks then. Configs only no walk through. You should be able to understand why the config is what it is by now

ASET labs are worth doing.

Yes I do. Problem was that I had to gather initial configs myself and then compare to final configs and do a diff. They didn't even bother to just type the config snippets. It can be done, it just takes a little bit longer.

They are good labs though and the new labs are IOU based which is good preparation for the lab. Also it is good to get used to the wording which is a bit different than INE.

reaper81

Did a blogpost (on my regular blog) about the ip mroute command. Many people seem to misunderstand its use. Starting to feel better about multicast. Still have some labs to go though.

reaper81

6h of multicast in one night. It's now 2AM local time, time to hit the sack Almost finished all of the multicast section. Have a few labs left. Starting to get a good feeling about multicast.

PsychoFin

reaper81 wrote: »

6h of multicast in one night. It's now 2AM local time, time to hit the sack Almost finished all of the multicast section. Have a few labs left. Starting to get a good feeling about multicast.

Wow man! You are killing it! You are still going strong; when is your expected 'due' date?

reaper81

I'm due for late feb. Don't want to post exact date I will post here either with a success story or my thoughts if I didn't pass. I'm trying my best but it is starting to take its toll. At least now I can see the finish line and no matter what I've learned a great deal on my journey.

PsychoFin

reaper81 wrote: »

I'm due for late feb. Don't want to post exact date I will post here either with a success story or my thoughts if I didn't pass. I'm trying my best but it is starting to take its toll. At least now I can see the finish line and no matter what I've learned a great deal on my journey.

Great man! At least now you can just power through it with sheer will since you are almost there!

reaper81

Did some reading of multicast in the DOCCD. It's good to know where all the stuff is and to feel familiar with the documentation when lab day comes. Early night for me as I did not get much sleep yesterday.

reaper81

Did an ASET multicast lab yesterday. Good stuff, used the Multicast Routing Monitor which I've never used before. Good for verification. One task was to use a multicast helper map, interesting feature. Might do a blogpost about it

jamesp1983

reaper81 wrote: »

Did an ASET multicast lab yesterday. Good stuff, used the Multicast Routing Monitor which I've never used before. Good for verification. One task was to use a multicast helper map, interesting feature. Might do a blogpost about it

Great work! You should definitely blog about that topic.

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

Did an ASET multicast lab yesterday. Good stuff, used the Multicast Routing Monitor which I've never used before. Good for verification. One task was to use a multicast helper map, interesting feature. Might do a blogpost about it

You need to memorise multicast helper map, or at least do it a few times and know where to look it up on the DOCCD. It's one of those things likely to come up in the lab exam on the multicast section. For me, each section has about 10 hot topics, any of which could be tested. Multicast helper map is one of those.

reaper81

Finished my post on the multicast helper map. I should know it pretty well by now. Found out some interesting stuff. By default RIP will send by TTL = 2.

reaper81

Full night of IPv6. Good stuff. Most of it is similar to v4 just that most of the configuration is done under interfaces. Makes more sense in many ways. Need to learn the tunneling techniques and IPv6 NAT also. GRE is a no-brainer of course but 6to4 and the other ones.

reaper81

Another v6 session done. Need one more to complete all the labs. Interesting with NAT-PT. You would think that we would stay away from NAT with IPv6 but I guess not...

jamesp1983

reaper81 wrote: »

Another v6 session done. Need one more to complete all the labs. Interesting with NAT-PT. You would think that we would stay away from NAT with IPv6 but I guess not...

I agree. You would certainly think that there wouldn't really be a need.

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

Another v6 session done. Need one more to complete all the labs. Interesting with NAT-PT. You would think that we would stay away from NAT with IPv6 but I guess not...

Which labs are you completing? The ASET labs? It is an unspoken truth that these will help you pass the lab...

reaper81

Turgon wrote: »

Which labs are you completing? The ASET labs? It is an unspoken truth that these will help you pass the lab...

Right now I'm doing mostly Vol1 labs and now and then mixing it up with ASET. I want to have completed whole Vol1 once before lab so I don't get too many surprises. Also putting more focus on reading the DOCCD. I already know where most of the stuff it but I'm reading a lot of the topics to refresh memory and to know exactly where everything is located.

Starting next week I have 1 day per week I can study from home on the dollar. At least that is the plan and it will be the first so far in my studies that I have official support to study on the job.

I have MPLS, QoS, Security, MPLS and IP services to go to complete Vol1. Hopefully with 8h extra per week I can go through these a bit faster.

down77

The DocCD is a great source of material but don't depend on it too much when it comes to lab time. The hard work that you are putting into the Vol1 studies will help a lot! Make sure to attempt some of the Vol2 labs and schedule at least one mock lab before your attempt.

I noticed you listed MPLS twice... We all love to hate MPLS

reaper81

down77 wrote: »

The DocCD is a great source of material but don't depend on it too much when it comes to lab time. The hard work that you are putting into the Vol1 studies will help a lot! Make sure to attempt some of the Vol2 labs and schedule at least one mock lab before your attempt.

I noticed you listed MPLS twice... We all love to hate MPLS

Lol. I actually enjoy MPLS, must be why I listed it twice It is easy to forget some of it though since I don't use it daily. I have done quite a few Vol2 labs as well but rack rentals have been difficult to book lately due to bootcamps. Might do one next week though. Definately planning to do a mock lab or two before the lab.

reaper81

Almost finished with IPv6. IPv6 multicast is a bit tricky, not as used to verify it and the longer addresses makes it a bit more difficult. Need some more practice there, should not be a major topic for the lab though.

reaper81

Hitting 800h within the next couple of days. That will be my goal before a short christmas break Did some security labs today. Good stuff, some useful stuff on AAA and then some filtering techniques. Also learned how to send traffic back to loopback with the help of a route-map to recirculate traffic esentially making it transit traffic. Stupid Router Trick indeed but could be useful sometime

reaper81

Another 4h of security. Don't use stuff like CBAC too often so good to have some repition on that. Configured time-based ACLs and TCP intercept. Something like that is probably likely for the lab.

reaper81

Writing a blog post on IPv6 multicast. I would like some more info on the IPv6 PIM register though. Anyone have a good source of information? It uses the tunnels to send to the RP, I know that much.

reaper81

800h baby, woop woop. Did a lot of security labs today. Now going with my mrs to check that everything is ok with the baby. Merry Xmas TE!

jamesp1983

reaper81 wrote: »

800h baby, woop woop. Did a lot of security labs today. Now going with my mrs to check that everything is ok with the baby. Merry Xmas TE!

Congrats. You're killing it.

Turgon

reaper81 wrote: »

800h baby, woop woop. Did a lot of security labs today. Now going with my mrs to check that everything is ok with the baby. Merry Xmas TE!

Congratulations and enjoy Christmas with your wife. 500 hours + of labtime isn't achieved with a few weekends of all nighters. A reward for you after 12 months of unremitting hard work.

reaper81

Thanks Turgon, same to you. Yes we all have to adjust to our own pace. I have tried to kept a reasonable pace suited for me and it is working so far. Still a couple of hundred hours left to have the foundation needed but it's all good. Doing some labs tomorrow and then I'm chilling until tuesday next week. Nice to do something else but can't slack for too long. Now I'm off to pickup my son from childcare

reaper81

Another 2h in the books. Might get some time at work tomorrow hopefully if its a quiet day. Finishing off strong for christmas. Getting close to 600h lab prep.