Fredrik's CCNP thread

Two years of work experience, mostly switching, and I passed the CCNA three months ago. I'm currently unemployed so I have plenty of time to study. I'm three weeks into my Route studies, with the FLG and GNS3 being the main tools. Target is mid December. So far I've done a first pass of EIGRP, OSPF, Redist. and Path Control by reading the FLG and doing the labs in that free Cisco lab manual*. My strength is probably that I pick up how to configure things fairly quickly, but have a harder time memorizing things from books. I also don't mind a 5-6 hour lab session, but I really struggle with reading for that amount of time. So far, the hardest topic has been Route Maps, and the easiest probably EIGRP, but I'm predicting that my actual weak area will end up being IPv6.

I'm currently working on BGP and will use the rest of the week to get to know that protocol before moving on to the next chapter. On a high level it totally makes sense to me but I'm struggling with some of the details.

*This would actually be my first question to the community. Is that book really enough? The EIGRP and OSPF labs feel a bit too easy to me.

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Day 59,60,61

Redistribution on Fri and Sat. I worked with the 3 part series on ine's blog and their free videos. I realized pretty quickly that my redistributions skills are, surprise surprise, not CCIE level. However, working with their example topology made me realize how straight forward the CCNP redistribution is. Prevent routes from being redistributed back where they came from, and keep an eye out for potential AD issues on the border routes.

On Sunday I did some PBR.

PS
What do these these things on the exam topics list mean?

Determine network resources needed for implementing EIGRP in a network
Determine network resources needed for implementing OSPF on a network
Determine network resources needed for implementing eBGP on a network

Day 62

I decided to finally tackle chapter 7 in the FLG. For some reason I've been ignoring this chapter beyond reading it once. For those not in the know, it's about branch office design, routing, etc. Read the entire chapter and took some pretty solid notes.

Day 63.

I spent a few hours adding a few things to my notes and created a somewhat elaborate plan for my last 4 weeks. I probably not going to post every day anymore either because I really don't find this final grind very interesting. I'm just going to hunker down and follow the plan.

Best of luck to you! If you don't mind sharing what type of plan did you come up with for the final 4 weeks?

busines4u wrote: »

Best of luck to you! If you don't mind sharing what type of plan did you come up with for the final 4 weeks?

I'm going to spend 3-4 days on each major technology area (EIGRP, OSPF, BGP, Redist, IPv6), reading my notes and the book, trying to identify things I don't know. I might also use iristheangel's notes. I expect this to be fairly boring since I know most of the stuff already, but I'd rather spend some extra time than risk failing my first P-level exam. Plus, I already have the exam date set and paid for. I'm left with a week or so at the end that I haven't decided what to do with yet, and in hindsight, with a more structured approach from the beginning, I could have pulled this off in two months instead of three.

PS.
I forgot to mention that I've also ordered The Official Certification Guide. I noticed that it had 20 or so chapters, and with my prior knowledge I doubt it'll take long to do one of those each day.

Hey Fredrik

In what way did you wish you would have structured your studying from the beginning?

I would have taken comprehensive notes from the beginning, and not spent so much time labbing before having a good theoretical base.

Alright!
Wish you all the best

I think you will nail it on the first try

I've started reading the OCG. My first impression is that it is more fleshed out on certain specific topics than the FLG, and lighter on others; probably reflecting the individual biases of the authors. The idea that it's easier than the other book doesn't really hold up in my opinion. I take extensive notes. The kind of notes I should have taken while reading the early FLG chapters.

Most of the stuff is just review, but here and there I pick up things I've missed. I should be done with the OCG around next weekend which leaves me with 8-9 days for some kind of personal bootcamp where I run through all the labs again while trying to transfer as much stuff from the notes into my brain as possible.

Binaryhero wrote: »

I think you will nail it on the first try

You just jinxed it

I've almost finished the OCG, currently working on chapter 17 (out of 19). This is probably the last book I summarize with pen and paper because the limiting factor ends up being my hand hurting from holding a pen for hours on end. For SWITCH I'll probably try to move to a digital solution with some kind of note taking program. If I buy myself one of those pen like mouse replacement pad things, and get a program where I can seamlessly move from typing with the keyboard to drawing with the pen, that will be a huge improvement. A straight word processor with just a keyboard isn't a good solution in my opinion, because the diagrams can often be just as important as the text.

I find that the material I read end up in one of three categories:

1) Things you omit completely because it's redundant, or just obvious.

2) Things that warrant notes, but in condensed form because the original passage is needlessly verbose or repetitive.

3) Things that are interesting enough to be copied more or less word for word. It's this stuff that kills me because it can involve a significant amount of typing. If I went digital I could just copy some of this stuff instead of typing.

As for the inevitable OCG vs. FLG comparison, OCG's BGP chapter is very easy (and doesn't even mention regex!), its PBR chapter is basically the same as the FLG's. IPv6 and Branch Office seems comparable as well, but I haven't finished those yet. The IGP chapters are hard to compare because my FLG EIGRP and OSPF notes are pretty crappy, but I did get the feeling that the OCG went into more detail on the LSA types for example. That is one area where I felt that I actually did pick up some new stuff.

I plan to finish the OCG tomorrow which will be a huge relief actually because it has probably been the most strenuous part of my studies, and possibly not even worth the effort if you consider the opportunity cost of those 50-60 hours. That leaves me with 13 days I think for patching up any weak areas. IPv6 fundamentals come to mind, for example.

Btw, I finally got the answer to this thing I posted about on day 43. The reason behind this behavior is that the text I quoted assumed that bgp auto-summary was on, but on my router it was off.

fredrikjj wrote: »

Day 43

Did some more BGP and got into the meat and poatoes of the configuration. That leaves me with configuration of the attributes and the appendix. I also read this sentence about the "network" command:

If the mask is not specified, this command announces only the classful network number; at
least one subnet of the specified major network must be present in the IP
routing table to allow BGP to start announcing the classful network as a BGP
route. However, if you specify the network-mask, an exact match to the network
(both address and mask) must exist in the routing table for the network to be
advertised.

Verification:

R1 and R2 are directly connected on 10.1.12.0/24.

R1#show run | s router bgp
router bgp 1
neighbor 10.1.12.2 remote-as 2

R1#show ip bgp neighbors
BGP neighbor is10.1.12.2, remote AS 2, external link

R2show run | s router bgp
router bgp 2
neighbor 10.1.12.1 remote-as 1

R2#show ip bgp neighbors
BGP neighbor is10.1.12.1, remote AS 1, external link

I create a subnet of the major network 20.0.0.0/8 as a loopback interface on R1.

R1(config-router)#int lo0
R1(config-if)#ip add 20.0.0.1 255.255.255.0

It shows up in therouting table:

R1#show ip route
C 20.0.0.0/24 is directly connected,Loopback0

Now, according to the text I quoted above I should be able to advertise 20.0.0.0/8 with network 20.0.0.0 since “at least one subnet of the specified major network must bepresent in the IP routing table to allow BGP to start announcing the classfulnetwork as a BGP route”

R1#show run | s router bgp
router bgp 1
network 20.0.0.0

But,

R2#show ip bgp
<blank>
R2#

However, if I change the mask of the loopback to /8 the network is advertised.

R1(config)#int lo0
R1(config-if)#ip add 20.0.0.1 255.0.0.0

R2#show ip bgp
Network Next Hop Metric LocPrf Weight Path
*> 20.0.0.0 10.1.12.1 0 0 1 i

Conclusion: the FLG is wrong and/or they've changed this behavior in more recent releases of IOS.Clearly, even a major network requires an exact match in the routing table. Am I missing something?

Finished the OCG.

The remanining two weeks will be focused on repeating quite a few labs, reading the notes, and if I can find a good set of flash cards online, checking out those. I'm somewhat optimistic at this point, and as long as the exam is a fair representation of the material I've used, I could pass.

If you happen to stumble across any flashcards online that are good for review please share as I have been looking for them as well.

I'm confident you WILL pass this exam. As Limp Bizkit says: "You Gotta Have Faith!"

busines4u wrote: »

If you happen to stumble across any flashcards online that are good for review please share as I have been looking for them as well.

I will. I know that there are special flash card programs out there, and with how common of an exam CCNP-R is, I'm sure that someone has shared their deck.

I'm confident you WILL pass this exam. As Limp Bizkit says: "You Gotta Have Faith!"

Well, at this point I've invested so much time that if I fail, I'll just have to keep paying for exams until I pass.

Grinding along, doing labs and reading notes. I picked up a few things on matching as-path, but since that's not really in the OCG or FLG, it's not surprising that I'm not exactly a seasoned regex warrior. I've made some progress on the multipoint ipv6 tunnels, which probably was my major weakness, and configured 6to4 yesterday from scratch, doing the hex conversion and everything. Cautious optimism is my general outlook on things right now.

Should I spend time learning to configure NAT-PT, depite not seeing a single lab on it in any of the lab books I have? Technically, I can see it falling under "4.5 Configure IPv6 interoperation with IPv4", but the fact that I can't find labs on it tells me that they are referring to the IPv6-IPv4 tunnels only. Also, how am I supposed to lab up "7.2 Configure basic broadband connections" if it's talking about the configuring DLS stuff in that chapter? It's not like I have a DSL modem and a DSLAM laying around.

Anyway, I'm actually very pleased with how much I've learned during this preparation, regardless of how I do on the exam. The exam is just an exam and I can just retake it until I pass - the knowledge is ultimately what matters. If I do fail the exam the most likely scenario is getting a sim on something I haven't configured before. I have around 100 projects in my GNS3 folder, but it's possible that my sources have been biased in one direction or another.

When is your exam day?

Monday at 11:00. I have put in sufficient time, but I really have no idea what to expect. I can really see why people turn to **** when the exam topics list is such a disaster compared to, for example, the CCIE blueprint. "Configure OSPF routing", wow thanks, that's a great help.

Good luck, sounds like you have done thorough preparation so I'm sure you will be fine!!

razar wrote: »

Good luck, sounds like you have done thorough preparation so I'm sure you will be fine!!

Thanks!

Good luck tomorrow!
Be sure to check in here as soon as you have the results.

good luck! looking forward to hearing about your experience!

Scored 871 which was around what I expected considering that I went in blind, didn't do practice tests, barely any review questions or anything like that.

I did well in most of the categories except Branch Office where I bombed with 33%. Let's just say that having CCNA:Sec probably would have been very useful. I overprepared when it came to configuration and found the sims very basic, and if I had wanted to just pass the exam I'm sure that I could have used a full month less if I hadn't done like one hundred labs. One Sim didn't work as expected and I had to modify a command through trial and error until it worked with less optimal parameters. Another one had wording that suggested the use of a certain parameter, but it wasn't available so I had to change for something else that, imo, didn't fulfill the requirements as well.

I was very nervous the day before, and until I was half way through the exam at which point I was 95% certain that it was a pass. I got an extra 30 minutes for being Swedish, but had an hour left at the end. The pens and keyboard were awful as usual. Apparently, and I asked about this, you are given an official PearsonVue approved pen, but it's so thick that you can barely write numbers with it.

As for the Switch exam, I've decided to use Switch Simplified after reading the Amazon reviews for the OCG and FLG; I don't think I've ever seen books get trashed like that. I can't find a hardcopy of S.Simplified with any kind of reasonable delivery time so I guess I'll go with the Kindle version. Not that I have a reader or anything, but it seems like you can use some PC program to read it. For hardware I'll probably end up having to rent rack time somewhere. I would like to get my own switches, but can't afford it right now.

Congrats!

Congrats! I wish you luck on SWITCH!

fredrikjj wrote: »

... Not that I have a reader or anything, but it seems like you can use some PC program to read it. For hardware I'll probably end up having to rent rack time somewhere. I would like to get my own switches, but can't afford it right now.

Yes, Amazon has a free kindle reader app for PC and MAC, android, etc. Actually I have used the ones for Android and PC and they work well. The PC one is to be desired (It's difficult, for me at least, to get comfortable with the page formatting on a 16:9 monitor), but works good in a pinch. Here's the link Amazon.com: Free Kindle Reading Apps

I went with a hardcopy because I don't see an option for Kindle on a Linux box without Internet connection. I haven't mentioned that before I think, but that's one of they key factors in me being able to put in long hours of studying - no distractions on the workstation. Any suggestions on free reading material while I wait for this book? I'm actually very curious about MPLS, but there's obviously no time to digest an entire book on it.

PS.
I guess I could have run it in a virtual windows machine or something. Whatever. Why can't they just make these things simple.

I should get the book any day now. I'll follow this process:

1. Read a chapter quickly to get an idea of what it's about.
2. Read again and take detailed notes.
3. Do basic labs related to each chapter. I'll use the Switch SLM for this.
4. Write summaries of the different technologies with my own words to expose weaknesses and to make things stick.
5. Advanced labs.
6. Pre-exam review

I expect it to take around 10 weeks.

Based on my experience with the route exam, I'm going to lab slightly less and focus more on theory. It's not as fun, but I wasted a lot of time doing labs on stuff that I already knew cold.

Man, you sure are flying through CCNP. I hope I can get a grasp on the concepts as quickly as you are.

mistabrumley89 wrote: »

Man, you sure are flying through CCNP. I hope I can get a grasp on the concepts as quickly as you are.

Gee, what do I say to that? Thanks, I guess, but 3 months for Route is probably just average. Diego "The Machine" M did the entire thing in two months I think. Realistically, I think that I could have passed route in around two months if I had been more systematic in my approach, but like I've said before, I wasted too much time on irrelevant (at least irrelevant for the exam) labbing. Particularly BGP stuff that went beyond what was in the FLG.

I got the book, and it's BIG. Big as in significantly physically larger than a normal Cisco Press book, but the actual theory part clocks in at just 500 pages which indicates to me that the scope of the exam is slightly smaller than Route. But then again, page count isn't everything.

The first time I heard about the Simplified series I assumed that it was some effort by Cisco to simplify the language for an international market, or something like that, but in reality it's just an independently created textbook series. I've read a few pages and the language seems good enough, but I obviously can't comment on the actual content yet, and I'll never be able to compare it to the OCG or FLG since I don't plan on reading those.

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