1st CCIE lab attempt blog and help for candidates.

Turgon · February 2012

LAB 135 INE Vol III no 6 - DONE

The BGP section was trivial. The lab offers complex multilink situations using virtual templates and a dual OSPF process where the requirement for it is not obvious. Glad it's behind me now. Some RIP fine tuning exercises as well which was a good reminder. Clear down rack and prepare for lab no 7 now..

Turgon · February 2012

1:30 PM UK time. Rack topology changed to suit INE Vol III lab no 7. Let's go. Hopefully these last 4 labs can be nuked in good order during what amounts to a very busy week ahead for me at work..

N2IT · February 2012

Just checking in

Looks like you are gaining some traction or at least maintaining. Keep up the good work!

Turgon · February 2012

Im done with the switching and WAN sections now. Just getting a meal going on the stove now, then IGP and BGP. Lab covers useful exercises on the WAN side of things, BVIs, ipunnumbered. All killers in the real lab for the uninitiated..

Turgon · February 2012

Lab 136 INE Vol III no 7 - DONE

Good to get this finished this weekend. The BGP section seemed rather confused with it's peerings and Im not sure what requirement the solution to up the local preference really meets. A nice lab for redistribution practice, WAN and some other things I previously mentioned.

Turgon · February 2012

I have scheduled a gradedlabs session for 5PM Friday. It would be good to have the convienience without messing around changing the homelab topology to suit a lab. Lab practice will be difficult the next few days as Im on the road for important meetings I have to prepare for. From Wednesday night onwards I should start to get more labtime again.

Im pleased with the progress the last three weeks. Although with so much on at work and having to handle everything at home alone it's been very tiring. But there is just no substitute for daily rack practice. You can't prepare for the lab exam without it. I have been regular with lab practice again, assembled my homerack and got 7 INE Vol III labs under my belt. The free evenings and weekends have really helped me. Im in the market for a mock exam in March so will speak to INE about that. I had hoped I could schedule one using my rack tokens but that does not seem to be the case these days. In 2009 I think that's how you could pay for them.

Two mocks in March would be good. I reckon another 15 lab hours should polish off the INE Vol III workbook. I should read over it when Im done to extract the useful points into my notes. It will then be retired to the shelf. Post INE Vol III and leading upto mocks it's practice on discrete lab topics using my rack, rackhire, my notes put together from the INE workbooks.

jamesp1983 · February 2012

INE mocks are really difficult from what I've read. I've heard their higher level labs are more difficult than the real one. I have two mocks with them as part of my Ultimate bundle and I hope that they are helpful.

You got this.

Turgon · February 2012

jamesp1983 wrote: »

INE mocks are really difficult from what I've read. I've heard their higher level labs are more difficult than the real one. I have two mocks with them as part of my Ultimate bundle and I hope that they are helpful.

You got this.

We will see. Im in a holding position this week on the study front until my 'big' meeting with the boss is done and dusted tomorrow. Then I can relax and settle into the studies again. Feedback I have on my technical strategy so far presented to the company is positive so I think it will go well.

Would just be good to get it out of the way then I can get back to labbing. As for INE mocks, lets get INE Vol III nuked and some decent topic practice under my belt.

Turgon · February 2012

Big meeting today went well. Everyone happy with my strategy for work. Good. Recable the rack tomorrow for lab 8 to be done in the evening after work.

reaper81 · February 2012

Good job. You are performing at a position many people at this board would like to achieve. Keep pushing and the CCIE will be in your future.

Turgon · February 2012

reaper81 wrote: »

Good job. You are performing at a position many people at this board would like to achieve. Keep pushing and the CCIE will be in your future.

Thanks Daniel. Work done today. Home rack clear down and reload in progress for INE Vol III lab no 8. Need to study the lab topology to see if I need to make any minor rearrangements.

jamesp1983 · February 2012

reaper81 wrote: »

Good job. You are performing at a position many people at this board would like to achieve. Keep pushing and the CCIE will be in your future.

I agree. It sounds like your position is an interesting, but demanding one.

Turgon · February 2012

jamesp1983 wrote: »

I agree. It sounds like your position is an interesting, but demanding one.

It's strategic more than operational. That brings with it choices to ponder very carefully indeed. Very demanding and not something any of my certifications help me with really. Decisions are needed and leadership, but if I take us in the wrong direction it will cost us.

Still, doing the CCIE keeps me current and able to keep up with our full time network designers. Im a network designer of 7 years standing now retired

Turgon · February 2012

Looking at the lab 8 topology, I would need to pull a 4000 series from storage to put it together. So I will do this one on the remote rack session I have scheduled for Friday evening. Time to print lab 9 topology and see if that is doable with what I have from home. Lack of secondary ethernet interfaces on my old routers is an issue..

Turgon · February 2012

Turgon wrote: »

Looking at the lab 8 topology, I would need to pull a 4000 series from storage to put it together. So I will do this one on the remote rack session I have scheduled for Friday evening. Time to print lab 9 topology and see if that is doable with what I have from home. Lack of secondary ethernet interfaces on my old routers is an issue..

Yes. Lab 9 I can do at home. R4 fa0/0 <-> R5 fa0/0 will be a serial link instead of ethernet due to lack of ethernet ports. Good. Lab 8 I will do on remote racks, lab 9 at home. Hopefully lab 10 over the weekend as well. So ends INE Vol III.

Turgon · February 2012

Lab 137 INE Vol III no 9 progressing this evening at home after work. Just BGP to do. Probably the best lab I have seen in the workbook to date, covers a lot of useful things well. More later.

Turgon · February 2012

Lab 137 INE Vol III lab no 9 - DONE. A really good lab this one. Not sure why R3 and R6 need to advertise R3's loopback prefix but I guess nobody will be able to explain

A well put together exercise lab 9 covering a lot of important things.

Turgon · February 2012

Lab 138 INE Vol III lab no 10.

Prestaging. Clearing down the home rack configs in prep for this one. Reconfigure frame switch, re ip address devices, recable. Lab no 8 will be dispatched on a gradedlabs session. Not enough ethernet interfaces for that one with what I have at home..

Turgon · February 2012

Everything reconfigured. Still recabling to do. A seminal moment. Lab 10 will be the last core lab I do on this gear at home. It will remain, mainly as a bank of switches to do INE Vol II switching practice, but other than that, its all remote racks once lab 10 is done. The gear was accumulated over 10 years. I learned a lot on it and it's been a great servant. So many companies I have done work for over the last 10 years owe a lot to what I learned in my evenings and weekends on the aging equipment I have amassed at home.

But it's old now..:) Time for gradedlabs..

But just one last lab...on Saturday!

Turgon · February 2012

Lab 138 INE Vol III lab no 10 - DONE

Nothing special really, although neighbors and virtual links are a theme and ip ospf types. A nice example of object tracking for default route advertisements. That's it. Admittedly lab no 8 still needs to be done on a remote rack, as I dont have sufficient hardware at home, but other than that, 9 of the 10 labs in this workbook done through February. Lab 8 I will do when Im bored.

But Im done with workbooks now. Ipexpert done twice, INE Vol II done twice, INE Vol III done three times. There is nothing more they can teach me really. From here on in, the grind of completing workbook labs is well and truly behind me, and it's topic practice only, followed by mock exams. February has been hard. With my family away the free time opened up to do all this work, but I have been busy professionally with energies required there to hit expectations, which I did, and all the hassles of running the home alone and doing everything for myself. I stuck to my task of getting through this workbook in February to get moving again, and to good effect. Now some rest. The last four weeks have been hard. It's 9pm Saturday and Im feeling knackered..four straight weekends of labbing and building a lab as well!

Good luck to candidates. It's the weekend so put the hours in.

Turgon · February 2012

Checked the scheduler on INE and graded labs has opened up, so I have booked 5pm UK time Sunday to do INE Vol III lab no 8.

Turgon · February 2012

Lab 139 INE Vol III lab no 8 - DONE

Probably the most complex of the labs. Multiple ospf processes and messed up redistribution situations. Knowing when and where to use distance..

That's it. INE Vol III is complete now. All 10 labs done through February. And that's the end of work using full scale labs in any vendor's workbook now. I have done them all several times over the last five years. Workbooks now serve as reading material to focus on specific topics. The only full scale labs I will do now are mock exams and the real thing. I learned a lot doing all those labs..

Turgon · February 2012

I have given it some thought. Security will the first topic up for revision. I have my notes plundered from the INE Vol II labs which I will look over. I might grab some racktime and go over the security sections in the labs 1 - 10 in INE Vol II. That should be enough..

onesaint · February 2012

Turgon wrote: »

Lab 139 INE Vol III lab no 8 - DONE

Probably the most complex of the labs. Multiple ospf processes and messed up redistribution situations. Knowing when and where to use distance..

That's it. INE Vol III is complete now. All 10 labs done through February. And that's the end of work using full scale labs in any vendor's workbook now. I have done them all several times over the last five years. Workbooks now serve as reading material to focus on specific topics. The only full scale labs I will do now are mock exams and the real thing. I learned a lot doing all those labs..

Congrats on getting all the workbook labs finished. Good to see you persevering with other demands in tow.

ipSpace · February 2012

Turgon wrote: »

Checked the scheduler on INE and graded labs has opened up, so I have booked 5pm UK time Sunday to do INE Vol III lab no 8.

How did you do on the graded lab?

Turgon · February 2012

ipSpace wrote: »

How did you do on the graded lab?

I haven't done any mocks yet.

Turgon · February 2012

Over the course of the last 18 months, I probably spent 100 hours going over the INE Vol II workbooks to put the config of scenarios into mnemosyne, then a spreadsheet, then some notes. You did not

Looking at security we can see the following tasks..

AAA
Filtering and ACLs - Standard/Extended/Reflexive
Filtering fragmented packets
Filtering with dynamic access-lists
Filtering with Time based ACLs
Filtering with PBR
Preventing packet spoofing with uRPF
NBAR for content based filtering
TCP intercept - watch mode
Packet logging with ACLS
Stateful filtering with CBAC
Advanced CBAC feature
CBAC TCP/UDP Intercept features
VLAN filtering for IP traffic
VLAN filters for non - IP traffic
Port security
HSRP and port security
DHCP snooping
DHCP snooping and the information option
Dynamip ARP inspection
IP source guard
Catalyst ingress ACLS
Controlling Terminal line Access
IOS login enhancements
Role based CLI
IP source tracker
Router IP traffic export
controlling the ICMP message rate
Control Plane Policing
IOS ACL selective IP option drop
BGP generic TTL security mechanism
Flexible Packet Matching
Zone Based Firewall
ZBF rate limiting
ZBF Application inspection
Classic IOS transparent firewall
ZFW Based IOS transparent firewall
IOS IPS

Some patterns have emerged. I will study accordingly, also baring in mind the likelyhood of things appearing on labday. The rest will be just enough and doc cd. Candidates get hung up on security. Don't. Reasons:

1. Usually few devices to configure
2. Few marks at stake
3. Many people skip the security section and pass the lab

A caveat here is the fear that a bad security section will screw earlier points hard won. Just make sure that your BGP peerings and IGP peerings are good. You may need to allow BGP/IGPs in any filters you apply.

Turgon · February 2012

Im very focused on my work this week. Also still fatigued after all those labs. Tonight Im looking over my security notes. There's a lot there I can't do with what I have at home, but a decent amount I can. I think I will start on ACL practice, all the variants. It all starts from there really.

Turgon · February 2012

Just an hour tonight. I never got to the ACL practice as amazingly one of routers could handle the AAA exercises so I went with those. I just felt the need to tap away at something tonight. Im not comfortable with AAA. It isn't difficult but isn't sticking yet. If I want AAA at work I ask the tools team to do it and they dont understand it either LOL.

A busy day at work tomorrow with lots of meetings, so a few more TE posts, some Pink Floyd, a hot bath and bed. As for AAA, I need to do some reading. Im sure the INE workbooks will straighten some things out for me, but I do also have the 'Little Black Book'. This was published in the early part of the last decade. A good period and a decent book. During that time everyone flooded into IT to get rich, and publishing boomed. There was a lot of rubbish published, but also some good stuff because some very capable people got involved. Since then, the dash for cash has gone, and we have less quality in publishing as more people with ability have moved into other genre's to chase the dollars. An example is groupstudy. Check the archives from 1998 - 2002, then look later. Still some smart people on that list, but not as many as there were. I will have a look for that book, it's in the garage someplace in a box. Laters.

Roguetadhg · March 2012

Did you find the book?

1st CCIE lab attempt blog and help for candidates.

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