……………………………………..Finally able to post a pic of my home lab. I was able to complete the assembly last week but been busy studying to take the time and post. But here it is so far…

Oh boy! Major reality check – I’ve been hitting the books and taking notes big time the last few weeks, and last night I finally sat down and started to go through some of the practice test that came free with my book. At this point, I’m thinking, “Ok, this shouldn’t be too bad. I feel that I’m about 80% to 85% on the way.” But what a gut check, I tell ya! I must’ve had 1 correct answer of the first 20 questions I did.

If the real exam is this challenging, I might as well just concede defeat now and set my sights for the next race. But I’m not about to panic yet.  It’s not that the information in the questions were something I’ve never seen. It’s just that all the information are so packed in my head and words and theories are floating in my brain that for every mulitple choice option I see on the test, a word association is triggered in my head and everything looks like the right answer.

I think now, I just need to do more practice sets, and for goodness sakes I need to organize and categorize all the information in my head so they all make sense.

It’s kinda funny how you remember things that you’re never ever going use and you can’t remember things that you want to remember.

For instance:

I worked at the University of California, Irvine Main Library which is about nine years ago and ’til now, I still remember some of the Library of Congress Call Numbers for certain periodicals.
AP 2 N6772  -  Newsweek
AP 2 N6763 – The New Yorker
AP 2 L54715 – Life Magazine
JK 1 U65 – US News & World Reports

I mean, what useless information, right? If I can only replace this area of my brain with information that can actually help me pass the test then that would be fab!

 Yeah!

Exactly one week left before I’m scheduled to sit my CCENT exam. I am not ready by any measure. Well, ok maybe I’m a little over halfway ready. But I don’t like going to an exam when I know well that I’m not 110% prepared.

I will evalute where I’m at midweek, and if needed, I don’t have any problems re-scheduling for another week.

  RIP-2 Configuration

Step 1        Use the router rip configuration command to move into RIP configuration mode.
Step 2        Use the version 2 RIP subcommand to tell the router to use RIP Version 2 exclusively.
Step 3        Use one or more network net-number RIP subcommands to enable RIP on the correct interfaces.
Step 4        (Optional) As needed, disable RIP on and interface using the passive-interface type number RIP subcommand.

• Each RIP network command enables RIP on as set of interfaces.
• The RIP network command only uses a classful network number as its one parameter.
• For any of the router’s interface IP addresses in that entire classful network, the router does the following three things:

1. The router multicasts routing update to a reserved IP multicast IP address, 224.0.0.9
2. The router listens for incoming updates on that same interface.
3. The router advertises about the subnet connected to the interface.

Example:

Router#config t
Router(config)#router rip
Router(config-router)#version 2
Router(config-router)#network 192.168.5.0
Router(config-router)#network 10.0.0.0

Information stolen from Wendell Odom’s CCENT/CCNA ICND1 Official Exam Certification Guide, 2nd Edition book.

Routers need to have routes in their IP routing table for the packet forwarding process (routing) to work. Two of the most basic means by which a router adds routes to its routing table are by:

• Learning about the subnets connected to its interface, and by
• Configuring a route by using a global configuration command (called a static route).

Connected Routes 

A router adds routes to its routing table for the subnets connected to each of the router’s interfaces. For this to occur,

• the router must have an IP Address and mask configured on the interface (statically with the ip address command or dynamically using DHCP)
• and both interfaces status codes must be “up/up”

The concept is simple; if a router has an interface in a subnet, the router has a way to forward packets into that subnet, so the router needs a route in its routing table. 

Static Routes

Although the connected routes on each router are important, routers typically need other routes to forward packets to all subnets in an internetwork. For example a ping on any IP addresses that is on the other end of each serial link would be successful, but a ping of an IP address that is not directly connected to the subnet will fail 

The simple and typical solution to this problem is to configure a routing protocol on all the routers. However, another solution is to configure a static route.

Example:

R1#configure terminal

R1(config)#ip route 10.1.2.0   255.255.255.0   10.1.128.252

R1(config)#ip route 10.1.3.0   255.255.255.0   10.1.130.253

 NOTE: The next-hop IP address should be an IP address in a directly connected subnet. 

Information stolen from Wendell Odom’s CCENT/CCNA ICND1 Official Exam Certification Guide, 2nd Edition book.

..that a bridge operates at Layer 2. I keep making a mistake of thinking that it is Layer 1 and that it is similar to a hub and/or repeater. In fact hubs and repeaters are very much alike and bridges are more like switches – in fact the terms are often interchangeable. Funny that I’ve been working on these devices for years but I never really considered the difference in the way they work.

Anyway, to think of it this way:  Hub = Repeater with multiple ports. Got it! I won’t get that practice question wrong again

Going back to network bridges, Wikipedia states that:

A network bridge connects multiple network segments at the data link layer (layer 2) of the OSI model, and the term layer 2 switch is often used interchangeably with bridge. Bridges are similar to repeaters or network hubs, devices that connect network segments at the physical layer, however a bridge works by using bridging where traffic from one network is managed rather than simply rebroadcast to adjacent network segments. In Ethernet networks, the term “bridge” formally means a device that behaves according to the IEEE 802.1D standard—this is most often referred to as a network switch in marketing literature. 

Did i mention I freakin’ love Wikipedia?

 An important difference between bridges and hubs is that a bridge segments a collision domain thereby reducing collision of packets between hosts. A switch creates a separate collision domain in each interface ports (i.e. a 24-port switch creates 24 collision domains.)

So I decided to postpone my test til the end of the month. I was scheduled to take the CCENT part of the CCNA this weekend but the review phase of my studying is taking a while longer than I had originally planned for. 

It took me a good month to read my main study guide (Wendell Odom’s CCENT/CCNA ICND1 Official Exam Certification Guide, 2nd Ed.) from cover to cover – minus the appendices and other miscellaneous pages. But of course, the second time around is taking much longer because I’m trying to go more in depth on the concepts. When I see some command, even the easy ones, I fire up my router or switch and start practicing just to drill them in my head. These are, of course, not commands that would actually make a lot of impact in the whole internetworking realm, but maybe some that would appear in the exam.

 Anyway, I’ve been on a good tear for the last month in terms of my study schedule. I study everyday and I pretty much have a solid schedule worked out. But last night was the first rift in the flow. My wife and I, along with the little booger, had dinner at Claim Jumper. It was just a little impromptu date for the 3 of us after work. We had a good time. But I ate so much that when we got home I just wanted to sleep. So my plans to study for 3 hours last night was pretty much shot. It’s ok though, I’ll continue hitting the books until I’m ready at the end of the month.   

Here’s a pic of my latest rig so far. I just received my Dantrak rack (dantraknet.com) last night and the 2nd 2950 the night before. But because of some heavy studying, I haven’t put it together. Nope, not even the excitement of getting a new rack can pry me away from learning about CDP.

So, I plan to assemble the thing together tonight and start racking up all my routers and switches. For now, I don’t really care if it looks neat or not. I’m just trying to get through my scheduled readings and reviews to get ready for my test. And I have a dilemma regarding where to put my equipment. Right now I’m using our nice dining table (that never gets used unless we have special guests visiting) and turned it into a learning center. So the whole table is covered with books, papers, writing materials, cables, and the picture above. I’m thinking of moving my whole base of operation in the extra room upstairs. I call it my jazz room ’cause that’s where all my music equipments are (keyboard, guitars, extra computer, etc.) So the room is in even more bad shape as the dining table. I’ll pay anyone $0.99 to help me clean it.

Anyway, it’s gonna look sweet once I clean it up a little and organize everything.

Scored another router on ebay last night. I’ve been trying to get a nice 2509 to complete my lab (for now). This would add nice compliment to my collection since I’m probably be utilizing this the most. And I was able to get it for under $50, which I consider a pretty good deal seeing that most of the ones I’ve bid on went for well over $70.

For those who are not familiar with the 2500 Access Server Series, read this: Overview of the Cisco 2500 Series Access Server.

The Cisco 2500 series access server is a full-featured communication server with multiprotocol routing capability between synchronous serial, LAN, and asynchronous serial ports.

Ok, like that meant something. Basically, I will be using this nice gadget to provide access to multiple routers and/or switches. And how exactly am I going to do that? I don’t know. Guess it’s time to sit back, pick up the copy of the manual and start learning. I’ll post an update of failures and successes when I get to it.