Cisco CCNA / CCNP Certification Exam: Cabling Your Home Lab by Chris Bryant
More CCNA and CCNP candidates than ever before are putting together their own home labs, and there's no better way to learn about Cisco technologies than working with the real thing. Getting the routers and switches is just part of putting together a great CCNA / CCNP home lab, though. ... To practice directly connecting Cisco routers via Serial interfaces (an important CCNA skill), you'll need to connect them with a DTE/DCE cable. ... Choosing and connecting the right cables for your Cisco CCNA / CCNP home lab is a great learning experience, and it's also an important part of your Cisco...

Cisco CCNA / CCNP / BCMSN Exam Review: Trunking And Trunking Protocols by Chris Bryant
To earn your CCNA or CCNP certification, you've got to understand the basics of trunking. This isn't just a CCNA topic - you must have an advanced understanding of trunking and etherchannels to pass the BCMSN exam and earn your CCNP as well. Before we address those advanced topics, though, you... Knowing the details is the difference between passing and failing your CCNA and CCNP exams. ... The 26-byte header that is added to the frame by ISL contains the VLAN ID; the 4-byte trailer contains a Cyclical Redundancy Check (CRC) value.

Cisco CCNP / BCMSN Exam Tutorial: Dynamic Trunking Protocol (DTP) by Chris Bryant
When you're studying to pass the BCMSN exam on the way to earning your CCNP certification, you're going to add to your CCNA knowledgebase every step of the way. Nowhere is that more than configuring a trunk between two switches. You know that IEEE 802.1Q ("dot1q") and ISL are your two choices of... DTP can be turned off at the interface level with the switchport nonegotiate command, but as you see below, you cannot turn DTP off until the port is no longer in dynamic desirable trunking mode. ... (Dynamic desirable is the default mode for most Cisco switch ports.) SW2(config)#int fast 0/8...

How to pass CCNA: 6 Steps to Success by Vanja Buric
CCNA is one of the most respected Associate level Certification in the world today. Getting a CCNA will definitely help you to get a better job or at least get your foot into Professional Networking Field. When you meet a person that has CCNA degree you will notice that he or she knows something... What I mean by that is that you have to seriously think about on why are you getting CCNA and why do you want to be CCNA certified. ... At this point you already firmly grasped the whole CCNA concept and Q&A will only help you.

Cisco Certification: Building Your Home Lab, Part II by Chris Bryant
In the first part of this home lab tutorial, CCNA and CCNP candidates can see that there are a LOT of choices when it comes to what to buy to build your own Cisco practice lab. Having been there myself, I know it's confusing to decide how many routers or switches to buy, and what I need at the... (You must know how to do that before you think of taking the CCNA exams!) Depending on the switch, you can also get some practice putting the Ethernet ports in different VLANs and working with the switch IOS.

Cisco CCNP / BSCI Exam Tutorial: OSPF Route Redistribution Review by Chris Bryant
OSPF route redistribution is an important topic on the BSCI exam, and it's a topic full of details and defaults that you need to know for the exam room and the job. To help you pass the BSCI exam, here's a quick review of some of the OSPF route redistribution basics. ... 1 Set OSPF External Type 1 metrics 2 Set OSPF External Type 2 metrics R1(config-router)#redistribute rip subnets metric-type 1 Look at the same two routes in R4's routing table, which are now displayed as E1 routes: O E1 5.1.1.1 [110/94] via 172.34.34.3, 00:04:13, Ethernet0 6.0.0.0/32 is subnetted, 1 subnets O E1...

Cisco CCNA Certification Exam Tutorial: Frame Relay DLCIs And Mappings by Chris Bryant
Passing the CCNA is tough, and one of the toughest parts is keeping all the acronyms straight! Frame Relay has plenty of those, and today we're going to examine what DLCIs do and how they're mapped on a Cisco router. Frame Relay VCs use Data-Link Connection Identifiers (DLCI - pronounced... R1#show frame map Serial0 (up): ip 200.1.1.2 dlci 122(0x7A,0x1CA0), static, broadcast, CISCO, status defined, active Serial0 (up): ip 200.1.1.3 dlci 123(0x7B,0x1CB0), static, broadcast, CISCO, status defined, active Hands-on practice is the best way to prepare for CCNA exam success.

Cisco CCNA Certification Exam Tutorial: The OSPF RID by Chris Bryant
OSPF is a major topic on your CCNA exam, as well it should be. OSPF is a widely-used WAN protocol, and you need to learn the fundamentals before moving on to more complicated configurations. One such detail is the OSPF Router ID, or RID. The RID is the dotted decimal value by which other OSPF... That’s OK on a practice rack, not good in a production network. ... End with CNTL/Z. ... R1#conf t Enter configuration commands, one per line. ... Use the router-id command to change the default RID of each router as shown, and clear the OSPF process to do so.

Cisco CCNA / CCNP Home Lab Tutorial: Starting Over by Chris Bryant
When you're preparing for success on your CCNA or CCNP certification exams, sooner or later you're going to want to start totally from scratch on your Cisco routers and switches. It's easy enough to type "write erase" and "reload", but there are a few details you have to watch if you want your... You should only answer yes if you have a lot of time on your hands, just want to see what setup mode is like, or practice CTRL-C to get out it! ... Router> Now you're working with a router that's just like it was when it came out of the box!

Cisco CCNA / CCNP Home Lab Setup Tutorial: How To Buy & Build A Frame Relay Switch by Chris Bryant
One of the major topics on your CCNA and CCNP exams is Frame Relay. Additionally, Frame Relay is one of the most popular WAN technolgies in today's networks. Getting hands-on experience with Frame Relay in Cisco networks isn't just a good idea, it's a necessity. ... A great configuration for a CCNA practice lab is three routers that serve as "production" routers, and a 4th router as a frame relay switch. ... To practice all your important Frame Relay commands for your exams, you need a working Frame Relay cloud in your home lab.