IPExpert Multiprotocol Challenge G

I liked the requirements of this one and with a challenge of only 5 I should be able to buzz through it relatively quickly. Since it's a weeknight, I need to be done by midnight. So, without much time to waste here I go.

6:30pm lab started
6:56pm diagrams and readthrough complete
7:00pm initial configs loaded, 1 point
7:30pm basic configuration completed, 3 points
7:32pm WAN configuration completed, 12 points
8:45pm I'm calling it a night. I got hung up on something really stupid in switching. I was even more frustated when the workbook game me a stupid answer for what I was stuck on. I've made it really clear to myself that I have absolutely no clue what the port-priority command does. I'm going to have to research this. I'll be back Thursday.

Continuing Bootcamp Lab #2

11:05am Configs from yesterday loaded and verified
11:27am TASK 17 complete,3 points--multicast went much better since doing IE mcast labs
11:37am Task 18 complete, 3 points
12:07pm Task 19 complete, 5 points
12:25pm Task 20 complete, 5 points--the MBGP stuff is still a little bit over my head
12:46pm Task 21 complete, 4 points
12:57 Task 22 complete, 2 ponts--easy, I was just distracted
1:12 Task 24 complete, 4 points--easy, took extra time for verification
1:23 Task 25 complete, 4 points
1:26 Task 26 complete, 2 points
1:30 Task 27 complete, 3 points
1:47 Task 28 complete, 2 points
1:47 Task 29 complete, 2 points
2:00 Task 30 complet, 2 points--it's "ip telnet"

I still intnetionally skipped task 5. It was only worth 3 points and would have taken a bit of time. First, I hate cos-maps. Second, it required changing Cat3 to transparent mode. Since pruning was enabled, this could have had undesired effects on trunked traffic. So, I would have then probably had to turn off pruning for specific vlans. Next, it would have probably taken a few minutes to find "switchcore wirespeed" in the doc cd. And finally, I'm not a big fan of smart macros, for anything other than pinging. So, I was more than happy to throw away 3 points.

All in all, I'm glad I repeated this lab. I understood a lot more about what was going on than I did back in September. I also didn't have to look much up on the doc cd.

Repeat Bootcamp Lab 2

I'm off to a little bit of a late start this morning. So I figure I'll redo a previous lab.

8:45am start
9:00am diagrams complete
10:00am readthrough and initial configs complete
10:00am 1.0 complete 3 points
10:00am 2.0 complete 1 point
10:40am 3.0 complete 2 ponts
10:40am 4.0 complete 2 points
Task 5.0 skipped for now
10:48 Task 6.0 complete 4 points
11:15 Task 7.0 complete 4 points (Watch those supernet addresses!)
Task 8.0 skipped for now
Task 9.0 skipped for now
11:45 Task 10.0 complete, 5 points. Back to task 9.0
12:00 Task 9.0 complete, 5 points
12:05 Task 8.0 complete, 3 points
12:35 Task 11.0 complete, 4 points
12:49 Task 12.0 complete, 3 points (took a 20 minute lunch also)
12:57 Task 13.0 complete, 3 points
1:19 Task 14.0 complete, 3 points
2:08 Task 15 complete, 5 points (and a 20 minute break)
2:45 Task 16 complete, 6 points (had to lookup as-set for aggregation)
3:00 Pingtests complete. Had to advertise one of the EIGRP links into OSPF.

I'm going to take it easy this weekend and call it a day. At this point I have about 2:30 left and the core is complete. I have 53 points and I skipped 3, mostly because it was "extra" and looked like a lot to go through for 3 points.

Mock Lab back and More Multicast

For IE Mock lab 3, the score was a 63. In actuality, there were some problems with the router code versions. For example, R1 wouldn't accept ospfv3 commands. So my real score was a 70. Once again, some dumb mistakes cost me.

• Missed portfast on some interfaces: 2 pts
• Missed a community string: 3 pts
• Misconfigured RMON: 3 pts
• Sent DHCP requests to the wrong place: 3 pts
• Missed a BGP peer: 6 pts

So, sans dumb mistakes my score was a 88. This makes me feel pretty dang good, since this lab was supposed to be equivalent in difficulty to the real thing. Also, I seem to be gaining 10 points a week on the actual scores of the mock labs. It's always nice to see progress.

I intended on finishing off the Multicast labs on Thursday, but my family has dinner plans so I moved it up to Wednesday. Honestly, I feel this was a bit of a mistake. I'm already studying close to 20 hours over the weekend. Two consecutive nights during the week is a bit much. Even though i was feeling a little burnt out, I forced myself through the remainder of the multicast labs. I learned a couple of little pieces of information:

• Anycast requires that the RPs be joined by MSDP. I never realized this before
• Running multicast over BGP requires the address-family commands under BGP. I've seen these before but haven't really messed with them so I need to do some more research

Other than that, the scenerios weren't nearly as eye opening as yesterdays.

Multicast Refresher

I've been struggling with Multicast and it's obvious I just don't get it. So tonight I decided to start going though the IE workbook 1 multicast session. The IE workbook 1 parts are great when I just need to immerse myself in a particular technology. However, it gets very redundant and monotonous, so it's not generally my idea of fun. I think they intentionally have it set up so you're constantly undoing and redoing configs.

On the bright side, it works wonders on muscle memory. It is also very detailed on the show and debug commands. I went through a whole bunch of the BGP tasks a few months back and felt it really helped me out there. I'd actually consider BGP one of my stronger areas, thanks in part to that and in part to actually using it at work now.

So I did about half the multicast tasks so far. At the beginning, I rolled my eyes becasue the tasks just seemed too easy. But once I followed along with the debugs and show commands, I feel I did learn a thing or two. As a bonus, I made a couple of mistakes and did have to do some troubleshooting.

I've been torn as to whether to speed drills or what on Tuesday and Thursday nights since I just want to spend a couple of hours. I think the Multicast section will work nicely for Thursday. We'll see what I want to do next week depending on how this weekend's labs go.

Contingency Plan

Let's face it--as hard as I prepare, there's a good chance I may not pass. Maybe I'm not prepared enough. Maybe I just make a bunch of stupid mistakes. Maybe I just have a bad day. Honestly, if I were to take the lab tomorrow, I'd give myself a 50/50 shot. I hope to have that up to 70 or 80 by time January 25th gets here. So what do I do if I don't make it?

1. Continue with the Sunday morning mock labs. These seem to be the most beneficial. I'll go ahead and purchase all 7 and then redo them all, ungraded, repeatedly
2. Use my free IPexpert retake in Columbus. Jun 9-13 seems good. So does July 21-25.
3. Retake the lab the week after the bootcamp.
4. Worry about a contingency plan for a second failure when I get closer to that.
5. Keep in mind, once August gets here, I'll have a Master's degree in Computer Science. Now that's something I don't have to recertify every couple of years!

IE Mock Lab #3

I must confess, I'm hooked on the IE mock labs. I was nervous that they were going to start charging $250 for them again, but they extended their $99 special through the end of January. This works pretty well for me since my lab is scheduled January 25th.

Why do I like them? First off, the challenge level seems to be just right--they're just a little bit beyond me. So I can see what is being asked for, I just need to push myself a little bit. Also, the questions are clear and don't seem to be trying to trick you, just to really make sure you know what you're doing. And of course having them graded and a very detailed solutions guide is a big plus.

Here we go.

6:00am Printed out the materials. This one looks scary from the topology standpoint!
6:40am Diagrams Completed. Created BGP and Layer 2 diagrams as well this time
7:09am Readthrough completed
7:21am Task 1.1 completed, no issues
7:25am Task 1.2 completed, no issues
7:42am Task 1.3 completed. Wasted time assuming it was back-to-back frame relay and disabled keepalives. Also, task states "point-to-point" yet requirements don't allow it. It'd be nice to be able to ask a proctor for clarification.
Task 1.4 skipping for now
7:50am Task 1.5 complete, had to lookup end-to-end keepalives on the doc cd. Knew what to look for
8:04am Task 1.6 completed--stupid phantom space got me :(

TASK 1 complete, 10 of 12 points

8:34am Task 2.1 competed--L2 diagram helped IMMENSELY
9:07am Task 2.2 completed--had to research dot1q tunneling, especially getting CDP to pass
9:07am Task 2.3 already completed with Task2.1
9:07am Task 2.4 already completed with Task 2.1
9:07am Task 2.5 already completed with Task 2.1
9:16 Skipping Task 2.6
9:16 Task 2.7 alrerady completed with Task 2.1
9:16 Task 2.8 already completed with Task 2.1
9:20 Task 2.9 Completed

Task 2 complete, 18 of 20 points. (28 Total)

9:39 Task 3.1 completed
9:39 Task 3.2 completed, pretty sure authentication is correct
9:47 Task 3.4 completed
10:02 Task 3.5 completed
10:09 Task 3.6 completed, had to lookup k value order
10:15 Task 3.7 completed--some offset-list trickery
10:21 Task 3.8 completed
10:23 Task 3.9 completed
10:59 Task 3.10 completed --not bad time for figuring out redistribution. It looked a lot worse than it was. A couple of distance statements on a router did the trick. It was basically an EIGRP transit router that had an OSPF interface. Since OSPF distance is better than EIGRP external, the EIGRP routes weren't passing through. Setting OSPF external and inter-area distance to 180 did the trick.

TASK 3 complete, 24 out of 24 points (52 total)

11:00 performed mass reboot and am going to lunch. Will perform ping test upon returning.

Thoughts on lab so far: Not bad. As I previously mentioned, these IE mock labs seem to be just right for the level I'm at. Some tasks that make me think, but nothing I can't figure out. Looking back at my times, I'm not disappointed with anything. I'm a little concerned that I only have 3 hours left, but on the bright side if my scores are correct I only need to pick up 28 points in those 3 hours.

11:20 Continuing
12:07 Ping Test complete. Thank goodness for the mass reboot and the ping scripts. My virtual link didn't come back up. This was due to its cost being 65535. I had to adjust the bandwidth on the link inbetween to get this to come up.

Skipping Multicast for now

12:19 Task 5.1 not complete. I have no idea how to configure sw1 to obtain its ipv6 address automatically
12:24 Task 5.1 complete. Remembered I have to change the sdm before I can use ipv6 on sw1
12:37 Task 5.2 complete. I'm calling it complete. R1 doesn't seem to support OSPVv3.

Task 5 Complete. 5 of 5 points (57 total)

12:52 Task 6.1 complete--got mark-probability confused with exponential weighting constant
12:54 Task 6.2 complete

Task 6 Complete. 5 out of 5 points (62 total)

1:00 Task 7.1 complete
7.2 skipped

Task 7 Complete, 3 out of 5 points (65 total)

1:09 Task 8.1 complete
1:18 Task 8.2 complete. Couldn't set the message for some reason.

Task 8 complete, 6 out of 6 points (71 total)

1:32 Task 9.1 complete
1:36 Task 9.2 complete

Task 9 complete, 5 out of 5 points (76 total)

1:58 Task 10.1 complete
2:05 Task 10.2 complete
2:10 Task 10.3 complete
2:15 Task 10.4 complete

Task 10 complete, 12 out of 12 points (88 total)
Time's up!!! Well, if I didn't make any mistakes, I'll have passed. Now I'll go ahead and try to clean up the remaining tasks.

2:24 Task 1.4 complete
Task 2.6, I'll have to look this one up. Didn't think you could block a root port
I'm completely stuck on the igmp proxy piece, will have to look into that

Time to watch my son. Hopefully I didn't miss much on what I think I got correctly.