CCIE v5 Study Guides and Groups

1/22/15

Yesterday I received the print version of CCIE Routing and Switching v5.0 Official Cert Guide, Volume 1, which has a companion CD.  The CD contained the Appendix G spreadsheet in XLSX format, so if you want it, I can send it to you. (I asked the publisher for the Excel version of  Table I-1 from the Introduction, the Cisco CCIE R&S Blueprint to the Official Cert Guide Chapters cross-reference)

I also found a nice pdf study guide from INE at their blog, updated for CCIE R&S v5, which you can create a pdf from (or copy into an Excel file)

Another good resource is a 112 slide presentation from Cisco Live in Milan 2014, an overview document for the newest CCIE v5 exam.  Something I found from the presentation was a study group on the Cisco Learning Network, and I joined the group for questions, answers, and morale-boosting when I need it.

I'm entering dates to schedule the study topics and review using the spreadsheet on the companion CD.  It's a good starting point for a course of action.  The general idea is 2-3 days per topic, then 1 day to do the Exam Prep.  I'll discover soon if that is adequate study time.  I sense that some topics may take a few more days.

Initial review - CCIE Routing and Switching v5.0 Official Cert Guide, Volume 1

1/16/15
I ordered both the electronic and print versions from Cisco Press, fulfilled by InformIT, 2 days ago.

http://www.ciscopress.com/store/cisco-ccie-routing-and-switching-v5.0-official-cert-9781587143960

 The electronic version is available in 3 formats.  I chose the PDF file.  957 fun-filled pages.  I can already tell that it's going to be good just an all-in-one-place desktop quick reference, once I get familiar with what is in the book and where it is.

I'm just getting acquainted with the format and content, but the content in Chapter 1 has already taught me a few things that I didn't know (but had theorized) in the operation of the Layer 2 Cisco switches, rules about auto-negotiation and how to defeat it (as in, which commands exactly defeat it), and that the duplex settings don't apply until the speed settings are set (something I realized but had never read in print before).  The required review of the 802.3 frame format (again, things I had forgotten over the years)  When I took the pre-test, I did poorly, because I thought that an RJ-45 connector only had 6 leads (it has 8, if you've also forgotten).  It was a good, inexpensive wake-up call that I have to write everything out before answering a question, because my memory has been used up with all sorts of other things.

BGP, IPv6, MPLS, QoS/COS, Multicast, Security, and AAA are all covered in Volume 2 which I have not ordered yet.

The e-book also comes with a Pearson VUE practice exam which I'm considering taking to find out where I need to focus my studying.  If you haven't taken the CCIE written exam before, they grade you based on the topics (see previous post for the topics)

Study Guide/Plan
There's a handy table in the Introduction of the book that cross-references the CCIE Written blueprint versus the contents of the book.  It could conceivably be used as a study guide.

I tried to take the study guide at the end of the book and convert it PDF to Excel but was unsuccessful.  So it may end up being a manual spreadsheet, or I may get an existing study guide from another source.

I'll report on the study guide on a future blog post.  (There are quite a few out there for the taking/sharing, some very detailed)

Meanwhile, I'll keep reading this book, and come up with a reading plan.  2 chapters a week may be the current plan, Here's the table of contents (the detailed ToC is on the webpage above under the "Sample Content" tab)

Part I LAN Switching
Chapter 1 Ethernet Basics 3
Chapter 2 Virtual LANs and VLAN Trunking 47
Chapter 3 Spanning Tree Protocol 103
Part II IP Networking
Chapter 4 IP Addressing 183
Chapter 5 IP Services 227
Part III IP IGP Routing
Chapter 6 IP Forwarding (Routing) 267
Chapter 7 RIPv2 and RIPng 313
Chapter 8 EIGRP 347
Chapter 9 OSPF 453
Chapter 10 IS-IS 563
Chapter 11 IGP Route Redistribution, Route Summarization, Default Routing, and
Troubleshooting 633
Part IV Final Preparation
Chapter 12 Final Preparation 701
Part V Appendixes
Appendix A Answers to the “Do I Know This Already?” Quizzes 707
Appendix B CCIE Exam Updates 713
Index 714
CD-Only
Appendix C Decimal to Binary Conversion Table
Appendix D IP Addressing Practice
Appendix E Key Tables for CCIE Study
Appendix F Solutions for Key Tables for CCIE Study
Appendix G Study Planner

CCIE Routing and Switching v5 start

1/14/2015
I've decided to take the written exam for the Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert certification again, for the 3rd time.

The first time was in 1994.  I passed it without much study or effort.  I believe it cost $150 back then.

The second time was in 1999.  I passed it at that time without much effort either. The cost might have been $200, maybe $250.  I spent numerous hours and dollars studying for the Lab Exam, making some extreme sacrifices.

This time is different, the test looks like it's gotten more complex, may be asking more in-depth questions, and has gotten more expensive ($400)

So, I will use this blog as my study board, research the questions that are asked, and present the answers (or maybe ask questions to the audience)

First - the guidelines/blueprint is here
http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/certifications/expert/ccie_rs/index.html

The Topic Guide is here, it may require a CCO (Cisco Content Online)
http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/exams/docs/400-101_ccieRS.pdf

There are 6 major topics:
1.0 Network Principles 10%
2.0 Layer 2 Technologies 15%
3.0 Layer 3 Technologies 40%
4.0 VPN Technologies 15%
5.0 Infrastructure Security 5%
6.0 Infrastructure Services 15%

The detail of these can be overwhelming - I'm lucky to have daily exposure and practice on many of them here at work.

I'm looking at some books as study material and will provide the reviews here for what I decide to purchase.

Seagate FreeAgent read only

I ran across this problem with a Seagate FreeAgent USB drive recently. On a Windows SBS 2008 Std server, I'm using two of these drives as backup drives. One of the drives came up as read-only, so I did my due diligence and searched for "seagate freeagent read only". Got a few applicable hits, but only for people who posted and really never got a solution, and from one person who changed the security settings of the drive. That didn't work because the drive couldn't be written to to change the securty settings (duh...). Well, I found a solution that worked for me (Mac users - sorry, I don't have a Macintosh available to test this)

The solution was to go into Disk Management (right-click Computer in the Start Menu, or open Administrative Tools and select "Computer Management". Then expand Storage, then click Disk Management. This works for Win2008 Vista Win2003 and XP). If the drive shows Read-only in the bottom pane of Disk Management, then right click on the box where it shows Read-only and in the context menu, click "Offline". After the drive goes offline, right-click again, and choose "Online". This restored my drive to Online (full read-write) status.

To clean, or not to clean?

That is the question. (My posthumous apologies to William Shakespeare)

I've seen PCs that were so filled with dust, animal hair, grease, and loose screws that I was surprised they were still running. There are pro's and con's to do this cleaning, and I've certainly made my mistakes in cleaning computers, mostly due to carelessness and not inspecting the components before diving in. So, here are a few of the things I do in the cleaning process.

1. Check the system event logs, to see if there are any entries in the logs that indicate a component failure. If there is, I point that out and make sure you're aware of the condition, and what the remediation is for that problem. (If the system is still under warranty, either I open a case with the manufacturer, or my customer does that, depending on my service relationship with that customer)
2. Check the BIOS and revew the system environment readings. If the CPU temperature looks a little high, or the system fan RPMs look a little low, the system probably needs cleaning. Heavy dust will put a drag on the fan motors, causing them to spin significanly slower than when they're clean.
3. After determining that the system may need cleaning, I open the case, and visually inspect it for cabling that may be frayed or compromised. If any of the cables look like they were nicked by the CPU fan or some other moving part, I will recommend replacing the cable or the power supply, depending on where the bad cable is.
4. I also check the exhaust fan to see if it is blowing in the right direction (it should be blowing outwards, to draw hot air out of the case - I've seen a few "custom built" PCs with exhaust fans blowing air inward). If that fan needs to be reversed, I make that correction with the 4 mounting screws for the fan. I also check to see if the fan is plugged into the correct place on the motherboard (as opposed to being connected to a power jumper from the power supply)
5. There are air intake slots usually at the base of the front of the PC, under the bezel. I've seen those intakes completely filled with hair and dust. That reduces the intake airflow, and makes it increasingly difficult to have cooling air travel through the case.
6. Carefully observe the level of dust, dirt and grime on the surfaces of the fan blades, heat sinks, hard drive cases, and on the bottom of the case.
7. I have a vacuum cleaner that I use to pull the dust as I blow it out with a duster. Sometimes, it's important for me to vacuum the air intakes on the machine itself, or extract the hair and dust clogs before doing the dusting. I use Q-tips to brush dist off the fan blades when the dust looks really solid, and wooden chopsticks to pull out those clogs, and then I lodge those chopsticks and Q-tips into the fans to immobilize the fans while I'm blowing dust out the case.
8. On a service call, with customers who still have rollerball mice, I open the ring, clean the ball by brushing it off the best I can, and scrape out all the gunk from the wheels and rollers. For the optical mice, I scrape gunk off the pads on the base of the mouse. I also turn the keyboard upside down and shake it out (it's amazing how many staples fall out of those keyboards).

If I'm replacing a component (RAM, HDD, CPU, CPU fan, optical drive), I will generally do this level of cleaning as a courtesy to the customer, and explain why I did it. I don't usually open cases just to clean them, under the "leave well enough alone" rule.

I did a quick search for the different techniques of cleaning computers, and why it should be done, and maybe why it should not be done. Here are some of the different views on the subject:

Cleaning the Interior of your PC
Clean up your grungy PC
In my search for "don't clean the inside of your PC", I did not get a single hit on why it should not be done.

Malware removal

Posted on the NYSBS Yahoo Group earlier today, but of general interest to the community

Malware’s a bitch, ain’t it? Short of backing up the data and rebuilding the server, try this process.

1, Get a list of all the services that are running, and note them. Lots of tools out there that will list those for you. I don’t have any suggestions for that on a server, but have lots for workstations. (I'll edit this post later with links to services listing utilities)

2. Run msconfig and see if there are any suspicious startups and services starting there. If there are, uncheck the startups, and go to services and stop those, and then kill them in the Task Manager. Check the Start > Programs > Startup menu for suspicious items. Don’t just delete them – from Properties, find out where they live and trace back to their source directories. Then if it’s malware, delete the directory, and then delete Startup shortcut.

3. Download HijackThis http://www.download.com/Trend-Micro-HijackThis/3000-8022_4-10227353.html
and CleanUp 4.52 http://www.download.com/CleanUp/3000-2144_4-10727454.html?tag=lst-1&cdlPid=10727453

4. Restart the server in Safe Mode

5. Go to C:\Documents and Settings and delete the contents of the Temp and Temporary Internet Files folders in the Local Settings folder for Administrator and other folders (you’ll need to go to Folder Options and check “View Hidden files and folders” and “View protected system files” on the server). Also, delete everything in the C:\WINDOWS\Temp folder and c:\temp if it exists. Those folders are where a lot of the web hijackers live. After I do that, I run CleanUp to finish the job.

6. Then, run HijackThis
There are many HijackThis forums on the Internet that will help you decipher those results. I’ve used the tool so often that I pretty intuitively know which entries need to be removed, and if you’re pretty sharp, you’ll either search for the suspect entries and figure it out, or use the forums to get help from the experts. Before you uncheck any of those items, look at the path that is indicated and see if it leads you to some other folder that needs to be deleted.

Elapsed time, probably an hour or so, excluding potentially extensive research from the HijackThis results.

ISA reverse caching

Last night, I encountered a strange problem. I updated a website on my virtual SBS 2003 Premium server and then viewed the website. The content updates did not come through. I deleted the website from IIS. When I viewed the website, the old content was still there. Searched the local drives on the SBS server and could not find any of the old content.

Then I realized, ISA must be caching the information. Did a google search on "ISA caching website" and the first hit was ISA Server 2004 FAQ: Caching which mentioned "reverse caching", and some vague instructions on how to create a rule to disable it. Apparantly, ISA does the same thing caching forward and reverse. I turned off caching in ISA, recreated the website in IIS and everything is fine now.

Caching configuration in ISA, especially reverse caching, is an important quality of its security and performance qualities. Since I'm not using the forward caching, I could disable it completely, but that will not always be the case. Thus, I have another "learn to" on my task list - "learn to configure reverse caching on ISA"

Thanks, Michael, for helping me troubleshoot the problem.

ISA - Internet Security and Acceleration
IIS - Internet Information Service
SBS - Small Business Server