Networks Articles

Computers » Networks | By Chris Bryant @ Saturday, 1st April 2006 @ 11:56 AM

To be successful on the BSCI exam and in earning your CCNP, you've got to master route redistribution. This isn't as easy as it sounds, because configuring route redistribution is only half the battle. Whether it's on an exam or in a real-world production network, you've got to identify possible points of trouble before you configure route redistribution - and you need to be able to control redistribution as well. You may have an OSPF domain with 100 routes, but only need to ... more...

Computers » Networks | By Chris Bryant @ Friday, 31st March 2006 @ 10:56 AM

Your BCMSN and CCNP studies will include mastering the details of Spanning Tree Protocol (STP). While you learned some of these details in your CCNA studies, quite a bit of it may be new to you. Before going on to the intermediate and advanced STP features, let's review the root bridge election process and learn how to change these results. Each switch will have a Bridge ID Priority value, more commonly referred to as a BID. This BID is a combination of a default priority value and t... more...

Computers » Networks | By Chris Bryant @ Friday, 31st March 2006 @ 10:55 AM

It might happen on your CCNA exam, it might happen on your production network - but sooner or later, you're going to have to perform password recovery on a Cisco router or switch. This involves manipulating the router's configuration register, and that is enough to make some CCNA candidates and network administrators really nervous! It's true that setting the configuration register to the wrong value can damage the router, but if you do the proper research before starting ... more...

Computers » Networks | By Chris Bryant @ Thursday, 30th March 2006 @ 8:55 AM

To pass the BSCI exam, earn your CCNP certification, and become an outstanding networker, you've got to master the many details of BGP - and trust me, there are a lot of details to master! Before you get into the more advanced features of BGP, you should have the fundamentals down cold, and one of those fundamentals is knowing the BGP adjacency states. This will allow you to successfully analyze and troubleshoot BGP peer relationships. In the following example, a BGP peering is b... more...

Computers » Networks | By Chris Bryant @ Thursday, 30th March 2006 @ 8:55 AM

One of the first things you do when you start studying for the CCNA exam is memorizing a list of port numbers and the protocols that run on those ports. If you're an experienced networker, you know most of the protocols that are mentioned - DNS, DHCP, FTP, SMTP, and so on. But there's one protocol that you might not have experience with, but is actually vital for CCNA exam success and success in working with Cisco routers and switches, and that's TFTP - Trivial File Transfer Proto... more...

Computers » Networks | By Chris Bryant @ Wednesday, 29th March 2006 @ 9:55 AM

To pass the CCNA exam, you've got to create a study plan. Part of that plan is scheduling your study time, and making that study time count. You've scheduled your exam you've created a document to track your study time you've planned exactly when you're going to study. Now the plan must be carried out, without exception. What exceptions do I mean? Cell phones. Televisions. IPods. Significant others. The list can go on and on. It's one thing to have a plan, a... more...

Computers » Networks | By Chris Bryant @ Tuesday, 28th March 2006 @ 2:58 PM

When you earned your CCNA, you thought you learned everything there is to know about RIP. Close, but not quite! There are some additional details you need to know to pass the BSCI exam and get one step closer to the CCNP exam, and one of those involves RIP update packet authentication. You're familiar with some advantages of using RIPv2 over RIPv1, support for VLSM chief among them. But one advantage that you're not introduced to in your CCNA studies is the ability to configure ... more...

Computers » Networks | By Chris Bryant @ Monday, 27th March 2006 @ 1:56 PM

Passing the BCMSN exam and getting one step closer to the CCNP certification means learning and noticing details that you were not presented with in your CCNA studies. (Yes, I know – you had more than enough details then, right?) One protocol you've got to learn more details about is VTP, which seemed simple enough in your CCNA studies! Part of learning the details is mastering the fundamentals, so in this tutorial we'll review the basics of VTP. In show vtp status readouts, the ... more...

Computers » Networks | By Chris Bryant @ Monday, 27th March 2006 @ 1:55 PM

CCNA exam success depends on mastering many technologies that are new to you, and few exam topics have more details than ISDN. ISDN isn't just for your CCNA exam studies, though. While ISDN is dismissed by many, the fact is that there are many small and mid-size networks out there that use ISDN as their backup to frame relay. Some of these companies have spoke networks that use ISDN to connect to their hub as well, so it's a great idea to know ISDN configuration and troubleshooting ... more...

Computers » Networks | By Chris Bryant @ Wednesday, 22nd March 2006 @ 8:55 AM

CCNA exam success depends largely on noticing the details, and this is especially true of configurations involving directly connected serial interfaces. And of course, it's not enough to notice these details - you've got to know what to do about them! A Cisco router is a DTE by default, but directly connecting two DTEs with a DCE/DTE cable is not enough. In the following example, R1 and R3 are directly connected at their Serial1 interfaces. The line goes up briefly after bein... more...