As I continue my education into networking and security, I’ve learned to plan out my studies and make sure I give myself plenty of time to soak in the details, perform the labs and write notes. The CCNA Security certification is just one book which is a lot less to read compared to the CCNA.

I’ve given myself two months to read the book, take good notes and do some labs. Each week I will dedicate two chapters from the CCNA Security Official Exam Certification Guide by Michael Watkins and Kevin Wallace. I’ve left myself plenty of time to review so I can memorize what’s needed to pass the exam. Below you’ll see my schedule if you would like to do the same schedule as me. See my schedule after the jump.

How are you studying for the CCNA Security?

Related posts:

1. Studying for the CCNA Security Certification
2. How To Study For the CCNA Exam
3. Passing the CCNA Exam

I’ve been getting my feet wet in Microsoft technologies such as Active Directory and Server 2008 and have planned to take the Microsoft certification but found myself more into networking and security.

So now I will be focusing my studying on the 640-553 IINS, otherwise known as CCNA Security certification from Cisco.

Networking and security is truly where my heart is set. I won’t be ditching the Microsoft material. In fact, I’m still reading the books and watching videos but won’t be taking any certification exams for them.

My studies will be planned around the CCNA Security Official Exam Certification Guide by Michael Watkins and Kevin Wallace.

I already hold a valid CCNA certification so I’ll be slowly working my way towards a CCSP. In addition, I’ve already begun reading various security and networking blogs to help supplement the Cisco certification material.

What I’ve been researching is how to do the lab work for CCNA Security. Do most people use GNS3 and Dynamips? I know I can probably get some hardware but how much would that cost? I might be able to just get away with doing the theory piece but I’m a hands-on kind of guy.

What are your tips for passing the CCNA Security?

Related posts:

1. CCNA Security Study Plan
2. Update to 70-640 Certification
3. Training for MCTS 70-640 Certification

Network Bits is a series of weekly blog posts sharing interesting links in the networking and security industry.

Learn Network Access Control basics from these video tutorials – SecurityTube

Are you in need of labs to practice for the CCNA certification. Matthew George put together a great resource that’s FREE – Free CCNA Workbook

Email sucks. Treat email messages like SMS text messages and use three sentences for email responses. More on Kevin Rose’s #5 tip – Email Sucks. 5 Time Saving Tips.

Become an Information Security Mentor – Infosec Mentors

Related posts:

1. Studying for the CCNA Security Certification

Mashable posted 5 Fab Twitter Follower Visualizations and one of those links, TwitterSheep, happens to generate keywords (a Flock) from your Twitter followers’ bios. You can get a glimpse of the type of people you network with. Downside is if your followers don’t put anything descriptive about their Twitter accounts in the bio section.

At least from my own Twitter account I happen to be networking with the people in my own industry. Give it a shot for yourself and build your flock.

My flock of followers

Related posts:

1. The Stereotypical Tech

It’s about time Starbucks joined the wagon to provide free internet. Took them long enough but knowing AT&T they tried to squeeze every last penny out of us. So far my experience with the free wifi is smooth, fast and it’s not even crowded here.

What I did notice is how Starbucks is striking it gold with their landing page. It’s not like how Coffee Bean does it with their hidden little code on tv screens that really serve no purpose other than passing the time while you stand there waiting for your coffee. It blows local coffee shops out of the water, on a corporate perspective.

You connect to their hot spot, open up Firefox and you hit the “Yes I agree, I am responsible for what I do on Facebook on your network and I know my security may be compromised but I don’t care.” button.

The Connect page for Starbucks free Wi-Fi

The initial page you see is simple, you know where you are, what time it is and you even have a cool image of Starbucks on the screen. Your eyes and mouse cursor go directly to the check box and you click the green Connect button. Green to match the branding and green because you’re saving money.

So now you’re off surfing the web.. oh wait, a blog? Yep, Starbucks has a blog and you’re on it. It’s fresh, its pleasing to the eye and it’s updated regularly.

There’s a nice feature slide show. They have social networking buttons. At the time of me viewing this blog they have about 5,553 Facebook Likes on this blog. The social media impact is huge. People like this blog.

They welcome you and tell you to enjoy the use of the free wifi. Yep, even less available chairs. They’re sharing good stuff though. You know, like origins of their coffee and music. Yep music. Probably making bank off of you because you like the song currently playing in the store so you buy the album off their site. Cha-ching! Affiliate money.

The blog is very simple and casual. They even have their senior accountant blogging on there.

Other businesses can take note here. Whether you offer free wifi or not. Starbucks has built a significantly strong social media presence. They even have their own staff involved, writing articles on their site about “What Summer Means to Me” and “Real Food Simply Delicious”. They’ve managed to grab our attention by having blog posts that we can relate to. They keep us coming back to Starbucks, reading about Starbucks (about the interests of their employees), and we’re sharing it.

Do you like it? Because I do.

Click for Large

Related posts:

1. Network Bits Around the Web

Is your IT staff dwindling? You must be used to the fact that you have many tasks to fulfill throughout the work day. Some of the most common tasks that should not take up our precious time are associated with account lockouts and passwords in Active Directory. Luckily, you can delegate user account resets/lockouts to help desk users. Doing so will allow us, systems administrators, to perform the more crucial day-to-day workload.

In Windows Server 2008, this is done through the Active Directory Users and Computers console. It’s quite an easy task. Before we begin, I recommend you have a group with your help desk users in it. It can be easily named “Help Desk”. Best practices are to manage permissions to groups rather to individual users. You’ll thank me later.

1. Open Active Directory Users & Computers, expand your domain
   
2. Right click on the OU you want to delegate and select “Delegate Control”
   
3. In the Users & Groups window Add the group you want to give delegation to and click next
4. In the Tasks to Delegate window check the box for “Reset user passwords and force password change at next logon” and click Next
5. Review changes and click Finish
6. Review the OU permissions to ensure that the delegation process has completed. Right click on the OU you changed for delegation, and select Properties.
   
7. In the Properties window click on the Security tab. **If Security tab does not show you must enable Advanced Features in the View Menu**. From the Security tab click on the Advanced button.
8. In the Advanced Security Settings window ensure that the delegated group shows in the list
   
9. Click on the first entry for the group and click Edit. View the permissions entry to ensure the correct permissions are there.
   
10. Close the window and select a user or computer within the OU. Right click on the object and click on Properties and click on the Security tab. Check to see if the delegated group is in the list. This confirms Inheritance is enabled for the OU.

That is all you have to do to delegate user password resets for an individual OU. You can also apply that for the whole domain if needed.

Are you delegating password control to your help desk users?

Related posts:

1. Windows Server 2003 Event ID 1030 & 1058
2. Find Your Mailbox Size in Outlook 2007
3. Disable Dell Wireless Lan Utility and Use Built-In Windows Utility

IP addressing is the most important topic of the CCNA certification exam. It’s also best to know this topic like the back of your hand for when you are working at your job. To grasp networking concepts, models and troubleshoot problems requires that you KNOW ip addressing.

IP addresses are very much like the addresses our homes have. As with computer networks, without an address you can send or receive mail. So if your computer, router, switch, etc does not have an ip address assigned to it then that device will not be able to communicate with other devices on the internet.

An ip address is a 32 bit number, for example, 192.168.1.100

It is a unique number assigned to a device in a network. If another device has the same ip address there is what we call an ‘ip conflict’ and the devices will have issues sending and receiving packets.

There are two versions of ip address, IP version 4 (IPv4) and IP version 6 (IPv6). For the most part of your CCNA exam you will deal with IPv4 addresses. IPv6 is part of the exam but is not a big part of it and will be discussed in a separate post.

IP addresses are grouped into different classes:

• Class A
• Class B
• Class C

Each class has a different range of ip addresses and different support for the number of networks and hosts per network per class.

There are two rules though that must be followed for computer networking:

• IP addresses in the same group must not be separated by a router
• IP addresses separated by a router must be in different groups

Here are the corresponding network and host sizes in a table.

Size of Network and Host

From a previous brainfart post is the table of all valid network numbers:

Valid Network Numbers

IP subnetting is another important topic to understand. There is some math involved (I can hear you groaning) but in this post it’s just an overview.

Subnetting is basically dividing up ip addresses into smaller networks. This helps against wasted IP address space and allows better network management. It applies to the two rules posted above. Here’s a simple diagram as an example:

IP Address Subnetting

The top network is using a class C address space, 192.168.1.0. The router itself is addressed at 192.168.1.1 and other devices will follow accordingly, 192.168.1.2, 192.168.1.3, etc. The router is attached to a frame relay network using the 192.168.3.0 network.

The bottom network is using address space 192.168.2.0, a mirror of the network at the top but is on a different subnet. Recall the tables above, Valid Network Numbers & Size of Network and Host.

To grasp the subnet concept you have to understand the different IP Classes and their network/subnet numbers.

Class A uses 8 network bits and 24 host bits between 1-126. So if we take a random Class A address, 10.0.0.0 – The first octet is the network portion. Everything after the first octet are host bits. In terms of subnetting, it borrows bits from the hosts to create a subnet which shrinks the amount of hosts you have per network.

It’s difficult to understand at first but with a little bit of practice and reading it all comes together.

Related posts:

1. CCNA Notes – IP Addressing and Routing
2. CCNA Brain Farts: All Possible Valid Networks
3. CCNA Notes on the Basics of WANs

Back in January 2010, I created a list of goals to achieve before 2011. We’re half way through year and its about time to review those goals. At this point I would take a look at the list:

• CCNA Certified
• Project Oriented
• Microsoft Server Expert
• GTD Evangelist

The items crossed off above mean I have completed those goals. So the next steps include reviewing how I completed my goals, add new goals, remove goals or modify my goals.

Review

CCNA Certified

It took me at least a year to complete this goal. I’ve been working on it since the summer of 2009. Studying for the CCNA certification was usually on and off at times but realized that it takes time and dedication to know the material. Mind you, I have the equipment at my workplace and occasionally work within Cisco gear but to actually know the test material is a different story.

What I should have done differently was set a goal date and work towards completing my studies by that date. I always moved it around which resulted in me acquiring my certification a year later. Secondly, study when there are no other distractions around and be sure to practice on either virtual or physical labs.

Project Oriented

I’ve began using Microsoft Project 2010 to plan out my projects ahead of time. There’s a statistic somewhere on the interwebz that say 70% of IT projects fail. That’s an alarming statistic and with this economy I cannot afford to have my projects fail near that rate. I subscribe to project management email lists and read a few IT project management websites occasionally.

I am no expert, to say the least, but I have started a new mindset on projects, planning, and implementation. I will continue to grow in this field.

Microsoft Server Expert & GTD Evangelist

If you were to see me on a time line I would be at the Microsoft Server section. Like the CCNA certification, it has been a laborious task to make time for studying. With the juggle of work, personal life and rest it can get difficult. Nevertheless, I will have to implement the GTD (getting things done) Evangelist side of me to knock things out.

So this is where I stand with my IT goals. I will not be adding anything new since I have my own work-related goals to exceed. My fear is running into a state of burnout.

Where do you stand with your goals?

Related posts:

1. 2010 IT Goals and Skills
2. Update to 70-640 Certification
3. How To Install GNS3 in Ubuntu 9.04

I’ve changed my reading material to the Microsoft Press series, Configuring Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Training Kit. I found that the sybox book did not fit in well with my studies so I will be trying this book out. But before studying I have decided to take a break from reading any certification material and relax a bit.

For a good year I’ve been studying for my CCNA certification and have finally passed and my projects at work have started to ramp up.

I will get back to studying this year though and will continue to publish more blog posts here.

Related posts:

1. Update to My Information Technology Goals
2. Training for MCTS 70-640 Certification
3. Studying for the CCNA Security Certification

I’ve taken quite an extended break from my last CCNA certification. After much thought, I’ve stepped back and decided to go towards a Microsoft certification. In particular, I will be training myself for the Microsoft MCITP: Enterprise Administrator.

The prerequisites for the MCITP: Enterprise Administrator are 70-640, 70-642, 70-643, 70-647 and either 70-680 or 70-620 or 70-624.

Right now I am starting off with the 70-640. At my organization we already have some Windows Server 2008 machines deployed but I’d like to get an expert grasp with this technology. I’d like to acquire more knowledge in creating solutions and deploying. The maintaining part is natural to me.

The tools I will be using to train myself for the MCTS 70-640:

• Sybex MCTS Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Configuration Study Guide by William Panek and James Chellis

• Various online material from Microsoft and Techexams

• Practice tests from the Sybex book

• Lab environment – physical or virtual

Since I do have a couple years experience working with Windows Server I will be putting myself on a fast track study guide. I plan on finishing the book and labs within 2 months and shortly after completing some practice tests I will take the real certification exam.

The most challenging part of all this will be managing time and resources. With full dedication I have no doubt that I can acquire this new knowledge and become MCTS certified through Microsoft.

Do you have any tips on studying for the MCTS 70-640? I’d love to hear them.

Related posts:

1. Update to 70-640 Certification
2. Studying for the CCNA Security Certification
3. How To Study For the CCNA Exam