MY CCIE JOURNEY

My new site

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:37:00 +0000

As i have already mentioned my new site address which is located at

www.cciematrix.com

my love for my first blog is not over yet .. so i have decided to keep this blog alive along with the other one ..

My New Site

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 14:35:00 +0000

Hello all .. i just replicated my same blog to a new address .... initially i thought of making a redirect but then i thought why not mention it in the first place so that readers can actually know where its getting redirected

My new site address is

http:// www.cciematrix.com

I did this because i thought i should have full control over my site and also i have other ideas as well..

Hope you will enjoy my new site and Thanks for you support

Best Regards
Rakesh

Long Time Since I Made a Post

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:14:00 +0000

Hello everyone !

its been a while i wrote to my blog ! Many things happened in the mean while .. first of all i got a job and was busy in adapting to the new role and secondly i went through a very frustrating phase in my personal life and everything was near hell !

Moving on .. well i am done with mcse 2k3 and also planning for mcitp enterprise admin and also speaking of which have other juniper exams remaining which i need to clear up . Dint had any study and i dont know if i can pass them or not

completed some of the link layer technologies and also moving on to labs ..

a detailed excel sheet will be uploaded . You can get it and also make some of your own . excel sheet plan creation is helping me to keep some of the things track down .

Iam an Mcp

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 11:23:00 +0000

Hello all in my certification rush got through some gift vouchers from my friends and went on to attempt my first ever 70-290 just to try my luck .. went through the study guide and poof went through exam .

cisco and simlets saved me again .. there were one simlet which was obvious and some subnetting and ip addressing questions which should be done by any serious icnd to ccie aspirant ...

some obivious questions .. i thought i would flunk in the exam but passed exactly on the border .. my score was 700 which was way over killed as i thought i would fail .

This is all from me .. been doing some ipv6 labs and preparing for ccie beta

Best regards

Rakesh

Passed Jncia-er and also my special thanks to my friend Mr.Rakesh

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 05:37:00 +0000

Hello all two good news to start wtih

1. passed jncia-er yesterday . dint even bothered labbing it up as i was gong for my ccie studies ... just went through student guide and some hands on with one single vmware image and exam is way to crappy and easy man .. really there was nothing in that .. without breaking any nda stuff it was more or less like common sense and little routing from cisco would do that exam

moving on to second one

2. One of my good friends Mr.Rakesh Mandava from Hyderabad helped me with three of the microsoft vouchers to take server exams . great to have friends like him around .. keep up the good work rock and thank you very much for your help ...

so .. still one more week to go for beta written .. not yet with mpls l3 vpn and stuff .. dreaming about narbiks bootcamp hehe ..

over and out

and thanks for people who have been mailing me and wishing me for my video on syslog server .... my pleasure to do them

best regards

Rakesh

Video on implementing syslog server in gns3

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 10:25:00 +0000

Hello guys , i have made a video on deploying and implementing syslog server in gns3 environment . A syslog server logs all messages from routers in gns3 and records them .

Here is a brief video on that

http://www.4shared.com/file/125593647/626eecb0/syslogserver.html

http://www.4shared.com/file/125593673/4e2e7b6a/syslogserver_controller.html

More of videos stuff in breaking labs and doing some specific scenarios ..

bye

Rakesh

am i unpredictable ? May be but hey iam a jncia-ex from today

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:40:00 +0000

From today iam a jncia-ex .. how good does it sound and also still being a student having certification for free is quite a lot of achievement for me :) .. For those who are unaware juniper is offering their associate and one specialist routing exams for free once you meet their requirements .. links can be found on right side of the blog .. so moving along

Dont know why my mind has been in an unpredictable state .. nothing settling down .. wanted to for jncia-ex as per my last posting .. dint get chance as i was attracted by cisco v4 written beta . done with mpls and ipv6 which were troubling me in two days .. now after that a thought came into my mind to prepare for jncia-ex switching which was obviously easy when compared with other tracks atleast .. quickly went through the study guide ..

juniper offers good materials . their study guides are awesome covering important points in bold boxes and lots of place for jotting down the notes .. done with the associate switching which seemed obviously easy once you are at command prompt ... just gave two good reading and questions were direct and out from text book .. no twist or whirl of questions which is not the case with cisco ;)

so on the whole i think iam bouncing on my time again .. few months has some serious set backs and looks like iam getting ready for v4 who know one day i may be writing for my ccie # in my first attempt !!!!!

Thank you

Rakesh

Team viewer and gtalk.. awesome man .. any one wants to join us !!!!

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 09:19:00 +0000

Hello myself and another friend of mine are going for our rs studies and were on gtalk last night discussing some multicasting and general prep stuff . I suddenly got an idea on remote desktop and heard about team viewer few months ago. Quickly went to their website and downloaded the stuff .

its damn simple to use . when you install it you will be given a user id which is automatically generated and a password for your desktop. we quickly shared our session and still on were gtalk . now the thing is i could control everything on his remote desktop and surprisingly enough i started to configure gns3 and few lab topologies of ipv6 from foundation gap.

so were talking to my friend and configuring ipv6 on his laptop everything was crystal clear. This let my spirits up .. even though most of us know that there are some good remote desktop and voip technologies out there most of time we see them and we wont use them .

i suggest you try it . and if possible join us so that we can have independent sessions few times a week each of us planning for specific technologies ..

Best regards

Rakesh

Narbiks cod demo !!!!

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 20:30:00 +0000

Hello everyone as you know if i come across any exciting stuff i share with most of you . I happened to get narbik 'demo' of his cod which was roughly around 10min on ospf filtering techniques and the entire cod was awesome ... In ten minutes he covered most of the info with minute details . The demo vod should be up with in a day or two . can't wait to get hands on that one as iam going for rs v4 which includes troubleshooting.

for more info you can always visit his site @

http://www.net-workbooks.com/index.html

will update you if i happen to find any interesting stuff again ..

guday and take care

Rakesh

change of plans !!! PLAN B ccie written v4 beta

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 18:00:00 +0000

A sudden catastrophic change of plans has taken place in past 12 hours . i was happy that i got all of the juniper voucher and was about to take jncia-er exam this week until i went to cisco's website and found that ccie written v4 is now in beta phase and offered for as low as 50$ . Well who wont take that price (atleast students like me ;) ) to go out and take a dreadful exam which was 350$ and that too completely changed with mpls and troubleshooting introduced.

so , cant help for another month . i have been studying stuff seriously .. done with ipv6 stuff and will let you know if possible . iam excited about this beta exam even though i know it would be insanely tough to pass i still give the exam hell before it declares me as fail hehe

Thank you and sorry for change of plans

chapter 8 : vrrp design considerations.

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 05:10:00 +0000

Topology :

-> minimum of requirement is that there must be multiple routers which are capable of running vrrp in a lan segment.

-> if there are two wan circuits and if there is any routing policy in place which uses only one wan link out of two vrrp should be tuned in such way.

Master or Backup:

->Beefy configuration router is obviously preferred over the non-beefy one as master ;)

-> Assignment of VIP address is one among the important aspects.

Load Balancing:

-> load balancing can be a tricky part . well not let us agree not that hard. assign two routers as masters. assign half routers with one vip address and others with other vip address. Load balancing will be done swiftly.

Preemption:

-> By default preemption is enabled by default. Disable preemption to eliminate unneeded mastership changes during failure and recovery scenarios if you have both routers as masters.

Security:

-> option exists for security vrrp exchanges.

first option : No Authentication

second option : simple text password

third option : most secure : HMAC-MD5-96 (md5)

Avoid Wan link Failure:

-> Either have complete Redundancy

-> Other implement Interface Tracking

chapter 8: vrrp states

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 04:50:00 +0000

-> 4 STATES

* INITIALIZE

* MASTER

* BACKUP

* TRANSITION

-> Initialize:

-> All routers begin in initializing state which essentially announces each vrrp participating routers capability , priority and other parameters

-> No forwarding of packets will be done in this stage as there is no master vrrp router to do the forward.

->Master/Backup:

-> A master router assumes the responsibility to forward packets and answer arp requests to the VIP address from the hosts

-> Master sends periodic announcements which indicates master router's state and priority.If these announcements are not received for a specific period of time the back up router takes the role of the master router.

-> Routers in the backup state observe masters presence and be ready to take the role if master is down.

->Transition:

-> In the event of mastership change, the backup router might fora very brief moment , be in what is known as the transition state. This state is simply a transitional step in which a router changes from the backup state to the master state where in no forwarding occurs for LAN.

chapter 8: vrrp communications

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 04:27:00 +0000

-> Vrrp version 2 uses common advertisement packet (Buzz word) to communicate with other vrrp routers.

-> vrrp uses multicast address of 224.0.0.18 and has TTL of 255.

-> Default interval can be changed if needed . default being 1 and range being 1-255 subseconds can also be configured from 100-999 milliseconds which must be supported by all vrrp routers.

-> The above can be done with "fast-interval" option

-> Fields which should match in a vrrp packet for all vrrp routers

-> VRID
-> Authentication Parameters

if not then packets are discarded

-> Vrrp router uses Virtual mac address as its mac address when it sends a packet.
format may be some thing like this 00-00-5E-00-01-VRID

Determining Master:

-> Higher priority wins in a vrrp election process. The default being 100 and range being 1-255

-> A router can become a Master Router only when it has VIP address and in that case the priority must be set to 255. preemption is supported by default . If master happens to fail the other router which has higher priority will take over and if by chance master returns the other router will be down and this will take over the master role.

-> We can administratively disable preemption where vrrp routers do not own VIP address.

chapter 8 : vrrp

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 04:09:00 +0000

vrrp:

-> An election protocol used to designate one of multiple vrrp routers as master , which assumes forwarding responsibilites for a lan. similar to hsrp , glbp in cisco terms . not to say that vrrp is not there but it gives you an idea

-> All routers that could potentially assume the role of the master vrrp router for that subnet are known as backup vrrp routers .

Terms :

-> Virtual Router: The virtual router is a logical entity that functions as the default router on a lan segment or network

-> VRID : Virtual Router ID which identifies one virtual router from another

-> VIP : Virtual ip is managed by the virtual router and is attached to the vrrp router
functioning as the master of that network.

-> VRRP ROUTER : A vrrp router is any router participating in VRRP , including the master and backup routers. A vrrp router may belong to more than one virtual router group

->Master Router: Master router is responsible for forwarding packets on lan segment. also perform some arp functions for virtual router. election is typically based on user-define priority.

->Backup Router:As the name indicates it will take role of master when master is down .

Chapter 8 : Miscellaneous Features

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 04:03:00 +0000

Topics include :

-> VRRP

-> DHCP

-> OTHER COMMONLY USED FEATURES

services : nat / pat configuration

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 03:37:00 +0000

Configuration of nat:

-> STEP 1 : DEFINE A SERVICES INTERFACE

-> STEP 2: CREATE A NAT POOL

-> STEP 3: DEFINE NAT RULES

-> STEP 4: CREATE SERVICE SET

Services Interface :

-> The services interface takes the form of sp-0/0/0 on all j-series routers and M-series routers it is named according to its position.

-> The services interface is used for processing nat traffic, and you configure it with a single logical unit and family inet

-> creating a nat pool and nat rule are obvious for nat and when we define a service set , that liks the nat rule and services interface so kind a important step.

once this is done , you can apply the service set to both the input and output directions on the untrusted interface.

Monitoring nat:

-> "show service nat pool" -> to view nat pools and pool details

-> "show services stateful firewall flows" -> to view nat flow details

Done with chapter 7

SERVICES : NAT / PAT

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 03:26:00 +0000

The basic definitions of nat / pat are obvious and we need no further explanations . so we will move on with some thing important with juniper ie, APPLICATION-LEVEL GATEWAYS

-> some protocols include some combination of IP addresses and TCP or UDP ports in their payload.If a router is configured to perform nat and translates only the layer 3 and layer 4 headers , some combination of the ip addresses and the TCP or UDP ports included in the payload by these protocols will be wrong and may prevent application from running properly

->additionally some protocols have control connections that begin other sessions.Because these sessions are created dynamically and often use random port numbers, the firewall rules will likely not allow these sessions.

->Application-level gateways (ALG'S) allow router to interact with protocols at Layer 4 and above.

->when you configure the router to use ALG, it inspects payload of connections, translating IP addresses and ports in the payload and updating the sessions started by control connection.

services 3

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 03:19:00 +0000

-> When you configure MLPPP, the router first sends the traffic to the PIC with the logical bundle interface for processing.

-> The pic performs any necessary fragmentation and determines how to distribute the traffic between the constituent links.

-> It then sends packets to PFE (packet forwarding engine) which sends to the output interfaces for transmission

-> You can configure upto 8 links per bundle

-> A member link is considered up when the PPP link control protocol (lcp) phase transitions to open state.

"show interface ls-0/0/0" for monitoring PPP

Services continued 2

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:57:00 +0000

J-series services Architecture:

->J-series include virtual AS pic available.

->Implemented as real-time thread within the j-series forwarding process.

->Services thread presents itself as a virtual sp-0/0/0 interface in the JUNOS software

MLPPP: Multilink ppp

->Multilink Point-to-point is a protocol that facilitates the bundling of multiple point-to-point circuits

->MLPPP is a layer 2 service that you can configure in Junos software

BENEFITS OF MLPPP:

->Creates a virtual link that provides greater bandwidth than individual member links

->provides load balancing across member links by splitting , recombining and sequencing datagrams across multiple logical data links

cost effective solution while getting incrementing bandwidth

Juniper chapter 7 : services

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:05:00 +0000

*** These are the core points from the student guide with some modifications if possible

Chapter objectives :

-> service architectures
-> mlppp
-> nat/pat

layer 2 services include

MLPPP -> multilink point-to-point
MLFR -> multilink frame-relay
CRTP -> compressed real-time protocol

layer 3 services

AS pic (BUZZ WORD)

-> Provides services through service sets and its adaptive services interfaces (sp-)

-> stateful firewalls , nat , ipsec vpn , ids can be provided by as pic

Service Interfaces:

Different services are provided by different Pics

-> AS pic : AS pic supports all services

-> ASM is an optional component that you can order with the M7I router

-> J-series router

-> Has software processes that support the same services as the AS pic

-> Interface on J-series router will be designated as ls- rather than lsq-

-> Link services pic

-> Provides MLPPP and MLFR support and designated as ls- similar to j-series

-> Tunnel services

-> gre , ip-in-ip

-> Multiservice Pic and AS pic service

-> Multiservice pic or as pic should be configured so that they provide Layer 2 or Layer 3 but not both

-> as pic defaults to settings of Layer 3

"show chassis hardware" -> to determine the service-package

juniper jncia-er important points and plan

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:50:00 +0000

hello all i have made up my mind that i would be taking this first exam may be somewhere in next week .. i went through the study guide and its absolutely simple .

mean while i will be highlighting you some core points about juniper systems and my plan for next three days

here i go

thursday / friday

i will be starting off with chapter 7 services section and will be working my way from there on

chapter 7 -> services

chapter 8 -> miscellaneous features

chapter 9 -> troubleshooting

-----------------------------------------------------------------

saturday

chapter 5 -> operational monitoring and maintenance

chapter 6 -> routing protocols and policy

-------------------------------------------------------------------

sunday

chapter 1 -> intro (no big deal)

chapter 2 -> juniper networks enterprise routers (already done different router stuff)

chapter 3 -> junos user interface (again no big deal)

chapter 4 -> installation and initial configuration (this needs to be brushed up)

--------------------------------------------------------------------

for all this work i will be using vmware image of a junos router lets see how this goes . i dont see many people highlighting some important points about juniper stuff let me be among few ;)

Best Regards
Rakesh

juniper is logical

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 02:51:00 +0000

As you probably know i have started to get into juniper exams because of their fast track program . initially i thought i should give about 10 days for each exam so altogether it should take good 40 days for 4 exams .. but after going through the books and flash presentations there is nothing complex and the best thing is its organaisation which is flawless in most of the cases .. the logic flows step by step and there is no means that we can forget a step .. good one

as far as routing protocols all of them are pretty same . will highlight you with more info

Best regards
Rakesh

Juniper Fast Track Program ... please take advantage of this offer!!

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 03:35:00 +0000

Hello all as you might already know Juniper is offering free certification exams on passing their pre assessment exams .. you will get 100% exam price discounted voucher for free .. each exam costs around 125$ and there are four such exams

two routing - specialist and associate
one security
one switching

so all together you can get 4x125$ voucher absolutely free .... iam confident about this because i have got all four vouchers on taking their pre assessment( i have failed every single exam for multiple times but that dosent matter they can be taken any number of times .. such a evil brain hehehe ;) ) . exams are straight forward . they test on fundamentals and security and specialist routing was very easy for me .. because it had general topics such as bgp , ospf , vpn , redistribution which will be same any where in the world . for the basic associate exams go through the course provided in the site and you will be fine ..

https://learningportal.juniper.net/juniper/default.aspx

you can register your self here .. you can take your pre assessment exams as many times as you want till you get above 70% ..

Try your luck friends its always better to get certified without spending a penny right ..

for prep path i used junos olive router which is a vmware instance

Time to play the game !!!!

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 11:34:00 +0000

It's almost one month that i posted to my blog and had many reasons behind it .. first of all i was studying and spending time on technologies and secondly i had some univ exams to deal with .. some ups and downs (all of them were down's ;) ) in my life to deal with and cope up with ..

well iam glad and feeling really good about myself after recovering so quick from the downtimes i had ... boosted my confidence ..

moving on ..

covered good ground on

tcp / ip --- various protocols and packet analyzers and packet headers

arp , icmp , upd , tcp , ipv4 , different types of tcp attacks , building a packet , route resolution etc ... will be summing up

my favourite routing protocols (eigrp , ospf , bgp )

ipv6 technology and last but not least qos and mpls technologies which i thought were very serious ...

done with some security stuff like perimeter defence , internal infra security management , firewall technlogies like checkpoint , cisco pix / asa , clavister , netasq so forth and knew some of the ground breaking technologies ...

will be back soon....

thank you to one and all who sent me emails and comments about my presence rather absence .... iam fine and will do good ..

have a great day

Bye

Made Checkpoint as a Personal Firewall ;)

noreply@blogger.com (MY CCIE JOURNEY) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:21:00 +0000

Hello everybody .. today i have done something which i feel very proud . not a feet really and already done by many of the people who are doing this .. but when ever i see any new technology which serves me i love it .. i simply love it and will share it ..

So what the topic about ?

Nothing serious really .... i have a spare pc (windows one) and what i did was to use check point ng r 55 platform on it ..

requirement :

1. spare pc with atleast 512 mb ram
2. pc has to have two network cards (one for your internal network and other for ext)

installation is fairly simple .. you can download the trial package from checkpoint for 15 day evaluation and install it on the old pc

configure your networks and bingo you network in now being protected by checkpoint ng firewall systems .

one option to consider is to buy license from checkpoint .. if you you need to format your pc in any form ;) and install your firewall

any doubts let me know

best regards
Rakesh