Interface Articles

1). Cisco CCNA / CCNP Tutorial: Home Lab Assembly Case Study By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
Part of your CCNA / CCNP education is deciding what network topology to use when you're putting together your home lab. Some of you are starting with one or two routers or switches, while others are starting with more. A customer recently sent me a list of his Cisco routers and switches that he has available for a home lab and asked for my help in coming up with the best way to use them.
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2). Cisco CCNP / BSCI Exam Tutorial: The Passive Interface Command And OSPF By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
To pass the BSCI exam and become a CCNP, you have to be aware of the proper use of passive interfaces. You learned about passive interfaces in your CCNA studies, but here we’ll review the basic concept and clear up one misconception regarding passive interfaces and OSPF. Configuring an interface as passive will still allow the interface to receive routing updates, but the interface will no longer transmit them.
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3). Cisco CCNA Exam Tutorial: Loopback Interfaces By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
As a CCNA candidate, you most likely have some background in PC hardware and workstation support. If so, you're already familiar with loopback interfaces, particularly 127.0.0.1, the loopback address assigned to a PC. When you're learning all about the different physical interfaces for your CCNA exam - serial, ethernet, and BRI, among others - there's one logical interface you need to know about, and that is - you guessed it! - the loopback interface.
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4). Cisco CCNA Exam Tutorial: Directly Connected Serial Interfaces By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
To pass the CCNA exam, you've got to master quite a few services and routing protocols that may be new to you. Between RIP, IGRP, EIGRP, OSPF, and switching, there are hundreds of details you've got to absorb! It's easy to spend all your time on those topics and not pay proper attention to "easier" technologies, and then all of a sudden on exam day you can't quite remember the details of those particular services.
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5). CCNP / BSCI Exam Tutorial: Route Summarization And The OSPF Null Interface By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
CCNP exam success, particularly on the BSCI exam, demands you understand the details of route summarization. This skill not only requires that you have a comfort level with binary conversions, but you have to know how and where to apply route summarization with each individual protocol. You also have to know the "side effects" of route summarization.
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6). Cisco CCNP / BSCI Exam Tutorial: Not All Static Routes Are Created Equal By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
As a CCNP candidate, as a CCNA, and in getting ready to pass the BSCI exam, you may be tempted to breeze through your static route studies, or even skip them! That's because static routes are easy enough to configure, and as long as you remember the syntax of the ip route command, you're in good shape. But there's one vital detail regarding static routes that many exam candidates miss.
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7). Cisco CCNA Exam Tutorial: Five ISDN Details To Remember By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
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 for your real-world career as well as passing the CCNA.
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8). Cisco CCNA Exam Tutorial: Split Horizon And Hub-And-Spoke Networks By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
For CCNA exam success, you had better know what split horizon is, how to turn it off, and when to turn it off. Knowing when to turn split horizon off is also important in production networks, because it can cause a hub-and-spoke network to have incomplete routing tables on the spokes. Split horizon exists for a very good reason - routing loop prevention.
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9). Cisco CCNA / CCNP Certification Exam: Troubleshooting Direct Serial Connections By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
A prime topic of your CCNA and CCNP CIT exams will be connecting Cisco routers directly via their Serial interfaces, and while the configuration is straightforward, there are some vital details and show commands you must know in order to pass the exams and configure this successfully in production and home lab networks. Let's take a look at a sample configuration.
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10). Cisco CCNA / CCNP Home Lab Tutorial: The 2503 Router By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
I know from experience that part of the excitement and anxiety of putting together your own CCNA / CCNP home lab is deciding what to buy! While you can make a workable home lab out of almost any combination of Cisco routers and switches, some routers are better suited for home lab work than others because they can fill multiple roles. When you buy CCNA or CCNP "lab kits" - bundles of routers and switches - you can get a little confused about whether you're getting a good deal.
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11). Cisco CCNA / CCNP Certification Exam: Frame Relay Encapsulation Types By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
When you're studying to pass the Cisco CCNA and CCNP certification exams, you quickly learn that there's always something else to learn. (You'll really pick up on this in your CCIE studies, trust me!) Today we'll take a look at an often-overlooked topic in Frame Relay, the encapsulation type. You don't exactly change this on a daily basis in production networks (not if you want to stay employed, anyway!), but it's an important exam topic that you must be familiar with.
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12). Cisco CCNP / BCSI Exam Tutorial: Configuring EIGRP Packet Authentication By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
Configuring RIPv2 and EIGRP authentication with key chains can be tricky at first, and the syntax isn't exactly easy to remember. But for BSCI and CCNP exam success, we've got to be able to perform this task. In a previous tutorial, we saw how to configure RIPv2 packet authentication, with both clear-text and MD5 authentication schemes. EIGRP authentication is much the same, and has the text and MD5 authentication options as well.
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13). Passing The Cisco CCNA Exam: An Illustrated Guide To Router Modes By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
When you're getting started on your CCNA studies, learning the different router modes is key to passing your Intro and ICND exams. But keeping those modes straight can be very difficult. (At least it was for me!) Let's take a look at the various router modes you'll need to know about to pass your CCNA, and use IOS Help to illustrate the different uses of each mode.
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14). Cisco CCNA / CCNP Home Lab Tutorial: Using 2520 Routers By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
I know from experience that part of the excitement and anxiety of putting together your own CCNA / CCNP home lab is deciding what to buy! While you can make a workable home lab out of almost any combination of Cisco routers and switches, some routers are better suited for home lab work than others because they can fill multiple roles. My personal favorite is the Cisco 2520.
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15). Cisco CCNP Certification / BCMSN Exam Tutorial: Writing QoS Policy By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
QoS - Quality of Service - is a huge topic on both the BCMSN exam and real-world networks. QoS is so big today that Cisco's created separate specialist certifications that cover nothing but QoS! It can be an overwhelming topic at first, but master the fundamentals and you're on your way to exam and job success. If you work with QoS at any level - and sooner or later, you will - you've got to know how to write and apply QoS policies.
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16). Cisco CCNP / BSCI Exam Tutorial: RIP Update Packet Authentication By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
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.
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17). Cisco CCNA / CCNP Home Lab Tutorial: Planning Ahead For IE Study By : Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933
Candidates preparing to pass the CCNP exams are putting together Cisco home labs like never before. With CCNA and CCNP home lab equipment more affordable than ever, candidates have realized the importance of working on real Cisco routers and switches on the way to earning their certifications. One question I get often from CCNP candidates is goes something like this: "I'm planning on pursuing the CCIE after I get my CCNP.
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