Cisco Routing: “ip default-network” vs. Default Static Routes

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

One point of confusion for some CCNA and CCNP candidates is the difference between configuring a static default route and using the Cisco routing command ip default-network.
At first glance, they appear to do the same thing. Both configure a destination to which packets should be routed if there is no more specific route in the [...]

Cisco CCNA / CCNP Home Lab Tutorial: Using 2520 Routers

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

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 [...]

Cisco CCNP / BSCI Exam Tutorial: Ten IP Routing Details You Must Know!

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

To pass the BSCI exam and earn your CCNP, you've got to keep a lot of details in mind. It's easy to overlook the "simpler" protocols and services such as static routing and distance vector protocols. With this in mind, here's a quick review of some details you should know for success in the exam [...]

Cisco CCNP / BSCI Exam Tutorial: Introduction To Policy Routing

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

Policy routing is a major topic on your BSCI exam, and you'll find quite a bit of policy routing going on in today's production networks. But what exactly is policy routing?
Policy-based routing, generally referred to as "policy routing", is the use of route maps to determine the path a packet will take to get [...]

Cisco CCNP / BSCI Exam Tutorial: Filtering BGP Updates With Prefix Lists

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

A major part of your BSCI and CCNP exam success is mastering BGP, and that includes filtering BGP routing updates. In this tutorial, we'll take a look at how to filter BGP updates with prefix lists.
R4 is advertising three networks via BGP. The downstream router R3 sees these routes and places them into its [...]

Cisco CCNP / BSCI Certification: The Local Preference BGP Attribute

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

When studying for your BSCI exam for the CCNP, you get your first taste of BGP. One of the major differences between BGP and the other protocols you've studied to date is that BGP uses attributes to describe paths, and to influence the selection of one path over the other.
In this free tutorial, we're [...]

Cisco CCNP / BSCI Certification: Introduction To ISIS Terminology

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

When you're studying to pass the BSCI exam and earn your CCNP certification, you're going to be introduced to ISIS. ISIS and OSPF are both link-state protocols, but ISIS works quite differently from OSPF. You must master these details in order to earn your CCNP.
One of the major differences between OSPF and [...]

Cisco CCNA Exam Tutorial: Split Horizon And Hub-And-Spoke Networks

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

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 [...]

Cisco CCNP / BSCI Certification: Route Redistribution And The Seed Metric

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

In the first part of this free CCNP / BSCI tutorial, we looked at how leaving one simple word out of our route redistribution configuration - "subnets" - resulted in an incomplete routing table when redistributing routes from RIP to OSPF. (If you missed that part of the tutorial, visit my website's "Free Tutorials" [...]

Cisco CCNA Certification: Static Routing Tutorial

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

In studying for your CCNA exam and preparing to earn this valuable certification, you may be tempted to spend little time studying static routing and head right for the more exciting dynamic routing protocols like RIP, EIGRP, and OSPF. This is an understandable mistake, but still a mistake. Static routing is not complicated, [...]