I’ve heard reports of the lab containing more and more L3 switches these days. Looks like I need to update my lab hardware to incorporate some L3 switches. The 3550 is EOS but even second hand overly expensive, the 3560 is not cheap either. I’m hoping my employer is willing to get some as I’ve now got two other colleagues gearing up for their CCIE. I might have a trick up my sleeve but you’ll have to come back later if you want to know the outcome of that one.

I currently use a combination between a normal router and a vlan on my L2 switch for all switch related tasks but I guess Cisco is adding NAC (IEEE802.1x) and other advanced L2/L3 switching tasks into the lab. Which is kinda logical seeing as even I’m looking at the L3 switches as Ethernet access cpe’s.

Categories: CCIE R&S
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It’s kinda strange the way traveling in Europe has no simple formula. I fly to the UK from R’dam to Stanstead and I fly to Hamburg, also from Rotterdam. But going to Paris feels like going as far as, let’s say Greece.

The dilemma is this that there is no direct flight from Rotterdam to Paris. If one insists on flying then one will have to hop via Amsterdam or London which makes it inefficient and expensive. I could take the train to Schiphol (Amsterdam) but that will take at least an hour add to that the longer check-in times compared to R’dam airport and you’re looking at a minimum of 2,5 hours front door to ‘window or isle’ seat.

The Saga continues with arriving in Paris after 1:15 flight and then having to find a cab to our office. According to my manager the cab from CDG (Charles de Gaulle) will take 1 to 1,5 hours. My total would now come to a minimum of 4 hours and 45 minutes door to door.

As most often though there is a simple answer, the Thalys. It’s cheap if you don;t go for first class and there’s no check-in time. Above all I can get on at Rotterdam Central, it takes 3:11 from R’dam to Gare du Nord and I am allowed to work on my laptop the whole way. The cab only took 30 minutes to the office and the bus into R’dam is the same I as for all other options. Total travel time? I left home at 7:15 and got to the office at 12:15.

5 hours? Yes 5 hours due to an unforeseen wait for a cab. On top of this the first cab driver evicted me from the cab after only 20 meters as he couldn’t find the address on any of his ancient maps, “address does not exist, please leave my cab”! The second cab driver said no problem and sped off, he did take me the scenic route though as he missed a turn…

All in all the Thalys route was faster, cheaper and with a lot less risk of delays or overbookings. Oh and did I mention that the cab was only 20 eur inward as opposed to the 100 Euro I payed last time from CDG into the center of Paris? For those who’re wondering, outward it took about 45 minutes and cost me 34 as it was rush hour…

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Right, it’s been a while since my last attempt (2nd of August last year). Joshua, my 3,5 mo old son, is sleeping through the night so I can get back into studying.

Tonight is the evening I’ll be picking up the battle axe again and I must say I’m terribly rusty. Been very busy with work and that did not involve in-depth routing protocols. Will start on the basics and get myself familiar again with the basic stuff I got from my CCIE bootcamp. Then I’m planning to go through all the practice labs I have to see whether I’m really at ease with everything I encounter. Some of the points I’ve already mentally listed as crucial are:

• Multicast (PIM-SM, PIM-DM and using GRE tunnels)
• OSPF over various tastes of F/R
• BGP route manipulation (redistribution and tagging)
• ACLs (lock&key, time based & ‘odd’ logging)

I sure hope the other guys I studies with are still around as I’ve not heard from them in a while. My plan is to attempt my next lab in Feb, that is time permitting. Networkers EMEA 2007 will take a nice chunk out of my time as well as work related stuff although that shouldn’t be too much of an issue now that I’ve got some of my long awaited equipment.

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And may God bless you and your family abundantly!

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Just a quick note to say that I’m going to Networkers2007.

If you’re going as well and want to meet me then drop me a line, with a suggestion of when you’re free. I don’t think I’ll be able to intentionally run into anyone there, my schedule is way too busy for that.

Suggestions for surviving Networkers are welcome as I’ve never been before.

Categories: Events, Networking, Work
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For all those who check into this page and are wondering what I’ve been up to…

On the 22nd of September my second son was born, Joshua Marius Geurts. Since my last (and first) lab attempt I’ve been preparing for Joshua’s arrival by redoing the baby room and converting an old cupboard into a 2nd toilet.

Now that Joshua is here I’m busy with day to day life and trying to build a little reserve again. I hope to have to opportunity soon to start preparation again for my second lab attempt.

Categories: CCIE R&S, Main blog
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[Cisco] IEEE 802.1X cannot be enabled on the port security enabled-port.

Sep 21 12:47:00.223: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface GigabitEthernet2/6, changed state to up
Sep 21 12:47:01.223: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface GigabitEthernet2/6, changed state to up
Sep 21 12:47:20.198: %DOT1X-5-SECURITY_VIOLATION: Security violation on interface GigabitEthernet2/6, New MAC address 0012.3f09.3840 is seen on the interface in mode
Sep 21 12:47:20.198: %PM-4-ERR_DISABLE: security-violation error detected on Gi2/6, putting Gi2/6 in err-disable state
Sep 21 12:47:21.202: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface GigabitEthernet2/6, changed state to down
Sep 21 12:47:22.202: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface GigabitEthernet2/6, changed state to down

Nice of CLI to state what mode it has trouble with!

Just found this on CCO…

You can enable port security on an 802.1X port in either single- or multiple-host mode. (To do so, you must configure port security with the switchport port-security interface configuration command.) When you enable port security and 802.1X on a port, 802.1X authenticates the port, and port security manages the number of MAC addresses allowed on that port, including that of the client. Hence, you can use an 802.1X port with port security enabled to limit the number or group of clients that can access the network.

Now what happens when I use VoIP and plug my pc into the phone? The phone is compatible with CDP and as such is allowed into the voice vlan, the PC does dot1x and is allowed access by user credentials. However port-security will set the port to err-disabled due to something related to the phone:

Sep 21 14:49:57.550: PSECURE: swidb = GigabitEthernet2/6 mac_addr = 0800.0f1e.f7ad vlanid = 40
Sep 21 14:49:57.550: PSECURE: Adding 0800.0f1e.f7ad as dynamic on port Gi2/6 for vlan 40
Sep 21 14:49:57.550: PSECURE: Violation/duplicate detected upon receiving 0800.0f1e.f7ad on vlan 40: port_num_addrs 1 port_max_addrs 1 vlan_addr_ct 0: vlan_addr_max 2 total_addrs 0: max_total_addrs 3072
Sep 21 14:49:57.550: %PORT_SECURITY-2-PSECURE_VIOLATION: Security violation occurred, caused by MAC address 0800.0f1e.f7ad on port GigabitEthernet2/6.
Sep 21 14:49:57.550: PSECURE: Security violation, TrapCount:33

One needs all three lines (if-config) if one wants to be propperly secure (this works btw):

switchport port-security maximum 2
switchport port-security maximum 1 vlan access
switchport port-security maximum 1 vlan voice
switchport port-security
switchport port-security violation restrict

The restrict is to leave the phone working when a pc is denied access, nice DOS otherwise to down all phones in sight…

Categories: Work
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CCIE Routing and Switching Lab Score Report

Candidate: Djerk Geurts
Lab Date: August 2 2006
Lab Site: Brussels
Failed

I really thought I passed, had time to spare, reloaded everything check the routing tables and complete connectivity. I quickly came down to earth when my wife phoned me back saying I’d received a mail from Cisco. Must say it’s pretty quick so I must have either annoyed the proctor or the script  that runs against the configs must have regarded my configs not enough Cisco compliant.

Sad thing is I have no idea what I did wrong and as there’s no way of getting any feedback I’m afraid I’ll make the sam mistakes next time. Maybe next time I’ll be a little more relaxed and focussed. Maybe I was too stressed, didn’t feel it, and missed some important things in the questions. I suppose I’ll never know.

I’ll be focusing on DIY for the moment as I need to prepare for a new baby which is due to arrive soon. Stay tuned!…

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A nice relaxing day to write some last notes and relax, for my latest addtions have a look in the lab section of my CCIE R&S page. New topics:

• Smurf/fraggle attacks
• EIGRP bandwidth limitation
• DHCP pool options
• F/R with ‘dual’ QoS (thanks to the evil bastard for that one)
• Redistribute BGP default into IGP

Will post again on wednesday evening (bad) or thursday (should be good)

Categories: CCIE R&S
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Pfew, I’m typing this with the last little bit of energy left in me. I started this morning on the mocklab I screwed up during the bootcamp and I actually finished in time. I would not have had 100% score as there were two things I had to look up outside of the “univercd”.

So this has given me a last push to find little thing that I’d forgotten (already!) or hadn’t used yet. Like BGP and EIGRP authentication. I’ve written down some topics I want to work out on my CCIE R&S pages so stay tuned int the next two days.

Time for dinner now , ooh I’m soo happy that I managed this in 8 hours, the 1st mocklab I did took me 14 hours so this is a nice booster for this wednesday when it’s for real.

PS: I’ve bought a set of coloured pens, I really hope the proctor will allow me to use them as my drawings become a mess without them. I’ve used them the entire week and now have a nice colour coding scheme for different things like protocols and special notes. Also I’ve developed the habit of making a separate network drawings for BGP and Multicast, it really helps keeping the different forwarding planes separate and simple.

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Found this 3 minute video showing the lab environment and detailing in simple terms what the 8 hour CCIE lab exam is.

Categories: CCIE R&S
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My lab equipment can be seen here:

My hardware: 3x 3640, 3620 (and a broken one), 2620XM, 2x 7204(VXR) NPE-200, 2x 2621, 7507 (dual RSP4), 3548XL, 2948G-L3 and a 2511.

BTW: The two 7304’s, two empty 3660’s and the 7204 under my laptop aren’t part of my CCIE lab.

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Maybe this post will enable me to remember this feature. I hadn’t heard of it untill I was at Heinz’s CCIE R&S bootcamp last June.

The idea is that a user can log into a system and then that system will grant access to some traffic for a period of time. Nice heh, well be carefull it uses extended access-lists so the normal anti spoofing measures still need to be taken. So how do we do this then? Simply follow these steps:

# use a local account instead of the vty password:
line vty 0 4
login local
!
# User account to open the ACL dynamically:
username djerk password 123456
# User is allowed to open the ACL, sadly you can’t specify the ACL so all ACL’s will be opened by this user!
# The timeout value is the idle timeout!
username djerk autocommand access-enable host timeout 2
!
# The lock&key ACL:
ip access-list extended NACL-lock&key
remark *** Permit user:djerk to open this ACL (lock&key) ***
# Permit user access if he has to traverse this ACL
permit tcp host 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 eq telnet
# Careful: timeout of the dynamic rule is in minutes
# The rule in the dynamic line will be installed into the ACL once the user has authenticated
dynamic DYN-lock&key timeout 10 permit tcp any any eq telnet
deny tcp any any eq telnet
permit ip any any
!
# Apply the ACL to the interface:
interface F0/0
ip access-group NACL-lock&key in

The idle timeout of the access list is configured in the autocommand. It is overridden by the absolute timeout in the dynamic access list.

The above config is from CCO minor changes and comments by me 🙂

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frame-relay fragment
Enables dual-FIFO, but how to get VoIP into the voice queue? Is rtp heasder compression enough to do this or is LLQ needed with a priority class?

I’d be inclined to think that RTP header compression has no influence over FRF.12 fragmentation, unless it matches RTP traffic into the propper FIFO queue (dual-FIFO). Seeing that FRF.12 enables dual-FIFO I can only assume this matching to be the case, I’ve not yet found a doc stating this without doubt. So please leave a note if you do.

Anyway I think it’s good to know both options. Dual-FIFO applies fragmentation only to the ‘data’ queue, I know this from Multiclass Multilink PPP (MC-MLPPP) which is also dual-FIFO. I use MC-MLPoA for QoS on DSL lines.

——- (Without FRTS)
# One config:
Int S0/0
frame-relay fragment 40 end-to-end
!
Int S0/0.1
frame-relay interface-dlci 1
frame-relay ip rtp header-compression

——- (With FRTS)
# Other config:
Class-map match-any voip
match protocol rtp audio
Policy-map FR-voip
class voip
# Enable PQ so the router can differentiate between flows (dual-FIFO)
priority
class class-default
!
map-class FR-voip+FRF12
service-policy output FR-voip
frame-relay fragment 40
!
Int S0/0
frame-relay traffic-shaping
!
Int S0/0.1
frame-relay interface-dlci 1
class FR-voip+FRF12

CCO: VoIP o F/R with QoS

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In OSPF you can’t filter routes. This is only true inside an area, due to OSPF being a Link State protocol. LSA’s are flooded throughout the area and the protocol is based upon everyone in the area having the exact same database. There are no such things as communities like in BGP to aid in something of a route installment selection process.

What is available is filtering on an ABR or ASBR. ABR filtering is somewhat less known but here’s how it works on Cisco:

Let’s create a range (OSPF summary) and filter the summarised routes so that only the range is advertised to the other areas.

Router_A(config-router)#do srr
router ospf 1
# Filtering the range’s subnets (type 3 LSA filter) when they enter area 0
area 0 filter-list prefix PFL-10.10.10.0/8-subnets in
# The range to create the summary:
area 1 range 10.0.0.0 255.0.0.0

Router_B#srr
router ospf 1
# Filtering the range’s subnets (type 3 LSA filter)
area 0 filter-list prefix PFL-subnets in

# On both:
ip prefix-list PFL-subnets description *** Filter subnets out of the 10.0.0.0/8 range ***
ip prefix-list PFL-subnets seq 5 deny 10.0.0.0/8 ge 9
ip prefix-list PFL-subnets seq 10 permit 0.0.0.0/0 le 32

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