You remember from your CCNA studies that when a port goes through the transition from blocking to forwarding, you’re looking at a 50-second delay before that port can actually begin forwarding frames. Configuring a port with PortFast is one way to get around that, but again, you can only use it when a [...]
CCNA and CCNP candidates who have their own Cisco home labs often email me about an odd situation that occurs when they erase a switch’s configuration. Their startup configuration is gone, as they expect, but the VLAN and VTP information is still there!
Sounds strange, doesn’t it? Let’s look at an example. [...]
One of the most confusing parts of beginning your Cisco studies is keeping all the cable types separate in your mind, and then remembering what they’re used for. This often occurs when a CCNA or CCNP candidate starts putting together their own home practice lab, and they suddenly realize that they have the equipment [...]
DNS behaviors of a Cisco router are important topics for both the CCNA exam and real-world production networks, and you probably didn’t know there were so many DNS details before you began studying for the exam! In this tutorial, we’ll look at the ip name-server command and its proper usage.
When a command is mistyped on [...]
To pass the CCNA exam, you have to be able to write and troubleshoot access lists. As you climb the ladder toward the CCNP and CCIE, you’ll see more and more uses for ACLs. Therefore, you had better know the basics!
The use of “host” and “any” confuses some newcomers to ACLs, so let’s take a [...]
As a CCNA and/or CCNP candidate, you’ve got to be able to spot situations where Cisco router features can save your client money and time. For example, if a spoke router is calling a hub router and the toll charges at the spoke site are higher than that of the hub router, having the [...]
To pass the BSCI exam and earn your CCNP, you’ve got to know ISIS inside and out. There are many similarities between ISIS and OSPF, but one major difference is that ISIS has three different types of routers - Level 1 (L1), Level 2 (L2), and L1/L2.
L1 routers are contained in a single area, [...]
You may look at that feature’s name and think, “What is a BPDU Skew, and why do I want to detect it?” What we’re actually attempting to detect are BPDUs that aren’t being relayed as quickly as they should be.
After the root bridge election, the root bridge transmits BPDUs, and the non-root switches relay [...]
When you’re studying for the CCNA and CCNP exams, you’ve got a lot of different choices when it comes to training. One popular choice is choosing one of the many “boot camps” and five-day in-person courses that are out there. I’ve taught quite a few of these, and while many of them [...]
Whenever a Cisco exam version changes, there’s always a lot of chatter about it on the web. The CCNA exams are no exception.
One comment I see often goes like this: ” I hear Cisco is going to change Intro / ICND / CCNA exam versions soon, so I’m not going to start studying yet. [...]
