First crack at the IP Expert workbook vol 1

I have been prepping my lab lately to prepare to start doing some of the IP Expert labs from their workbooks.  I spent about 2 hours today creating a whole mess of cross-over cables.  So, I thought that I’d give one of the layer-2 labs a go.  I have already studied that material, and I’m a bit light on routers to do any of the other labs.

Right now, I have a pair of 2950 and a pair of 3550 switches.  So I knew I wouldn’t be able to hit all of the tasks.  But why wait for the perfect conditions, right?  I chose lab 2 out of workbook 1, which covers a number of layer 2 topics.  As I went through the lab, I used the separate proctor guide to verify my work and clear thing up that didn’t make sense.

Overall, I did OK.  I was able to do a lot of the tasks without help.  Although, I did run into a number of interpretation issues that bugged me.  For instance, here is one of the tasks.

Cat1 should send VLAN update with an MD5 one-way hash value.  Other switches should not be able to process these updates unless they have the same MD5 value.  Use a password of “1p3xp3rt#”.  DO NOT use VLAN database commands to accomplish this task.

So that seemed easy enough to me.  I setup a VTP password on Cat1as specified from global config mode and ensue that it is a VTP server.  I check the proctor guide and it has me first go into VTP v2 in order to require the MD5 hashes to match.  Now I am pretty sure that VPT v1 won’t accept updates if the passwords don’t match.  But maybe there is some aspect that I’m not aware.  But the thing that really caught me off gaurd was that it was supposed to be configured on all 4 switches in the lab.  I was under the impression that when doing the labs, I should do exactly what was asked for.  No more, no less.  Since the task never said that this should be configured on other switches, or that they should be able to accept the updates from Cat1, I figured I should leave them alone.  I guess that’s where it would be good to ask a proctor.

Here’s another one that I misunderstood.

Configure any interfaces connecting the switches together to appear as one link to STP per neighbor.  If either of the interfaces is damaged, the switches should manage one-way links.  Do not use industry standards, but make sure these links can negotiate their setups.

The thing that caught me on this one was the last sentence.  I was thinking that this was referring to the etherchannel links.  So I made sure to set the channel mode to desirable.  This would use PAgP (non-industry standard) and also negotiate the setups rather than being just on.  Well, they were referring to the trunking negotiations.

Both of these tasks were near the beginning of the lab, so I was a bit frustrated early on.  But as I went on, things got better.  There were quite a few tasks that I have no clue on.  But it was good, because I learned some new stuff.    I do wish that I had 4 layer-3 switches, so I could have done all of the tasks.  But, I don’t have the $3000 to pick up a couple of 3560s at the moment.  Since I’m only studying for my written test right now, it’s not that big of a deal to me.  And I don’t think it’ll be worth renting rack time, as I’m not sure what it would benefit me for the written.

So outside of the interpretation issues, I liked it.  I’m definitely looking forward to the other labs.  Once I get a bunch more under my belt, I’ll give you all my opinion on how useful I find them as preparation materials for the written exam.