BGP Path Vector Characteristics

I spent my morning learning about BGP and its path vector technology. Path Vector is like an updated scalable version of distance-vector routing. However it has one main difference than any other distance-vector or IGP. BGP doesn't use broadcasts or multicasting since it uses TCP as it's transport protocol. TCP is used because it's able to send a large amount of data reliably, the BGP table has over 190,000 entries in the full routing table currently! This size would actually be in the millions but thanks to technologies such as CIDR, the table size has been reduced considerably. Since BGP doesn't use any type of broadcasting mechanism, an AS being use to transit BGP routes between other AS's must be fully meshed within the transit AS. In other words every router running BGP in a transit AS must be seen by every other BGP router in that AS. this is becuase the BGP updates are sent as unicast messages which aren't forwarded in a multicast manner i.e. one-to-one mesages.

CCNA Configure the Network free lab book is on the way soon! I should be completed with all of the labs for this eBook by sometime next week. I will also need my work to be edited for the final version as well. If you haven't already please subscribe to the mailing list on the right to be the first to receive updates and a link to download the free CtN CCNA lab book!

CCNP BGP Overview

Well today I finally started the chapter for BGP, I've been waiting to get to this one for a while. I went over the first section of this chapter which gave me a brief overview of what BGP is. I can already tell that there is a lot to this protocol looking at the number of RFC's alone! The fact that this is the biggest chapter in the book (over 100 pages) is another reason. I ended my study session by viewing a few multihoming options an AS has when receiving EBGP updates from multiple ISP connections.

Don't forget to sign up on my mailing list to the right to be the first to receive my free CCNA lab book! The book is only a few weeks away to being completed!

Chapter 7 BSCI Configuration Labs

Today I finished up the end of chapter configuration labs which helped me wrap my head around all of the topics presented. Everything went fairly smooth but I will need to review the commands and variables for distribute lists, route-maps, and dhcp settings. These 3 commands gives the engineer a ton of flexibility in tuning routes for a network.

In other news, I am a little more than half way finished with the free lab book I'm creating and I plan to be finished in about 2 weeks. If any one is interested on being notified when the final product is finished, please subscribe to my mailing list on the right!

Progress on the first "Configure the Network" eBook

Thanks to all the people who replied and all of the positive responses so far for the CCNA Lab book. If you're interested in receiving a copy please sign up on the right with the mailing list I just created! I'm using this as a way to keep things organized as a ton of emails have flooded in and i don't want to mistakenly leave any one left out. as mentioned I am breaking this CCNA lab book into two parts for the ICND1 and ICND2 respectively. Below you'll see the rough draft of the outline I have created for the ICND1 labs. I'll also keep you updated via the mailing list so stay tuned!


I. Introduction

1. Configure the Network

2. Contoso Technologies

II. Contoso Task 1

1. Configure Client’s Cisco Switch

III. Contoso Task 2

1. Design and Configure Client’s SOHO Switch Network

2. Implement and Verify Switch Security Measures

IV. Contoso Task 3

1. Configure Client’s Cisco Router

V. Contoso Task 4

1. Configure Small Business Client’s LAN Network

2. Create DHCP Solution for LAN Network

3. Implement Solution to Access Remote Building’s Network

VI. Contoso Task 5

1. Develop LAN Network for College Campus Buildings

2. Provide Access to other Campus Buildings Using RIP

VII. Contoso Task 6

1. Configure Client’s T1 WAN Link

2. Change WAN Link for Multi-Vendor Use

3. Install Multi-Point Connection for Redundancy

VIII. Contoso Task 7

1. Build Cisco Inter-Network for Medium Business Client

Feel free to leave comments on what you would like to see on this lab!

Tuning Route Redistribution using AD

Today I went through a quick study session and lab that shows how administrative distance can cause suboptimal routing when using route redistribution. I tested this with a lab that was redistributing RIP and OSPF both ways. Since OSPF has the default AD of 110 and RIP has an AD of 120, the ASBR routers redistributing chose the OSPF routes even when the RIP routes were closer. To modify this I had to create an access-list with all the possible RIP routes and assign it the AD of 125 on the two ASBR routers and inject the access-list into the OSPF routes. Now when the ASBR's received a RIP route from OSPF (due to redistribution) it automatically had an AD value of 125 which was larger than the default RIP AD 120. The RIP routes were installed into the ASBR's routing table due to having a lower AD value of 120!

Route Maps and Distribution Lists

I spent most of my afternoon covering the topics for Route Maps and Distribution Lists. I've actually been waiting to get to this topic for quite awhile because I see these commands in my work environment all the time. Both of these tools are similar to access-lists but their purpose is to tune or route specific IP packets. Distribution lists filter routing updates which is something you can't do with a regular access-list. Route maps gives the engineer a lot of flexibility on what specific ip packets should be tuned and what should be tuned such as the router metric. Tomorrow I will learn more about tuning administrative distance (AD) to control the flow of routing packets.

Controlling Routing Updates

This morning I spent most of my time learning about passive-interfaces and the many ways we can control and tune routing updates. This chapter actually puts together a lot of pieces to the puzzle because it explains how routing protocols work together and how you can limit what each protocol knows about the other specifically. I also learned a little bit about distribution lists and will be creating a few labs for this tomorrow.

In other news I'm creating a lab ebook for all of you CCNA test takers out there so be on the look out for that. I will most likely make it a series along with splitting the ebooks up into ICND1 and ICND2. I want to make sure that the series is not only helpful but also very affordable because we all know that the study material, equipment, and exam isn't cheap by any means. I'm actually looking to hand out a few beta copies of my book for free to review and provide constructive criticism. Email me at shawnmoore_1@hotmail.com if you're interested and I'll add you to my current list of reviewers, spots are already filling up so be hasty!