A pretty important topic that is very easy to overlook when studying multicast is the PIM Assert Mechanism.  After working with the TechEdit Team in the IEOC it is obvious that more than just a handful of students are confused about what this mechanism does and how it works. In this blog post (the first of many dedicated to multicasting), we will examine the PIM Assert mechanism and put this topic behind us in our preparation in mastering multicast.

In Figure 1, R1 and R4 have a route to the source 150.1.5.5 (the multicast source), and share a multi-access connection to R6. R6’s FastEthernet0/0 interface has joined the multicast group 239.6.6.6.

Figure 1

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Most of you have commented on and are aware of the INE.com TechEdit Team. This group has been hard at work editing the Volume 1 and Volume 2 workbooks. In addition to this, they have been answering queries and facilitating many of the interesting discussions that take place every hour in the INE online community ieoc.com.

When it came time to pick a leader of this group, the answer was pretty obvious to all – it needed to be Terry Vinson. Terry has been doing an incredible job for INE and its students for months.

Terry has about every IT-related certification you can think of, and will be completing his CCIE R&S over the next two months.

Terry Vinson is a highly experienced training consultant, specializing in documentation development, validation and verification and communications. Terry is a Combat Veteran, having served in the United States Army where he worked as a Communications Electronic Warfare and Countermeasures Specialist and Trainer. After leaving the military Terry joined the New Equipment Fielding Team (NEFT), as a contractor to the Intelligence Material Management Center (IMMC) were he worked developing training manuals, and as an Instructor of Key Personnel in the area of network maintenance, troubleshooting, and fault isolation. During his tenure Terry provided or supported instructional services to thousands of soldiers in more than half a dozen countries.

For the last 10 years Terry has worked in the private sector as a Senior Technology Consultant and Trainer for several consulting firms in Washington DC, Northern and Central Virginia. In this capacity he has provided services to Major Metropolitan Health Systems, the Mexican Embassy, and the Executive Office of the President of the United States of America (EOP).

Congrats Terry! It is so wonderful to be working with you here at INE!

A huge shout-out to the Reno RS workshop in Reno this week.   You guys (Vicki included) rock!!!  Thanks for all your hard work, and making it so fun.   I am having a blast!   One of the students asked about a client configuration for PPPoE.   This blog post serves as working example of a client and server configuration.   Thanks for the request Louie! Read the rest of this entry »

Overview

In this short blog post we are going to present a simple procedure for IPv4 prefix summarization. The procedure is based on the one found in “Optimal Routing Design” book by Russ White, Don Slice and Alvaro Retana, but differs in some respects. The process is three step, and require the use of Windows calculator for ease of computation. No binary breakdowns are involved, just some basic arithmetic. For the sake of simplicity, we skip all proofs, as those are trivial. The same approach could be adopted for use with IPv6 prefixes, provided that decimal arithmetic is replaced with hexadecimal.

Scenario

We are going to use an example to demonstrate the method. Here is the task: find the optimal (longest prefix length) summary prefix for the following set of subnets:

192.168.100.0/22
192.168.101.0/24
192.168.99.0/24
192.168.102.0/24
192.168.105.0/24
192.168.98.0/23

This example is taken from the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernet that illustrates the use of binary breakdown for the purpose of address summarization.
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“Never stop, never stop fighting till the fight is done.” – Kevin Costner as Eliot Ness in The Untouchables. I was reminded of this line reading another great, inspirational Version 4 passing story. Thank you so much for sharing your story with our community Jason, and congratulations once again.

“After 9 years of dreaming about it, a couple on and off years of busting my a– doing something about it, 4 attempts, 4 fails, and 2 re-reads, I’ve finally gotten my number, #25963.  I want to thank my wife and son for giving me the time and space and support, especially over the past year.  I also need to thank my parents for helping me financially.  And then there’s Mike, Manoj, Erik, Dave S., Dave O., Craig, and all the other guys I’ve worked with in the past that helped me to get where I am today.

After I had failed my 3rd try back in November, I re-committed myself to “back-to-basics” training.  I used INE’s Vol 1 and Volume 2 for all my lab work.  I had previously used ’s workbooks for my first 3 attempts, but it got to the point where I was doing labs from memory.  I’m not going to say one is better than the other, because I feel like I learned equally from both.  But I did like the change of pace that I got with INE’s workbooks.  I also reviewed videos from both INE and IPX.  In truth, it’s almost as if I was exclusively using INE material for this last attempt because the videos from IPX were all done by Scott Morris.
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Just a reminder to everyone that we have a free Open Lecture scheduled for Tuesday, March 16th at 7 PM EST USA.

This event will reach maximum capacity for the classroom, so if you want to be in the live class, be sure to be early.

Instructors for the event are Anthony Sequeira and Keith Barker. Cannot wait to “see you” in class!

Classroom link:

http://ieclass.internetworkexpert.com/r91196977/

Last week I had the opportunity to spend time with several CCIE security candidates in Texas, and had a blast. One of the questions that came up was regarding ARP inspection on the ASA in transparent mode. This topic comes up a lot, so I wanted to share it with y’all   in this blog.

Here is the diagram we can work with:

ARP inspection on the ASA in transparent mode, is really very simple. The intent is to stop attackers from spoofing the L2 address of another host, such as a default gateway or some other critical system. The ASA does this by verifying that all ARP traffic is accurate for the specific key devices you are protecting against spoofing.

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We had some requests to blog this success story as well.

Here is his awesome story:

Finally… I passed the CCIE Security exam.  3rd time’s a charm   What a journey this has been.  I have been dreaming about CCIE since 2001, but began serious study in June 2007.  A year later, I passed the written and finally yesterday (3/9) on my 3rd try I passed the lab.

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We have had passers this week across the R&S, Security, and Service Provider Tracks. Below is Daniel Loughlin’s story from IEOC. Congrats to all!!!!!

Hello,

Today, I finally passed the R&S v4 exam in San Jose.    I’d like to thank the instructors at Internetwork Expert for their excellent workbooks and classes. I’d also like to thank all of the other candidates for posting their encouraging stories and technical advice. I couldn’t have done it without you folks. I’d also like to thank my family, coworkers, and friends for putting up with me while I pursued this.  This was my fourth attempt and my third version 4 attempt.

Here is a brief synopsis of my experience and strategy.

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Join us for the latest Open Office Hours!

Wednesday, March 10, 8 PM EST USA.

See you there everyone.

http://ieclass.internetworkexpert.com/r23809704/