Implementing Cisco IP Routing (ROUTE 300-101)

Overview of CCNP Route

This section gives the information about The CCNP certification. This certification is helpful with the environment of working with hundreds of switches or routers. For this certification CCENT and CCNA certification are the prerequisite. It also gives the overview about the knowledge one needs to attain the CCNP cetification.

Cisco Express Forwarding

This section explains Cisco Express Forwarding (CEF) feature found inside Cisco routers for handling data through routers that route packets at wire speed. It covers basic networking principles, Forwarding Information Base (FIB) and Adjacency Table used by Cisco Express Forwarding.

General Network Challenges

This section explains dynamic routing protocol. It covers networking challenges such as challenges when sending data through multiple routers with redundant paths. It demonstrates basic concepts of data moving through the network and routing process through multiple routers.

IP Operations Part 1

This section explains IP operations. It shows local communication and a different way for remote communications. It also covers basic router functions when packets are too large or bounce around multiple routers and the process of breaking large data into segments for data delivery.

IP Operations Part 2

This section explores ICMP protocol that is used to receive status messages back from devices to see if connections are valid and networks are working. It also explains ICMP unreachables and redirects, IPv6 and IPv4 fragmentation and time-to-live (TIL).

TCP Operations

This section explores TCP protocol that provides reliable delivery of communications across the network. It covers difference between TCP and UDP traffic, use of windowing for TCP traffic, MTU, MSS, Latency and other TCP operations.

UDP Operations

This section explores UDP for fast communications, but it does not provide reliable delivery of communication data. It explains UDP operations and some of the major challenge that can cause with TCP traffic called TCP starvation.

Proposed Changes

This section explains that minor changes to the configurable values inside a dynamic routing protocol can cause problems throughout the rest of the infrastructure. It covers changes with the network like routing parameters of Administrative Distance and Metrics, migration to IPv6 addressing, using dual stacking technology.

Layer 2 Technologies

This section covers Layer 2 technologies. It discusses sub-objectives such as configuring PPP and explaining Frame Relay.

Configure PPP

This section explores Point to Point Protocol (PPP). PPP is designed to work in serial based networks, which uses analog communications compared to most communications used today which are digital. It also shows how to implement authentication to PPP and demonstrates the basic Layer 2 configuration of both PPP and PPPoE on routers.

Frame Relay

This section explores Frame Relay . It is an older technology for connecting across a Service Provider’s Network and is easy to implement. It covers basic configuration of frame relay in a Point-to-Point configuration, Multipoint Configuration and Full Mesh using physical interfaces (point-to-point) and sub interfaces (multipoint and full-mesh) to show Frame relay’s versatility and use basic commands to verify configuration.

IP Addressing

This section discusses how to identify, configure, and verify IPv4 addressing and subnetting. It covers three different types of addressing i.e. unicast, broadcast and multicast communications. It covers basic IPv4 addressing concepts, the difference between the different types of IPv4 addressing and how to assign IPv4 addressing using DHCP and DHCP relay and how ARP functions within a network and across a network.

IPv6 Addressing

This section explores IPv6. It explains that because of the lack of IPv4 addresses and added features to IPv6, it has started gaining adoption. It covers IPv6 on Cisco routers including the various types of addressing available, when each type of address is typically used, automatic configuration and DHCP for IPv6.

Static Routing

This section explores Static routing. Static routing is when one gives a command to a router to manually go somewhere, which overrides any other route preference. It covers configuring static routing including the pros and cons of using static routing and demonstrates on how to configure it and use IP SLA to track the viability of the next hop.

Default Routing

This section explains about the default route. A default route takes the packets that come into a router that don’t match any entry on the routing table and forwards it to a particular interface or IP address. It covers use of default routing on Cisco routers, how to configure static default routes and how to redistribute a default route into OSPF and EIGRP.

Routing Protocols

This section explores difference between different dynamic routing protocols. It covers general types of dynamic routing protocols, which include: distance vector, link-state and path vector.

Administrative Distance

This section explores Administrative distance. It is something Cisco routers keeps track for different routes that might be considered the best possible route based on the protocol used. It covers Administrative Distance on Cisco routers and changing the default administrative distances to give preference of one routing protocol over another even when the metrics are different.

Passive Interfaces

This section explores Passive Interfaces. It is a tool built into Cisco routers, which allows one to have a little more control over where a routing protocol runs. It covers passive interfaces and the various behaviors when using EIGRP, OSPF and RIP.

VRF Lite

This section explores VPN Routing and Forwarding (VRF-lite). VRF-lite works by partitioning a routing table and is used at the ISP level to help separate traffic between customers using the same equipment. It covers functions of VRF-lite and demonstrates how to configure it.

Route Filtering

This section explores Route Filtering . It covers methods used to filter routes while using any protocol and demonstrates the use of prefix lists and distribute lists on routers using EIGRP, OSPF and BGP.

Route Redistribution

This section explains Route redistribution. It is the exchanging of a route from one routing protocol to another. It covers the use of route redistribution and about configuring and verifying redistribution between routing protocols.

Route Summarization

This section covers Route summarization. Route summarization is when smaller routes are combined into one larger route to reduce the size of the routing table. It discusses the importance of keeping a routing table as concise as possible, the basic theory of route summarization, the use of auto summarization and the importance of manual summarization of routes, and configuring routers for manual summarization.

Policy Based Routing

This section talks about Policy based routing. Normal routing will only do destination routing, but policy based routing uses customized policies to take certain actions based on if traffic meets a specified criteria. It covers policy based routing and the types of things it can be influenced such as source addresses, inbound interfaces, and protocols.

Route Maps

This section explores Route maps. It is powerful tool inside a Cisco router, which can be used for a lot of things including filtering BGP traffic and allows one to affect certain routes without influencing others. It explains about the powerful ways to control and influence routing through the use of route maps.

Loop Prevention

This section explores Loop prevention. Routing loops are something that’s really important to be aware of, which EIGRP and RIP are especially susceptible to, so it is important that one implements loop prevention techniques to protect one’s network from those problems. It also covers implementing loop prevention techniques and the three technologies behind it: split horizon, poison reverse and route tags.

Configure and Verify RIPv2

This section talks about RIPv2 protocol. RIPv2 is a classless routing protocol, which can be easily configured and deployed. It overs fundamental concepts and configuration of using RIPv2. It shows how to verify its functionality, how to better manage rip by using passive-interfaces and how to configure rip to distribute a default route.

Describe RIPng

This section explains RIPing . It is a new version of RIP that works with IPv6. It demonstrates configuring RIPng on routers and some of its similarities and differences with RIPv2.

EIGRP Packet Types

This section explores different packet types . It explains different packet types that get sent back and forth between EIGRP routers under certain conditions and it’s good to have an understanding all of the communication happening in the background and the different packet types for troubleshooting purposes. It also covers main packet types that EIGRP routers use to establish neighboring adjacencies and to keep the routes up to date between them.

EIGRP Neighbors

This section explores EIGRP neighbor. It shows setting up EIGRP neighbor relationships and getting EIGRP to work. It explains how to get past some of the issues when working with frame relay or MPLS using the neighbor command.

Configure EIGRP Stubs

This section explains using EIGRP stubs can help to optimize performance on a network. It covers configuring EIGRP stubs and the types of stubs one can set up to make things more efficient.

EIGRP Load Balancing

This section explores load balancing especially with EIGRP, key metrics EIGRP looks at by default, and making sure it does equal cost load balancing. It also explains that if a routing protocol finds more than one way to get to the same destination then load balancing could be an option, where computing resources are balanced between multiple paths to get to the same destination.

EIGRP Metrics

This section talks about the way EIGRP makes routing decisions based on the composite metric calculated by DUAL-FSM, the five metrics that EIGRP uses, and how to manipulate the K values to get different results.

EIGRP for IPv6

This section shows how to configure EIGRP running on top of IPv6 and how to compare with others. EIGRP for IPv6 is a configuration that shouldn’t be ignored. When Cisco created EIGRP they didn’t create it to handle only a single protocol, but created it as a framework capable of routing any protocol.

OSPF Packet Types

This section talks about the five primary OSPF packet types and demonstrates how to see the packets during the neighboring process. It explains Packets are exchanged for OSPF adjacencies established in OSPF networks. It also shows how OSPF works and the purposes of troubleshooting.

OSPF Neighbors

This section talks about the forming of adjacencies and the eight OSPF neighbor states. It demonstrates how debugging the states can help in troubleshooting OSPF. It also demonstrates how to configure authentication on the interface.

OSPF Network Types

This section talks about the five different network types inside of OSPF. It describes Area as a special way to sub-divide an OSPF autonomous system and improve its performances.

OSPF LSA Types

This section covers Link State Advertisements (LSAs). In OSPF, Link State Advertisements (LSAs) are the way in which routers exchange information between each other. It discusses about routing information that is exchanged in OSPF and the 11 different types of LSAs one might see inside of OSPF.

OSPF Route Types

This section talks about the results of the LSA exchanges that occur between OSPF routers, the four different route types found in OSPF and how one can identify them and actually see how they are working

OSPF Area Types

This section talks about connecting to a multi and standard area OSPF and the backbone area that acts as a transit network. It discusses about the different area types, the areas used to optimize a multi-area OSPF network, the configuration and results of implementing different area types.

OSPF Virtual Links

This section talks about how virtual links works and its configurations. Virtual links are a temporary solution used to get past network failure, which go against the rules of OSPF and work to get the user at least some connectivity.

OSPF Path Preference

This section talks about the way that OSPF chooses a path among multiple paths to a destination and the ability to manipulate routes and the cost so that one can be preferred over another.

OSPF for IPv6

This section talks about configuring IPv6 for OSPFv3 and how to verify that it is operational. OSPF version 3 was made to support IPv6, unlike version 2 which was made only to support IPv4.

Border Gateway Protocol

This section talks about the use of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and the basic BGP characteristics, theory and terminology necessary for understanding how it works.The BGP is an exterior protocol, which is intended and configured to route the internet to provide a loop-free topology on a global level.

BGP Attributes

This section explains how Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) makes decisions, the different things that can influence the path BGP chooses and attributes that are a part of the BGP standard. BGP is a path vector protocol, which looks for the fewest number of autonomous systems it can pass through and uses several attributes to determine which route is preferred.

VPN Technologies

This section talks about three different VPN tunnels. It discusses the uses of Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) on Cisco IOS routers and demonstrates how to configure a tunnel between two Cisco IOS routers.

AAA

This section demonstrates how to configure the IOS to use RADIUS, TACACS+ servers to authenticate users and how to use Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA) groups to provide redundancy for the login process.

Device Access Control

This section talks about the basic security practices to protect a router, the AutoSecure script to help harden an IOS router, and see different settings and what each service does to increase/decrease the router’s overall attack surface.

Router Security Features

This section talks about the security features inside a router including different access control lists that filter traffic passing through a router, reverse path verification and also Unicast Reverse Path Forwarding (URPF).

Device Management

This section covers the information on various small services available to manage Cisco equipment, for configuring and securing a Console, Telnet, SSH, and web access (HTTP and HTTPS). It also discusses the ways to securely move files back and forth between systems, using a Cisco router as an FTP, TFTP and SCP client to upload and download files from the IOS CLI.

DHCP

This section talks about how to configure a Cisco IOS device as a DHCP server, the steps required to configure an IPv4 DHCP server and also about configuring DHCP for an IPv6 network.

Network Address Translation

This section talks about the different forms of Network Address Translation (NAT), configuring NAT for IPv4 and how NAT64 and NPTv6 can be used to provide address translation under IPv6.

IP SLAs

This section discusses about Service Level Agreement (SLA) , how one can set them up for monitoring and some of the weaknesses in Cisco’s self-healing network design. It demonstrates how one can use IP SLAs and Tracking Objects to overcome those limitations and ensure one’s network re-routes properly during a network outage and how to use IP SLAs to report on network performance.