Warmup for the CCIE Troubleshooting Lab 1

The CCIE exam commences with 2 hours of troubleshooting “tickets” followed by 5.5 hours of configuration and a final 30 minutes of additional diagnostic questions. This troubleshooting lab has been timed to last for 2 hours, with a total of 30 points, and to be representative of the format and difficulty of the tasks you are likely to encounter on your CCIE lab exam.

Ideally, you should work on this exercise for 2 hours and score yourself at that point. You may, of course, continue until you believe that you have met all the objectives, but you will need to increase your speed as you near your lab exam.

You will now be guided through the equipment requirements and pre-lab tasks in preparation for taking this troubleshooting lab.

If you do not own the seven routers and three switches used to create this troubleshooting lab, consider using the equipment available and additional lab exercises and training facilities available within the CCIE R&S 360 program. You can find detailed information about the Cisco 360 Learning Program and CCIE R&S exam at the following websites, respectively:

• https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/community/learning_center/cisco_360/360-rs
• https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/community/certifications/ccie_routing_switching

Equipment List

You need the following hardware and software components to begin this troubleshooting lab.

• Seven routers loaded with Cisco IOS Software Release 15.3T Advanced Enterprise image and the minimum interface configuration as documented in Table 1-1

  Table 1-1 Hardware Required per Router

  Router	Model	Ethernet I/F
  R1	3925	2
  R2	3925	1
  R3	3925	1
  R4	3925	2
  R5	3925	2
  R6	3925	2
  R7	3925	2

• Three 3560X switches with IOS 15.0S IP Services

Setting Up the Lab

Feel free to use any combination of routers and switches as long as you fulfill the requirements within the topology diagram as shown in Figure 1-1. However, it is recommended to use the same model of equipment because this will make life easier should you load configurations directly from the supplied configurations into your own devices.

Lab Topology

This troubleshooting exercise uses the topology outlined in Figure 1-1, which you will need to re-create with your own equipment or by using lab equipment on the CCIE R&S 360 program.

Switch Instructions

Configure VLAN assignments from the configurations supplied or from Table 1-2.

Table 1-2 VLAN Assignment

Connect your switches together with fiber small form-factor pluggable (SFP) connectors or RJ-45 Ethernet crossover cables, as shown in Figure 1-2.

IP Address Instructions

For this exercise, you configure your IP addresses as shown in Figure 1-3 or load the initial router configurations supplied.

Pre-Lab Tasks

• Build the lab topology as per Figure 1-1 and Figure 1-2.
• Configure the IP addresses on each router as shown in Figure 1-3. Alternatively, you can load the initial configuration files supplied if your equipment is compatible with that used to create this exercise.

General Guidelines

• Do not configure any static/default routes unless otherwise specified.
• Tackle questions sequentially. You might find that one trouble ticket needs to be resolved before moving on to the next ticket. (This will not be the case, however, on your real lab exam, which will have a far greater number of devices with noninterconnected faults.)
• Get into a comfortable and quiet environment where you can focus for the next 2 hours.
• The incident questions list symptoms, explicit validation tests to confirm you have rectified the incident correctly, and any optional constraints. Ensure that you follow these items correctly to maximize your score.
• Do not remove any configured feature to resolve an incident. You must resolve the misconfiguration rather than remove a whole configuration. (The only exception to this rule is when there is no other choice than removing the faulty configuration to resolve the incident.)
• Access the latest documentation from http://www.cisco.com/cisco/web/psa/configure.html.