Review - IPexpert Volume 3 Mock Lab 1

Well I took my first graded mocklab today and got a 41 out of 100. There were a lot of stupid mistakes I made plus a few errors in grading so I feel good about it being my first real full-scale test.

The lab sessions at proctor labs run 7 hours 45 minutes, and I took probably close to a 20 minutes break to eat dinner. Plus I had to load my initial configs and stop early to make sure I saved everything on my desktop for review. I figure I only labbed 7 hours and I didnt attempt the final 3 tasks for 8 points.

Highlights:

Perfect score on QoS (9/9) - 3 tasks. This was very encouraging because after the initial read-through I didn't think I would get it right.

Multicast (4/4) - Only one task but it was over Frame-relay and honestly I never have practiced PIM-SM over NMBA. I knew the commands though and how to troubleshoot multicast in general. I also had a to configure a static mroute and that was the key in the end.

NTP task correct (4/4) - This was tough only because you needed reachability across every network and I skipped most of the redistribution task. It forced me to go back and one-by-one I set up every router to form a server relationship with another, all while tweaking redistribution and crap. The stratum number on every router had to match the router number so you could probably imagine.

IPv6 (3/3) - It was only one task but it was RIP over Frame relay and I had to disable split horizon and map link-local addresses. Just time consuming but I gained confidence in getting it right.

Lowlights:

- Couldnt' get PPP authentication to work so I skipped it just to get full reachability
- Ran out of time for security tasks.
- Had a mess of time getting redistribution to work, mainly because of the mutual redistribution points and the discontiguous area 0 (started with a VL, but ended up with a GRE tunnel)
- Forgot how to TCL script to test full reachability, was gonna cheat but thought "f* it" I dont deserve it :)
-Forgot to finish DHCP snooping configuration by not enabling a trusted port.

Simple mistakes (mine and theirs):

- The results said one of my vtp local updaters was wrong. I checked the IP when I started and it was right. Somewhere it got changed. I should have used the vtp interface command. My bad.

- I used the sdm prefer unicast template which was right, grading script said I was on desktop template. Their bad :) Gimme 3 points. (41+3 = 44)

- Lost 5 points on 2 tasks because I used subinterface s0/1/0.26 while the script looked for s0/1/0.1. The configurations were correct, but the script erred out when it couldn't display .1 Gimme 5 points (44=5=49)

-Didn't turn of auto-summary off in EIGRP on R2. Not required to do so :) Gimme 3 points (49+3 = 52)

- Configured an ACL to only allow 172.20.33.0 - 172.20.47.0 in least amount of config lines and it worked! but the script didn't like my ACL because the I was blocking /32 routes by matching 0.0.0.0. They used 0.0.0.255. These were non-summarized RIP routes anyway and I had all the macthes on my ACL to prove it! (Gimme 3 points 52 + 3 = 55)

- Ping tests failed....er...my bad. I need to learn the TCL ping script...

-There was a BGP aggregation task that worked when I enabled it but for some reason after doing a bunch of other things the routes didn't even show up on the neighbor. I had the commands in the config, but the script checks for the routes. I should have verified...my bad (but I still want the points!)

- My PBR test passed! Theirs didn't for some reason...very weird...Im taking the points...(55+3=58)

Well if I get the VTP thing right and verified BGP better I would have been close to 70, and that was my goal. I feel good though after reading IPExpert's grading script. I know they can't get it perfect but I think they did an excellent job in showing you what they were looking for. I learned that some times it's the result that counts, and sometimes it's the configuration that does.

Anyways, this was my first big assessment. I'm planning on scheduling the real lab for May 2009, whenever those dates become available. Until then its back to the practice lab...