External CCNA: 640-802

Guys, I would recommend to go for the 640-802 single exam instead of the ICND1 and ICND2 path. I hope you are still studying while it is fresh. Lukas has already pass the external with a 972/1000. Congrats

Congratulations

Dear All,

Congratulations to all of you. Do not go on holidays yet. Carry on for a month, month and a half and you should be getting more than 90% in the external exam. Please join the External CCNA study Group on Facebook and start revising.

PD: Thanks for your positive feedback.

Requesting a voucher

Before requesting a voucher, eligible Students and Instructors should access the URL Pearson VUE - http://www.vue.com/ in order to locate the nearest Testing Center and read about the standard testing procedures.

As of September 4, 2007 the specific information could be located at:

• URL: http://pearsonvue.com/cisco/

Please note the following before requesting your discount voucher:

• Your voucher must be used in the same region where you completed your Academy training.
• Absolutely NO exchanges, refunds, or extensions will be granted if the incorrect voucher type is selected.
• Vouchers must be used by the expiration date.
• Please confirm the discount amount with the testing center PRIOR to taking the exam. We will not reimburse Students or Instructor for the voucher.
• Cisco cannot make changes to voucher.requests after they have been submitted.

To request a Discount voucher., please follow the steps listed below:

1. Login to the Academy Connection site at http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/netacad/index.html
2. Click on the 'request for CCNA Voucher' link located in the 'Career Development' or 'Professional Development' section of your Home Page
3. Before you requesta voucher.please read the information located on the 'Requesta voucher.' page
4. Choose the Country
5. Choose the Testing Center
6. Click 'Submit'

Please Note: After completing the voucher.Exam, the link that allows Students and Instructors the ability to request a discount voucher.may take up to 48 hours to appear. If you are not eligible to receive a request voucher.for a particular curriculum, you will not receive the 'Request a voucher.' link.

After completing the request, you may review your discount voucher.information in your profile. The details are accessible by clicking on the 'My Profile' link at the top of your Home Page and scrolling down to the voucher.

Voucher Requirements

CCNA EXPLORATION

In order for Students to receive a request for the ICND1, ICND2, and the CCNA vouchers, Students must complete all four courses of the CCNA Exploration curriculum and receive a score of 75 percent or higher on their first attempt of the final exam for the final CCNA Exploration course: 'Accessing the WAN'.

Qualifying Students will automatically receive a Voucher Request link(s) within 72 hours after the Instructor passes the Student from the class. The links will appear as below on the Student Home page:

* Request for ICND1 Voucher
* Request for ICND2 Voucher
* Request for CCNA Composite Voucher

All Students will have the opportunity to receive all three Discount Voucher request links but will not have the ability to obtain all three Discount Vouchers. Students may request the Discount Vouchers the following ways:

* Students may request the ICND1 and the ICND2 Discount Vouchers
* Students may request the ICND1 and the CCNA Composite Discount Vouchers
* Students may request the CCNA Composite Discount Voucher

The following notification appears when Students begin to request their discount voucher. Please remind Students to read all notifications very carefully before they make their voucher requests.

• Vouchers must be used in the same region where they completed their Academy training.
• Absolutely no exchanges, refunds, or extensions will be granted.
• Vouchers must be used by the expiration date.
• Please confirm the discount amount with the testing center PRIOR to taking the exam.
• We WILL NOT reimburse Students or Instructor for the voucher.
• Cisco CANNOT make changes to voucher requests after they have been submitted

Final Test

Dear all,

as you know, next Tuesday is the Final Multiple Choice Test and next Thursday you will be doing the Final Lab for CCNA Exploration 4. Remember that PPP, Frame-Relay , Access-Lists and NAT are a "must". DHCP and the Security chapters are also important.

PD: Nobody has turned up in the HelpDesk this morning.

Good Luck.

ARP Poisoning

Extra Info on ARP Poisoning:

[Wikipedia] Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) spoofing, also known as ARP poisoning or ARP Poison Routing (APR), is a technique used to attack an Ethernet wired or wireless network. ARP Spoofing may allow an attacker to sniff data frames on a local area network (LAN), modify the traffic, or stop the traffic altogether (known as a denial of service attack). The attack can only be used on networks that actually make use of ARP and not another method of address resolution.



The principle of ARP spoofing is to send fake, or "spoofed", ARP messages to an Ethernet LAN. Generally, the aim is to associate the attacker's MAC address with the IP address of another node (such as the default gateway). Any traffic meant for that IP address would be mistakenly sent to the attacker instead. The attacker could then choose to forward the traffic to the actual default gateway (passive sniffing) or modify the data before forwarding it (man-in-the-middle attack). The attacker could also launch a denial-of-service attack against a victim by associating a nonexistent MAC address to the IP address of the victim's default gateway.

ARP spoofing attacks can be run from a compromised host, or from an attacker's machine that is connected directly to the target Ethernet segment. Please follow the link for an animation:


http://www.oxid.it/downloads/apr-intro.swf

Enabling all the chapters this Eastern

Guys, Most of you are requesting to enable certain chapters. I will enable every single chapter until the end of Easter. After that only chapter 4,5,6,7 and 8 will be enabled (just 1 week each). Good Luck.

Chapter 3 Test is now enabled

Chapter 3 Test has been enabled. It will be enabled until 07/04/2009
09:45. Make sure you do it before the deadline. No test will be re-enabled this semester.

Chapter 2 Test is now enabled

Chapter 2 Test has been enabled. It will be enabled until 02/04/2009
13:21. Make sure you do it before the deadline. No test will be re-enabled this semester.

Welcome to CCNA 4: Chapter 1 Tests

Chapter 1 Test has been created. It will be enable until 31/03/2009
13:31. Make sure you do it before the deadline. No test will be re-enabled this semester.

Congratulations

Everyone has progressed to CCNA4. Good effort but I will generally suggest to attend the practicals more often and to fully read the curriculum.

Marks for Thursday Lab are now available

Marking of CCNA3 lab is finished. Please check Cisco Netacad. Guys, I spoke to Freddy and the time for the lab tomorrow will be 1:15 minutes again to avoid favoritism. Any queries, please reply.

CCNA 3 Test Review

First af all, I am sorry for the delay but I have been very busy this weekend. Most of you are doing very well with the tests. I consider the next points essential towards your CCNA 3 and your external test. Keep in mind that the text on green is a "must". Please click on the link:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhbc47h9_47hjktm6c3&invite=fpqnn65

All Chapter Re-Enabled

Guys, every single test has been reenabled until 12/03/2009 11:40. No more chances. If I am not wrong when you finish the chapter you have 1 hour to check your questions by clicking on the blue link on top of your mark (Chapter X). Good Luck.

New features on Packet Tracer 5.2

In preparation for the launch of Packet Tracer version 5.2, Cisco islooking for instructors who will help them test this new version. Several new features and protocols, especially in the areas of security and QoS have been added.

Have a look at the new features.

TimeTable

Guys, some of you need to catch up. Have a look at the timetable.
I strongly recommend you to not to miss the labs this week.

Test 6 is enabled

I have just enabled Test 6 for a week. Some of you have a lot to catch up.

Test 5 is now enabled

Tests 5 is now enabled for everyone until 18:22 03/03/2009. Some of you are doing very well, but keep in mind that the assesments are due on 10th and 12th of March. Please, if there is any problem, make a comment here.

Software is what matters

This post has nothing to do with the curriculum but after browsing on Lifehacer I found it interesting. As usual, Software is what it matters and Linux is the King. However Cisco is still more robust and trustworthy. The guys from Lifehacer show how to turn your $60 router into a highly configurable $600 router in two different ways, using different distributions based on linux kernels.



Extracted from: Lifehacker

Clock Rate on Cisco Serial Interfaces

The clock rate command is used only on a serial interface that has a DCE cable plugged into it. There must be a clock rate set on every serial link between routers. It does not matter which router has the DCE cable plugged into it or which interface the cable is plugged into. Serial 0 on one router can be plugged into Serial 1 on another router.

The clock rate command is set in bits per second. Besides looking at the cable end to check for a label of DCE or DTE, you can see if a router’s serial interface has a DCE cable connected with the show controllers int command. The new ISR routers automatically detect DCE connections and set the clock rate to 2000000. However, you still need to understand the clock rate command, even though the new routers set it for you automatically!

CLock Rate

Clock rate is all to do with Timing. A serial interface will send data along the line in the form of ones & zeroes 00110001111000010.
There are start bits and stop bits along with parity which all get put together to form a frame of information when that data gets sent across the connection, it has to get reassembled and look like the original data that was sent. If one device is sending a simple code of 8 bits ( we won't go into start, stop & parity) in this format 00110011 and it sends them 1 second at a time per digit ie 8 seconds to transmit the 8 binaries but the opposite end is actually receiving the data at 0.5seconds per binary then the receiving device will look at the same bit twice and place it in memory twice for every bit that is sent. Unfortunately this doesn't mean that, should we send the word cat across the network we will end up with ccaatt. In the example above 00110011 means that we get 0000111100001111. If you have ever seen what happens when a serial communications device is set at differing speeds at both ends you will have seen what happens .. gibberssh! Until the send / receive speeds match and synchronize

So what is clock rate .. it's the speed that we set the transfer rate across a communications medium. It allows the data to be clocked through the interface and put into memory at the same speed that it was sent.

In any transmission medium there are two types of devices .. DTE and DCE. Most routers are considered to be DTE. When two routers are place at opposite ends of a serial line one has to be DTE and the other DCE. DTE is Data Terminal Equipment. A device that is placed at the end of the line. It Terminates the line. DCE is Data Communications Equipment. It Controls the transfer. It has the pleasure of giving the Clock signal. DCE - Controls & Clocks .. that's how I remember where to place the Clock Rate command.

Extracted from the forum: Andy_Capp

Packet Tracer Tutorial 320 x 240

VTP modes

Test 4 is now enabled

Test 1 , 2 , 3 and 4 are enabled until 26/02/2009 19:13 .

Test for Chapter 1 , 2 and 3 activated

Test 3 is enabled. Test 1 and 2 re-enabled (do not get used to it).
Please read chapter 4 (VTP). Chapters 2,3 and 4 are related. Don't read chapter 4 without reading 2 and 3.

If you have time, lab 4.1 from the cisco.netacad.net. Do not download the pdf. Instead open the *.pkt file offered in the link. That will open your Packet Tracer 5.1 (that should have been installed).

Any problem, reply to this post.

Be aware

Chapters 3, 4 , 5 and 6 (VLAN's, VTP, STP and Inter-VLAN concepts) are the most important chapters this semester ( and TOP priority for Final CCNA Examination). Please start studying in advance.

Test Activation

Everyone should be enrolled in the class, by now. If not, please send me your details via e-mail archipestre@gmail.com and I will do so.

Useful Posters

Please, download this: Posters

New Packet Tracer 5.1

Remember to download the new version of packet tracer in your PC at home:

Go to http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/netacad/course_catalog/PacketTracer.html and login with your academy username.

Test for Chapter 1 & 2

Test for Chapter 1 & 2 of CCNA 3 "LAN Switching and Wireless" have been enabled. They expired on 18/02/2009 at 14:33. Please, read chapter 2 before Thursday.

Tests CCNA3

Dear students, I will enable the class and the tests tomorrow morning. In the meantime you can still use "course materials" to have have a look at Chapter 2. Please, do read the chapter before the Presentation on Thursday.

Welcome

First Blog Entry for the Cisco group study starting on September 2008. My e-mail address is archipestre@gmail.com.

Victor Castano