I gathered these notes to mentally prepare my Troubleshooting methodology on the exam day:

• Follow the path
• divide and conquer
• Move the problem
• Bottom up
• Top down After watching Kevin Wallace Bull’s Eye videos and INE Tshoot Exam Demo video, the best method is to use a combination of Divide and Conquer-Bottom up/Top Down-Follow the path. There’s not really one single method that will lead to finding where the problem lies.

This is a collection of possible troubleshooting tips I collected over my studies. They are organized by OSI layer:

Steps to create IPSEC VPN:

• define ISAKMP Policies
• define ISAKMP preshared key (if authentication method is Pre-share)
• define IPSEC Transform Sets
• define IPSEC security associations
• define interesting traffic through Proxy Identity (or crypto ACL)
• link crypto ACL and IPSEC TS with a Crypto Map
• put the crypto map under the Internet-facing interface

configuring IPSEC VPN between R2 and R3 There was a problem at first. Debug command helped see the error: We look back at the configuration on both R2 and R3 and discover that “set transform-set” is missing on R3:

dot1x

• dot1x can work with DHCP address assignment
• only EAPOL is allowed before a port is authorized
• Vlan Assignment (by a RADIUS server) depends on the result of dot1x authentication
• RADIUS server- the dot1x authentication server- is the one which verifies the identity of the client connected to a dot1x port

AAA

• there are named method lists (simply method lists)
• once AAA is enabled, the default method list is applied to console, VTY access, enable mode…

Enabling Loop Guard on an interface level does not enable it for the whole system. In fact, a “show spanning-tree summary total” is a bit misleading in this case.

To configure loop guard on an interface:

“loop guard default” is disabled because we haven’t issued a “spanning-tree loopguard default”. Easy:

verify that QoS is enabled:

Enable QoS:

At this stage, all interfaces are by default untrusted. This means that any frame with a priority value will be remarked as CoS/IP Precedence/DSCP value = 0.

Trust CoS values of incoming frames. Useful for trunks:

Trust CoS values only if an attached Cisco ip phone exists (conditional trust):

At this stage, the trust boundary moves to the IP phone. Any priority value of any attached PC frames is untrused, thus remarked with priority 0.

PIM-SM requires the following components: a Rendez-vous Point, shared trees, source trees.

PIM Register and Register Stop messages 

PIM register messages are sent by a PIM router to the Rendez-vous Point when it [the PIM router] receives multicast traffic from a streaming source. 

PIM RP sends a PIM register stop message to signal to the PIM router that it [the RP] has received the PIM register message.

Incoming Interfaces vs Outgoing Interface List

Incoming Interface

The PIM router’s interface that receives – or is supposed to receive – multicast traffic from the multicast source.

Reminder Of The Communication Models

client/server behind-NAT devices Point-to-point Hybrid Unicast Multicast

Multicast concepts

Multicast clients must join multicast groups in order to receive multicast traffic.

• IP host: an IP endpoint that is connected to a multicast router.
• Multicast router: a router that supports multicast protocols such as PIM and IGMP.
• upstream router
• downstream router
• multicast group
• nulticast (source, group) pair
• multicast group membership
• interested node
• Host Membership Query
• Host Membership Query
• Host Membership Report
• random report delay timer
• shared tree
• source-rooted spanning tree
• Multicast Distribution Tree
• parent link
• child link
• active branches
• multicast leaf router: is connected to leaf sub-networks
• Leaf sub-network: some have group members, some do not.
• DVMRP

Advantages of Multicast Communication

Routers process one packet instead of many (in case of multiple unicast transmissions) Routers do not have to determine the destination address to send the packet to, in contrast to unicast transmission. Reduced usage of resources: router CPU and memory, network bandwidth.

In this lab, I learned the following:

• configuring a HSRP group on physical interfaces,
• testing how a PC can reach a remote subnet through a redundant gateway, by configuring its default gateway as the HSRP virtual address,
• testing how the second router becomes Active,
• testing interface tracking.

For interface tracking, at first, I thought there was a problem with the lab. Topology: configure interface tracking and a decrement value: When I shut down ser0/0 on R2, I expected R2 to become Standby router. But reality bites: Then I checked on R3. R3 is still Standby, not Active ! So what’s wrong? Here’s what Cisco says: How Object Tracking Affects the Priority of an HSRP Router

Score is 822. Passing score was 790. It came after four days of reviewing IPv6, Route maps, BGP,… In the beginning of the test I was taking enough time to read and answer the questions. However I lost much time in my first lab simulation. The scenarion wasn’t clear to me. And each time I had to click on the console button to reach a router. And I was not seeing changes in the routing table so it confused me a lot. I began to worry about my score. And I got my second lab simulation. And immediately after, the third. I told to myself: “man, what did I do to Cisco to treat me this way?” So I had almost 38 minutes to do the third lab sim and 32 questions ! Besides, the test supervisor was tearing papers on her desk. And the other guy in the room was complaining about the bug in his exam. I was going to scream. At the end, I was almost flipping through the questions. I finished the test. The test supervisor told me “congratulations!”.