Cisco CCNA in 60 Days

Explore ethernet cables and media essential for the CCNA exam, including RJ-45 connectors, shielded twisted pair, straight-through and crossover cables, and duplex, speed, and console connections.

Learn the basics of IPv4 addressing: 32-bit binary, four octets, decimal representation, subnet masks, and classful addressing (A, B, C) with network and host separation.

Explore ip addressing, private versus public addresses, and subnet masks, then carve four subnets from a 192.168.0 network with 62 hosts per subnet and understand broadcast addresses.

Practice subnetting with easy subnets, learn slash notation, and apply zero-subnet rules for CCNA. Use subnet charts to identify subnets, hosts, and broadcast addresses.

Explore IPv6 basics, including hex addressing, compression rules, and prefix notation; learn about global unicast, link-local, multicast, anycast, and autoconfig via I-64.

Explore how IPv6 neighbor discovery enables address resolution, prefix discovery, duplicate address detection, and auto configuration through router advertisements, router solicitations, redirects, and neighbor advertisements.

Configure IPv6 unicast routing on two routers, assign /64 IPv6 addresses, and perform ping tests to verify connectivity across the link.

Understand VLANs, configure two VLANs on a switch, and establish a trunk link between switches to span VLANs while maintaining separate broadcast domains.

Configure a switch for voice and data by creating and naming a voice VLAN and setting the interface to access mode. Verify with show commands that the port carries VLANs.

Carry out a simple trunking lab to configure VLANs and trunk links between T-model switches, verify trunk status with show commands, and test connectivity with ping between PCs.

Explore dynamic trunking protocol (DTP) on switch ports, distinguishing trunk and access links, encapsulation options, and learn commands to enable or disable trunking across auto, desirable, and manual modes.

In this day 7 DTP lab, learners practice configuring trunking and disabling DTP, setting switch ports to trunk or access, and ensuring negotiation is turned off.

Enable LDP on switches and routers, verify LDP neighbors, and inspect interface status to understand how LDP operates in the day 8 lab.

Explore how spanning tree protocol prevents layer 2 loops by electing a root bridge and designating ports. Block redundant paths and learn about port states, and path costs.

Learn how etherchannels group multiple physical links into one logical channel to boost throughput, covering layer 2 and layer 3 channels and port aggregation protocol modes like auto and desirable.

Learn basic switching troubleshooting, including enabling Telnet on the switch and configuring a management IP. Verify interfaces are up, VLANs, and the default gateway, duplex, and cabling to diagnose issues.

Troubleshoot VLANs by checking duplex and auto negotiation, cable quality, and port hardware; verify trunking, native VLAN, and VTP domain consistency to prevent misconfigurations and traffic loss.

Explore wireless security from WPA to WPA3, detailing encryption technologies like AES and TKIP, 802.1X with RADIUS, and the differences between enterprise and home networks.

Learn how routing protocols dynamically learn networks and determine the best paths. Understand routing table switching, administrative distances, metrics, and the longest-prefix match with RIPv2.

Practice building a static routing lab by assigning IPs, configuring static routes, and verifying reachability with ping and show ip routes, while noting the limitations of static routing.

Explore IPv6 routing basics, including static IPv6 routes, show ipv6 route output, next-hop selection, and default routes in a multi-router topology.

Explore IPv6 static routing in a two-router lab, configuring global and loopback addresses, adding static routes via next-hop link-local addresses, and validating reachability with pings.

Configure RIP version 2 to overcome version 1 limits, enabling classless updates and MD5 authentication. Use UDP port 520 and multicast 224.0.0.9 for updates.

Configure a RIP version 2 lab between routers, assign serial and loopback IP addresses with a /26 mask, advertise attached networks, and disable auto-summarization while verifying routes.

This EIGRP lab demonstrates advertising specific networks on two routers. It uses loopback networks 10.10.10.0/24, 10.20.20.0/24, and 10.30.30.0/24 with no auto summary.

Review the day 22 EIGRP lab troubleshooting, fix an administratively down interface, verify neighbor adjacency, and disable auto summarization to reveal full routes across 10, 20, and 30 networks.

Learn how OSPF uses hello messages and SPF to populate a link-state database. Understand the role of areas, backbone area zero, area border routers, and external routes.

Configure an ospf lab across the given topology, assign the correct area and wildcard masks, enable ospf on interfaces, and verify route propagation and neighbor relationships with show commands.

Master the OSPF open standard link-state protocol via hello exchanges and a link-state database, and learn area types, backbone (area zero) concepts, LSA types, and designated router behavior.

Explore how dns maps names to ip addresses and resolves browser requests; configure dns server addresses on Cisco routers, enable ip domain lookup, and troubleshoot common misconfigurations.

This NTP lab configures two routers with an AP as the time source, assigns IP addresses, and verifies NTP associations to ensure routers synchronize with the master clock.

Learn how access lists filter traffic on Cisco routers, compare standard and extended ACLs, place lists on interfaces, and apply top-down evaluation with implicit deny for labs and debugging.

Learn how to use wildcard masks to configure Cisco access lists, match specific subnets, and compute wildcard values from subnet masks for precise rules.

Configure standard and extended access lists on Cisco routers, apply them to interfaces, and control traffic by source, destination, ports, and protocols such as icmp and telnet.

Simulate a standard access-list lab to deny a specific network on a two-router WAN, apply the ACL to a serial interface, and verify with ping tests.

Create a named extended ACL called block ping to deny icmp from a specific host, then permit all other traffic and apply the ACL to a serial interface.

Builds on the IP addressing lab to implement a static NAT translation using a loopback interface and two routers. Configure inside and outside, perform extended pings, and verify translations.

Configure nat overload using a pool named internet, define inside and outside interfaces, create access lists, and verify translations with extended ping tests.

Configure nat overload using a defined ip nat pool and source list, enabling port address translation for many inside hosts, and compare emulator results with live equipment.

Explore high availability with hsrp, a first-hop redundancy protocol that uses a virtual IP and MAC, enabling a primary gateway to failover to a standby router through priority and preemption.

Explore quality of service in modern networks, differentiating voice, video, and data traffic, and learn policing, shaping, marking, and congestion management to prioritize resources.

Configure syslog for local and remote logging over UDP port 514, manage levels 0–7, enable logging, and apply service timestamps with milliseconds for precise monitoring.

Explore the Cisco ppp fallback lab, configure ppp authentication, and validate the challenge-response on the serial interface with encapsulation.

Set up a PPPoE lab with two routers, configure an aggregation group and virtual template, allocate an IP pool, and demonstrate a live PPPoE session becoming up.

Explore cloud computing concepts through virtualization, pooled resources, on-demand scaling, and access from any device, covering SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS and cloud resources like servers and storage.

Explore the five NIST cloud computing characteristics—measured service, on-demand self-service, broad network access, resource pooling, and rapid elasticity—and how they enable usage-based subscriptions.

Learn how organizations implement virtualization, move to private and public clouds, migrate servers, and trace cloud history from Hotmail to web mail and software as a service like Google Docs.

Implement and enforce security policies, monitor threats, and educate users to mitigate social engineering risks. Automate antivirus scans and updates, and ensure timely patches and backups.

Delve into policies and best practices for network security, including privileged user agreements, password policy, off-boarding, export controls, remote access, incident response, BYOB, acceptable use, and system life cycle.

Explore advanced threat mitigation by managing signatures and hardening devices, configuring native VLANs and trunking, and using access lists, honeypots, honeynets, and penetration testing to detect and block attacks.

Explore switch security with port security concepts, configuring static, dynamic, and sticky MAC addresses, understanding violation modes, and defending against MAC table overflow and MAC spoofing.

Learn switch port security basics by configuring an access port to permit a specific mac address with sticky or fixed addresses, and understand violation actions and show port security commands.

Protect router security by securing physical access and console ports with strong authentication. Enable SSH, disable Telnet, use per-user accounts and enable secrets, and implement logging for secure remote management.

Learn essential router security in a hands-on lab: configure usernames and passwords, secure console and transport access, use enable secret, and apply service password encryption with login banners.

Explore access layer security topics such as switch port security, EAP-based authentication with a radius server, and DHCP snooping to block rogue DHCP servers.

Explore how network programmability and software defined networking centralize control with a network controller, separating the control and data planes, and enabling programmable policies via a southbound API.