[c-nsp] Cisco Training question

[Megan Pengelly]

> What's a good configuration for a basic lab that would work in that  
> type
> of setting.  Our present network is very simple but it won't be  
> that way
> for ever hopefully.  Are there any good documents that might give lab
> construction tips?

I took a course using "Mastering Networks, an Internet Lab Manual",  
by Liebeherr and El Zarki last semester.

It starts out really basic, but throughout the manual you end up  
configuring the 4 Cisco routers, 4 linux PCs and 4 hubs into a  
variety of configurations that help you -really- see how the  
protocols work.  You use ethereal or tcpdump to see how the packets  
are flowing and look at the packet headers or payload.

Topics covered:

  - Basics of configuring a Cisco router
  - Proxy ARP
  - Routing loops
  - Configuring and using zebra on Linux
  - Network prefixes and routing
  - RIP
  - OSPF
  - BGP
  - IP fragmentation of UDP & TCP
  - TCP congestion control, retransmissions, etc.
  - Bridges: Linux and Cisco
  - STP
  - Mixed router and bridge configuration
  - NAT
  - DHCP
  - DNS
  - SNMP
  - Multicast (Routing with PIM-DM & PIM-SM)
  - IGMP

There are 10 labs, each about 20 double-sided pages (40 total).

I personally thought it would be a waste of time since I've been  
doing networking for awhile, but once we started implementing the  
labs and encountering problems, we learned a lot.  If you treat the  
manual as a starting point, you can find more to explore based on the  
convoluted network configurations presented here.

HTH,
/meg