ABOUT THE AUTHORS

TODD LAMMLE, Cisco certified in almost every category, is the authority on Cisco networking and certification. His three decades of real-world experience is prevalent in his writing. He is an experienced networking engineer with very practical experience working on the largest bounded and unbounded networks in the world at such companies as Xerox, Hughes Aircraft, Texaco, AAA, Cisco, and Toshiba, among many others. Todd has published over 60 books, including the very popular and bestselling CCNA Cisco Certified Network Associate Study Guide and Cisco Firepower NGIPS. Todd runs an international training company from Texas, and a large-scale consulting business out of Colorado. You can reach Todd through his forum and blog at [...]

DONALD ROBB has over 15 years of experience with most areas of IT, including networking, security, collaboration, data center, cloud, SDN, and automation/devops. He's earned many advanced certifications and specializations. Currently he's a SDN/Cloud/DevOps SME. Visit his blog at [...] and YouTube channel at [...]

Introduction xxi

Assessment Test xxxv

Chapter 1 Network Fundamentals 1

Network Components 2

LANs and SOHOs 2

Routers and Switches 3

Next-Generation Firewalls and IPS 6

Network Topology Architectures 10

The Cisco Three-Layer Hierarchical Model (Three-Tier) 10

Collapsed Core (Two-Tier) 13

Spine-Leaf 14

Wide Area Networks 15

Defining WAN Terms 16

WAN Connection Bandwidth 17

Summary 18

Exam Essentials 18

Written Lab 19

Review Questions 20

Chapter 2 Ethernet Networking 23

Ethernet Networks in Review 24

Collision Domain 25

Broadcast Domains 26

Csma/cd 27

Half- and Full-Duplex Ethernet 29

Ethernet at the Data Link Layer 31

Ethernet at the Physical Layer 37

Ethernet Cabling 40

Categories of Ethernet Cables 41

Straight-Through Cable 42

Crossover Cable 42

Rolled Cable 44

Fiber-Optic 47

Power over Ethernet (802.3af, 802.3at) 48

Summary 48

Exam Essentials 49

Written Labs 50

Written Lab 2.1: Binary/Decimal/Hexadecimal Conversion 50

Written Lab 2.2: CSMA/CD Operations 54

Written Lab 2.3: Cabling 54

Review Questions 55

Chapter 3 Tcp/ip 61

Introducing TCP/IP 62

A Brief History of TCP/IP 62

TCP/IP and the DoD Model 63

The Process/Application Layer Protocols 65

The Host-to-Host or Transport Layer Protocols 74

The Internet Layer Protocols 84

IP Addressing 92

IP Terminology 92

The Hierarchical IP Addressing Scheme 93

Private IP Addresses (RFC 1918) 98

IPv4 Address Types 99

Layer 2 Broadcasts 100

Layer 3 Broadcasts 100

Unicast Address 101

Multicast Address 102

Summary 103

Exam Essentials 103

Written Labs 105

Written Lab 3.1: TCP/IP 105

Written Lab 3.2: Mapping Applications to the DoD Model 105

Review Questions 107

Chapter 4 Easy Subnetting 111

Subnetting Basics 112

How to Create Subnets 113

Subnet Masks 114

Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) 116

IP Subnet-Zero 117

Subnetting Class C Addresses 118

Subnetting Class B Addresses 130

Summary 138

Exam Essentials 139

Written Labs 139

Written Lab 4.1: Written Subnet Practice # 1 139

Written Lab 4.2: Written Subnet Practice # 2 140

Written Lab 4.3: Written Subnet Practice # 3 141

Review Questions 142

Chapter 5 Troubleshooting IP Addressing 147

Endpoint Overview 148

Desktops/Laptops 148

Mobile Phones/Tablets 148

Access Points 149

IP Phones 149

Internet of Things 149

Servers 149

Server Roles 150

Cisco's Way of Troubleshooting IP 151

Verify IP Parameters for Operating Systems 153

Determining IP Address Problems 154

Summary 159

Exam Essentials 159

Written Lab 160

Review Questions 161

Chapter 6 Cisco's Internetworking Operating System (IOS) 163

The IOS User Interface 164

Cisco IOS 165

Connecting to a Cisco IOS Device 165

Bringing Up a Switch 167

Command-Line Interface 167

Entering the cli 168

Overview of Router Modes 168

cli Prompts 169

Editing and Help Features 171

Administrative Configurations 176

Hostnames 177

Banners 177

Setting Passwords 179

Encrypting Your Passwords 185

Descriptions 187

Router and Switch Interfaces 189

Bringing Up an Interface 192

Viewing, Saving, and Erasing Configurations 198

Deleting the Configuration and Reloading the Device 200

Verifying Your Configuration 200

Summary 213

Exam Essentials 214

Written Lab 217

Review Questions 218

Chapter 7 Managing a Cisco Internetwork 223

The Internal Components of a Cisco Router and Switch 224

The Router and Switch Boot Sequence 225

Backing Up and Restoring the Cisco Configuration 226

Backing Up the Cisco Configuration 227

Restoring the Cisco Configuration 229

Erasing the Configuration 230

Configuring DHCP 230

DHCP Relay 232

Verifying DHCP on Cisco IOS 233

Using Telnet 233

Telnetting into Multiple Devices Simultaneously 235

Checking Telnet Connections 236

Checking Telnet Users 236

Closing Telnet Sessions 236

Resolving Hostnames 237

Building a Host Table 237

Using DNS to Resolve Names 239

Checking Network Connectivity and Troubleshooting 241

Using the ping Command 241

Using the traceroute Command 242

Debugging 243

Using the show processes Command 245

Summary 246

Exam Essentials 246

Written Labs 248

Written Lab 7.1: IOS Management 248

Written Lab 7.2: Router Memory 249

Review Questions 250

Chapter 8 Managing Cisco Devices 255

Managing the Configuration Register 256

Understanding the Configuration Register Bits 256

Checking the Current Configuration Register Value 258

Boot System Commands 259

Recovering Passwords 260

Backing Up and Restoring the Cisco IOS 263

Verifying Flash Memory 264

Backing Up the Cisco IOS 265

Restoring or Upgrading the Cisco Router IOS 266

Using the Cisco IOS File System (Cisco IFS) 269

Licensing 273

Right-To-Use Licenses (Evaluation Licenses) 276

Backing Up and Uninstalling the License 278

Summary 280

Exam Essentials 280

Written Lab 281

Written Lab 8.1: IOS Management 281

Review Questions 283

Chapter 9 IP Routing 287

Routing Basics 289

The IP Routing Process 291

The Cisco Router Internal Process 297

Testing Your IP Routing Understanding 298

Configuring IP Routing 302

Corp Configuration 303

SF Configuration 305

LA Configuration 309

Configuring IP Routing in Our Network 311

Static Routing 312

Default Routing 317

Dynamic Routing 320

Routing Protocol Basics 321

Routing Information Protocol 323

Configuring RIP Routing 323

Holding Down RIP Propagations 327

Summary 329

Exam Essentials 329

Written Lab 330

Review Questions 332

Chapter 10 Open Shortest Path First 337

Open Shortest Path First Basics 338

OSPF Terminology 341

OSPF Operation 343

Configuring OSPF 345

Enabling OSPF 345

Configuring OSPF Areas 346

Configuring Our Network with OSPF 349

OSPF and Loopback Interfaces 353

Configuring Loopback Interfaces 354

Verifying OSPF Configuration 357

The show ip ospf Command 357

The show ip ospf database Command 359

The show ip ospf interface Command 359

The show ip ospf neighbor Command 361

The show ip protocols Command 362

Summary 362

Exam Essentials 363

Written Lab 363

Review Questions 364

Chapter 11 Enhanced IGRP 371

EIGRP Features and Operations 372

Neighbor Discovery 373

Reliable Transport Protocol 378

Diffusing Update Algorithm 379

Route Discovery and Maintenance 380

Configuring EIGRP 381

VLSM Support and Summarization 383

Controlling EIGRP Traffic 387

Split Horizon 397

Verifying and Troubleshooting EIGRP 399

Troubleshooting Example with EIGRP 405

EIGRPv 6 415

Summary 421

Exam Essentials 421

Written Lab 422

Review Questions 423

Chapter 12 Layer 2 Switching 431

Switching Services 432

Three Switch Functions at Layer 2 433

Port Security 437

Configuring Catalyst Switches 442

Catalyst Switch Configuration 442

Verifying Cisco Catalyst Switches 450

Summary 452

Exam Essentials 453

Written Lab 453

Review Questions 454

Chapter 13 VLANs and Inter-VLAN Routing 459

VLAN Basics 460

Broadcast Control 463

Security 464

Flexibility and Scalability 464

Identifying VLANs 465

Frame Tagging 467

VLAN Identification Methods 468

Routing Between VLANs 469

Configuring VLANs 472

Assigning Switch Ports to VLANs 475

Configuring Trunk Ports 477

Configuring Inter-VLAN Routing 480

Summary 487

Exam Essentials 487

Written Lab 488

Review Questions 489

Chapter 14 Cloud and Virtual Private Networks 495

Virtual Private Networks 496

Benefits of VPNs 498

Enterprise and Provider Managed VPN's 498

Introduction to Cisco IOS IPsec 501

IPsec Transforms 501

GRE Tunnels 504

GRE over IPsec 505

Configuring GRE Tunnels 506

Verifying GRE Tunnels 508

Cloud Models 510

Cloud Computing and Its Effect on the Enterprise Network 510

Private Clouds/On-Premises 513

Public Clouds 513

Summary 515

Exam Essentials 515

Written Lab 516

Review Questions 517

Chapter 15 Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning 521

AI Overview 522

AI Categories 523

Performance Capabilities 523

Functional Categories 524

AI Architectures 528

AI Subsets 535

Machine Learning 536

Expert Systems 536

Natural Language Processing 537

Computer Vision 538

How Machines Learn 540

Supervised Learning 540

Unsupervised Learning 541

Generative AI 543

Large Language Models 544

Hallucinations 544

Data Sovereignty...