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Exam notes for CCNA Exam

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Cisco Certified Network Associate CCNA 2.0

 (640-801)  

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About CCNA Exam:  CCNA exam tests you in the areas of simple LAN/WAN switching, Cisco IOS, and routing. Topics include TCP/IP model of internetworking, configuring, and troubleshooting some of the most widely used Cisco switches and routers. Also, CCNA is foundation exam for CCNP (Cisco Certified Networking Professional). The exam notes is a brief review of important points that help in quick review of key points.

 

1. Internetwork IP addressing:

  IP addresses are written using decimal numbers separated by decimal points. This is called dotted decimal notation of expressing IP addresses.

  The different classes of IP addresses is as below:

Class

Format

Leading Bit    pattern         

Network address Range    

Maximum networks

Maximum hosts/ nodes

A

N.H.H.H       

0

0-126                   

127

16,777,214

B

N.N.H.H 

10

128-191                  

16,384                     

65,534

C

N.N.N.H                   

110

192 -223             

2,097,152                          

254

- Network address of all zeros means "This network or segment".

- Network address of all 1s means " all networks", same as hexadecimal of all Fs.

- Network number 127 is reserved for loop-back tests.

- Host (Node)  address of all zeros mean "This Host (Node)".

- Host (Node) address of all 1s mean "all Hosts (Nodes) " on the specified network.

2. The range of numbers from 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255 are used for multicast packets. This is known as Class D address range.

3. Subnetting is nothing but creating networks within a network. Subnetting allows an organization with a single IP address (Class A /ClassB /ClassC) to have multiple subnetworks, thus allowing several physical networks within the organization.

4. How to maximize the number of subnets for a given number of hosts:

Let us take a network ID of 168.8.0.0, and find the maximum number of possible subnets and the corresponding subnet mask that can accommodate at least 500 hosts. The steps involved are outlined below:

I. Find the Class of the IP address, in this case it is a class B network. Class B network has the form N.N.H.H. Therefore, we have a total of 16 bits (two octets) for assigning to internal networks and hosts. The minimum number of host addresses required is 500. The last octet corresponds to 2^8 = 256 hosts which is still less than 500 Hosts.. Therefore, you have to borrow one more bit from the third octet to make it 256*2 = 512 Hosts. This leaves 7 bits in the third octet for assigning subnet addresses. This is equal to 2^7=128 subnets.

II. Write the 7 bits available for subnetting in third octet in the form 11111110 (last bit being the Host bit). The decimal equivalent of the first seven bits is 2^7+2^6+2^5+2^4+2^3+2^2+2^1

                                                     = 128 + 64  +32 + 16 + 8  + 4   + 2  = 254.

III. Therefore, the subnet mask required is 255.255.254.0.

 

5. How to maximize the number of hosts for a given number of subnets:

 Determining the subnet mask that allows maximum number of hosts:

    Let us consider an IP address 196.202.56.0 with four subnets and maximize the number of host for the given subnets. The steps involved are as below:

I. The  number of subnets required are four. We need to add subnets of all ones and all zeros to this. This is because all zeros and all ones subnets belong to "this subnet" and "all subnets" broadcasts and can not be used. Therefore, the total number of subnets to be reserved is 4+2 = 6.

II. We want to implement maximum possible Hosts. Therefore, we need to minimize the number of subnets. This minimum number is 6 here. If we reserve 2 bits, it results in only 2^2=4 subnets which is  less than 6.  Therefore, we have to reserve 3 bits for implementing subnets, resulting in 2^3=8 subnets. This is now optimized for maximum number of Hosts (as we have optimized for minimum number of subnets).

III. Write the 3 bits available for subnetting in fourth octet in the form 11100000 (Five 0s being Host bits). The decimal equivalent is 2^7+2^6+2^5

= 128 + 64  +32   = 224.

IV. Therefore, the subnet mask required is 255.255.255.224.

6. 127.0.0.1 is the local loop back address.

7. In an internetwork, the number of distinct IPs' required are

  1. One each per client computer

  2. One each per server computer

  3. One each per router interface.

For example, your network has 2 servers, 26 clients machines, and 2 router interfaces the total number of IP addresses required are 30.

8.  Finding the number of Hosts and subnets available for a given subnet mask: For example, let us find the number of hosts and subnets available for an IP 156.233.42.56 with a subnet mask of 7 bits.

a. Class B network has the form N.N.H.H, the default subnet mask is 16 bits long. There is additional subnet mask of 7 bits long.

b. 7 bits of subnet mask corresponds to (2^7-2)=128-2 = 126 subnets.

c. 9 bits (16-7) of host addresses corresponds to (2^9-2)=512-2 = 510 hosts.

Some times, the subnet mask is specified with the bits available in the default subnet mask. In this case the bits available in default subnet mask is 16. Therefore, total number of bits available in the subnet mask are 16+7=23. If you are given a subnet mask of 23 bits long for a class B address, it is understood that it contains the bits from the default subnet mask as well.

Hence, 126 subnets and 510 hosts are available.

 

9. The directed broadcast should reach all Hosts on the intended network (or subnet, if sub netted). For example, the directed broadcast address for an IP network 196.233.24.15 with default subnet mask is 196.233.24.255. This is arrived by putting all 1s for the host potion of the IP address.

 

10.  Telnet, FTP, and TFTP:

  1. Telnet is used for terminal emulation that runs programs remotely. Telnet uses TCP/IP protocol.

  2. Telnet requires a username and password to access.

  3. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is a connection oriented protocol. It uses TCP/IP for file transfer. Compare this with TFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol) that uses UDP (Connectionless protocol). SNMP uses UDP over IP. Tracert, Ping use ICMP as their base protocol. FTP is used to transfer files.

  4. Both FTP and Telnet are client-server protocols. Note that TCP/IP is a client server oriented protocol.

11.  Maximum hop count supported by RIP is 15.

12. The port numbers used by different programs are as below:

I.     FTP : Port #21

II.   Telnet: Port #23

III.  SMTP: Port #25

IV.   SNMP: Port #161

It is important to know that FTP, Telnet, SMTP use TCP; whereas TFTP, SNMP use UDP.

13.  SNMP is part of TCP/IP protocol suite. It allows you to monitor and manage a network from a centralized place by using SNMP Manager software. The systems or devices that provide the responses are called agents (or MIBs). An SNMP agent is any computer running SNMP agent software.

MIB stands for Management Information Base. It is part of SNMP agent database. A MIB records and stores information abut the host it is running on. An SNMP manager can request and collect information from an agent's MIB. Routers are typical MIB agents. SNMP agent generates "trap" messages that are then sent to an SNMP management console, which is a trap destination.

14.  Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is used to resolve or map a known IP address to a MAC sub layer address to allow communication on a multi-access medium such as Ethernet. Reverse ARP (RARP) is used to obtain an IP address using an RARP broadcast. RARP can be used to boot diskless workstations over a network.

15.  The 7 layers of OSI model are:

1.      The Application Layer: Application layer is responsible for identifying and establishing the availability of desired communication partner and verifying sufficient resources exist for communication. Some of the important application layer protocols are: WWW, SMTP, FTP, etc.

2.      The Presentation Layer: This layer is responsible for presenting the data in standard formats. This layer is responsible for data compression, decompression, encryption, and decryption. Some Presentation Layer standards are: JPEG, MPEG, MIDI, PICT, Quick Time, TIFF.

3.      The Session Layer: Session Layer is responsible for co-ordinating communication between systems/nodes.  The following are some of the session layer protocols and interfaces: a) Network File System (NFS), SQL, RPC (Remote Procedure Call), X-Windows, ASP, DNA SCP.

4.      The Transport Layer: The Transport Layer is responsible for multiplexing upper-layer applications, session establishment, and tearing-down of virtual circuits. This layer is responsible for flow control, to maintain data integrity. 

5.      The Network Layer: There can be several paths to send a packet from a given source to a destination. The primary responsibility of Network layer is to send packets from the source network to the destination network using a pre-determined routing methods. Routers work at Network layer.

6.      The Data Link Layer:

Data Link Layer is layer 2 of OSI reference model. This layer is divided into two sub-layers:

A. Logical Link Control (LLC) sub-layer.

B. Media Access Control (MAC) sub-layer.

The LLC sub-layer handles error control, flow control, framing, and MAC sub-layer addressing.

The MAC sub-layer is the lower of the two sub-layers of the Data Link layer. MAC sub-layer handles access to shared media, such a Token passing or Ethernet.

7.      Physical Layer: The actual flow of signals take place through Physical layer. At Physical layer, the interface between the DTE and DCE is determined. The following are some of the standard interfaces are defined at Physical layer: EIA/TIA-232, EIA/TIA-449,V.24,V.35,X.21,G.703,HSSI (High Speed Serial Interface).

16. Repeaters, Bridges, and Routers:

     I. Repeaters work at Physical layer (Layer 1),

II. Bridges and simple switches work at Data Link Layer (Layer 2),

III. Routers work at Network Layer (Layer 3) of ISO Reference Model.

17. CSU / DSU is an acronym for Channel Service Unit / Data Service Unit. CSU/DSU is part of Customer Premise Equipment (CPE). CSU / DSU connect to a Central Office (CO), a telephone switching company located nearer to the customer.

18. Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)  IEEE Specification 802.1d is used to prevent routing loops. In Cisco Catalyst 5000 series switches, use BDPUs (Bridge Protocol Data Units) to determine the spanning tree topology. STP uses a Tree Algorithm (STA) to prevent loops, resulting in a stable network topology.

19. HTTP is the protocol used for accessing the World Wide Web services. HTTP operates over TCP/IP. TCP/IP is the protocol, which is used by all internet applications such as WWW, FTP, Telnet etc.   IPX/SPX is proprietary protocol stack of Novell NetWare.

20.          1.     The term "Segments" is usually associated with Transport layer

2.     The term "Packets" is usually associated with Network Layer and

3.     The term "Frames" is usually associated with Data Link Layer  

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