Part 3 - A Chapter Closes

Andrew Spruce arrived his usual 15 minutes early to the lab building at the Research Triangle Park Cisco location. He sat in the car with the heater running.

Is this North Carolina or Siberia? thought Andrew as he looked over the building where he would soon be configuring a rack of equipment at near super human speeds. The temperature on this January morning had to be about one degree.

Another car pulled along side and Andrew glanced at another candidate. They shared a moment’s eye contact that seemed to acknowledge volumes in a single instant.

I am going to pass today. Yes, I am going to pass today.

Twenty minutes later Andrew was greeting the RTP proctor, Hubert.

I should add this guy to my Christmas Card List, thought Andrew as he sat at his cube with his 15 inch CRT and scratch paper.  Andrew had seen him more in the last year than he had seen most of his relatives.

There it was, the lab booklet; so plain, so in descript; so potentially full of brain-busting fun!

I am going to pass today. Yes, I am going to pass today.

Andrew smiled confidentially and immediately engaged his tried and true lab strategy. He quickly confirmed the configurations on his pod were correct and examined the lab sections he would face that day.

Ten minutes later Andrew made his first verification (a very happy 802.1Q trunk), collected two points, and smiled even wider.

I am going to pass today. Yes, I am going to pass today.

From the cube next door, Andrew suddenly heard a loud slap of a palm against the cheap plastic monitor. Obscenities followed that would have made Andrew Dice Clay sound like Mr. Rodgers.

Andrew reached for some of the lightly salted peanuts he had brought to his desk, smiled at the photo of his daughter wearing her Cisco Kid T-shirt, and went back to his Layer 2 configurations.

I am going to pass today. Yes, I am going to pass today.

Part 2 - The Arrival

Andrew Spruce emerged from the fourth floor elevator and checked the sign ahead for his room number.

He had taken the advice of many of his peers and he was in Raleigh, North Carolina two full days prior to his lab attempt. The plan was to study for the remainder of the evening, and then have a relaxing, casual, non-study kind of day tomorrow.

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Part One - Take Flight

Andrew Spruce looked on in horror as the hard-backed, Jeff Doyle Routing TCP/IP Volume II slide from his unzipped travel bag and tumbled from the overhead baggage compartment. In what appeared to be frame-by-frame video motion, he watched as the book fell through the air, smashing the nose of the frail, elderly, female passenger.

Oh my God! Andrew thought, Please tell me this is not an omen.

“Whose book is this?, Whose book is this?” barked the platinum blonde ExpediteAir flight attendant incredulously. She stood, football linebacker-like, hovering above the now seated, and badly injured geriatric passenger.

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I’m currently working on a new design for a customer network, and am trying to decide which routing protocol to migrate to. Brian Dennis mentioned to me that some type of election is going on today… so I decided to have an election of my own!

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Update: Thanks for all your feedback! Based on everyone’s overwhelming response we’ve decided to implement Scott Morris routing, as follows:

Rack1R1(config)#scott-morris unicast-routing
Rack1R1(config)#router scott
Rack1R1(config-router)#version 6
Rack1R1(config-router)#network 0.0.0.0
Rack1R1(config-router)#end
Rack1R1#
*Jan 17 09:06:53.718: %SYS-5-CONFIG_I: Configured from console by console
Rack1R1#show ip route
Codes: C - connected, S - static, R - RIP, M - mobile, B - BGP
       D - EIGRP, EX - EIGRP external, O - OSPF, IA - OSPF inter area
       N1 - OSPF NSSA external type 1, N2 - OSPF NSSA external type 2
       E1 - OSPF external type 1, E2 - OSPF external type 2
       i - IS-IS, su - IS-IS summary, L1 - IS-IS level-1, L2 - IS-IS level-2
       ia - IS-IS inter area, * - candidate default, U - per-user static route
       o - ODR, P - periodic downloaded static route, SM - Scott Morris

Gateway of last resort is not set

SM    204.12.1.0/24 [10/2] via 155.1.0.4, 00:00:00, Serial0/0
     155.1.0.0/24 is subnetted, 10 subnets
C       155.1.146.0 is directly connected, FastEthernet0/0
SM       155.1.23.0 [10/1] via 155.1.13.3, 00:00:08, Serial0/1
C       155.1.13.0 is directly connected, Serial0/1
C       155.1.0.0 is directly connected, Serial0/0
SM       155.1.7.0 [10/2] via 155.1.13.3, 00:00:08, Serial0/1
SM       155.1.58.0 [10/1] via 155.1.0.5, 00:00:00, Serial0/0
SM       155.1.45.0 [10/1] via 155.1.0.5, 00:00:01, Serial0/0
SM       155.1.37.0 [10/1] via 155.1.13.3, 00:00:00, Serial0/1
SM       155.1.79.0 [10/2] via 155.1.13.3, 00:00:00, Serial0/1
SM       155.1.67.0 [10/2] via 155.1.13.3, 00:00:00, Serial0/1
SM    192.10.1.0/24 [10/2] via 155.1.13.3, 00:00:00, Serial0/1  

Rack1R1#show ip route scott
SM    204.12.1.0/24 [10/2] via 155.1.0.4, 00:00:03, Serial0/0
     155.1.0.0/24 is subnetted, 10 subnets
SM       155.1.23.0 [10/1] via 155.1.13.3, 00:00:04, Serial0/1
SM       155.1.7.0 [10/2] via 155.1.13.3, 00:00:04, Serial0/1
SM       155.1.58.0 [10/1] via 155.1.0.5, 00:00:03, Serial0/0
SM       155.1.45.0 [10/1] via 155.1.0.5, 00:00:03, Serial0/0
SM       155.1.37.0 [10/1] via 155.1.13.3, 00:00:04, Serial0/1
SM       155.1.79.0 [10/2] via 155.1.13.3, 00:00:04, Serial0/1
SM       155.1.67.0 [10/2] via 155.1.13.3, 00:00:04, Serial0/1
SM    192.10.1.0/24 [10/2] via 155.1.13.3, 00:00:04, Serial0/1
                   [10/2] via 155.1.0.2, 00:00:03, Serial0/0
     150.1.0.0/24 is subnetted, 6 subnets
SM       150.1.7.0 [10/2] via 155.1.13.3, 00:00:04, Serial0/1
SM       150.1.5.0 [10/1] via 155.1.0.5, 00:00:03, Serial0/0
SM       150.1.4.0 [10/2] via 155.1.0.4, 00:00:03, Serial0/0
SM       150.1.3.0 [10/1] via 155.1.13.3, 00:00:04, Serial0/1
SM       150.1.2.0 [10/2] via 155.1.13.3, 00:00:04, Serial0/1
                  [10/2] via 155.1.0.2, 00:00:04, Serial0/0

10. Attempt to download pornography.
9. E-mail Brian Dennis from your iPhone.
8. Urinate in your chair. (Errr, according to the proctors - THIS HAPPENED!)
7. At the lunch break, speak of your recent successful investment in Nortel.
6. Doodle on your lab papers.
5. Two words - format c:
4. Feint. (Yeah, this happened too!)
3. Play paper football with the candidate in the next cube.
2. Begin a proctor question with “I hate to bother you, you evil bastard, but…”
And the Number 1 Thing Not to Do While Taking the CCIE Lab Exam:
1. After verifying a successful 4-point configuration task, stand on your chair and scream “I am a Cisco Router God!”

Note: Thanks to a recent high school grad, Andrew, on a Southwest flight for helping with this list. I am sure you will have great success in whatever you decide to pursue!

I’m over in London this week for a CCIE Voice Bootcamp and a support engineer IMs me asking a question.   He needed to remotely reload a backbone router for a new rack but for some reason the standard enable password we use for the backbone routers wasn’t working.  I asked him if he could just VPN in and reload it using the power controller.  He told me he was telneted into the rack using his iPhone and wanted to just do it via telnet as opposed to opening a VPN connection.  For a moment I thought to myself he was just out of luck but I then remembered the old regular expression bug that would reload the router (i.e. “show ip bgp regexp ([0-9]*)(_\1)+”, “show version | include ([0-9]*)(_\1)+”, etc).  He types it in, the router crashes and all is good.  This also reminded me that I need to update the initial configurations on Brian McGahan’s development rack (see below)

alias exec en show version | include ([0-9]*)(_\1)+
alias exec ena show version | include ([0-9]*)(_\1)+
alias exec enab show version | include ([0-9]*)(_\1)+
alias exec enabl show version | include ([0-9]*)(_\1)+
alias exec enable show version | include ([0-9]*)(_\1)+

Number 10 - Five words - “Shot of tequila, beer back.”

Number 9 - Change your Native American Indian name to Thinks Like Router.

Number 8 - Start studying for your recertification - NOT!

Number 7 - Use the Request Reread link on your Certification Status
page and enter the following in the Comments section “Reread THIS you
evil bastards!”

Number 6 - Tell any CCIE candidate you do not care for that there were 18
points of DLSw+ on your final lab attempt.

Number 5 - Pay off your credit card.

Number 4 - Phone family and friends to tell them that you are actually
still alive.

Number 3 - Request that your coworkers address you as First_Name,
Last_Name, Expert.

Number 2 - Get an InternetworkExpert tattoo, interesting body locations include…errrr…never mind!

And the Number One Thing To Do After Passing the Lab:

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

Number 10 - Visitor parking at Cisco features a spot with your name on it.

Number 9 - Visa calls you to inquire if someone at Cisco may have stolen
your Credit Card.

Number 8 - You have earned 65,000 flight miles in the last year.

Number 7 - Your wife asks “Who the hell are you?” when you return home
from your latest attempt.

Number 6 - You can now type 90 words per minute.

Number 5 - Your boss indicates that he has a task for you and you respond
“How many points is it worth?”

Number 4 - You have recurring nightmares about redistribution.

Number 3 - Your new nickname on the InternetworkExpert forum is “That poor bastard!”

Number 2 - During sex, all you can think about is full IGP reachability.

and the Number 1 Indication You Have Sat the Lab Too Many Times:

The proctor hands you your badge and says “You are on Rack 5 - AGAIN!”

I ran across this Q&A while reading over the ATA 186 FAQ on Cisco’s website:

Q. What if the telephone cord is too short to reach the nearest telephone?

A. Replace the six foot line cord with any RJ11 cord.

Although this may seem funny at first I think that the answer is technically wrong.  Here is how the conversation would go when the customer calls into TAC in regards to this issue:

TAC Engineer 1: Thanks for calling Cisco TAC.  How can I help you?

Customer: I have an ATA 186 and the six foot cord provided doesn’t reach the phone.

TAC Engineer 1: Have you tried rebooting the ATA to see if that resolves the problem?

Customer: Yes and I’ve even tried to update the software load on the ATA but the six foot cord still won’t reach.

TAC Engineer 1: I’m going to need to escalate this case.

TAC Engineer 2: Hello customer!  Let me review the ticket notes and see if I can find a solution.

Customer: Thanks!

TAC Engineer 2: The ATA 186 FAQ states that if the phone can not be reached using the six foot cord provided to replace it with any RJ11 cord.

Customer: Great, I have another RJ11 cord right here!

TAC Engineer 2: Let me know if this solves your problem.

Customer: No it didn’t solve the problem.  The ATA still can’t reach the phone.

TAC Engineer 2: So you replaced the RJ11 cord but you still can’t reach the phone?

Customer: That’s correct.  I replaced the six foot cord that came with the ATA with a three foot cord but it still doesn’t reach.

TAC Engineer 2: D’OH!

So technically “any” doesn’t really work.

I can remember having to deal with a couple real situations simular to this scenario