I’ve just been taught a lesson in humility and authorship. My post about Cisco’s NTP authentication implementation received a comment from a certain Frank. I’ve added my comment and need to verify my statment as soon as I can manage to get some hands-on in a lab again (not got Dynamips set-up yet)…

Even though it’s a 12% price increase it’s been 8 years since the previous increase. It’s been argued on Groupstudy that a 2% annual increase is not bad as it’s relatively on par with the inflation we’ve seen over the last 8 years. Never the less for those of us forced to pay for our own labs it’s a bitter pill to take.

Also note that all exams from CCNA to the CCIE written and lab have increased in price.

Since my last post I’ve been very busy with work related issues and as such have not had the time or the right frame of mind to study. Please bear with me as I work to get back into the game. Feel free to comment on my previous posts, or this one if you like. It really helps me to know that other find this stuff useful.

ip route prefix mask {ip-address | interface-type interface-number [ip-address]} [dhcp] [distance] [name next-hop-name] [permanent | track number] [tag tag]

Static routes that point to an interface on a connected router will be advertised by way of Routing Information Protocol (RIP) and EIGRP regardless of whether redistribute static commands are specified for those routing protocols.

This situation occurs because static routes that point to an interface are considered in the routing table to be connected and hence lose their static nature. Also, the target of the static route should be included in the network (DHCP) command. If this condition is not met, no dynamic routing protocol will advertise the route unless a redistribute static command is specified for these protocols

The following is also good to know, I’ve noticed it’s source of common misunderstanding:

Specifying a numerical next hop that is on a directly connected interface will prevent the router from using proxy ARP. However, if the interface with the next hop goes down and the numerical next hop can be reached through a recursive route, you may specify both the next hop and interface (for example, ip route0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 ethernet 1/2 10.1.2.3) with a static route to prevent routes from passing through an unintended interface.

Source  (UniverCD)

Eek, Cisco keeps tabs on page hits when checking available lab seats. I set up firefox to automatically reload the page which works fine but resulted in me being locked out. Luckily only for a day but at 28 days before my ideal lab date this is not funny.

The following advice to all who’re desperate for a lab date: Be persistent but do not over do it.

ERROR: The ‘Available Lab Seats’ activity limit for the candidate has been exceeded for today. Please try again tomorrow.

[edit, 17 Aug 2007] I’ve managed to move to September 28th and I’ll stick with it for now. There’s enough to keep me busy till then, may circumstantially even have to move my date back. I’ll be diving back into the books/lab next week, too much social stuff going on this week.

[edit, 10 Sep 2007] Sadly I have cancelled my September 28th seat. There’s just too much going on right now to be able to concentrate, let alone to have enough time to commit to studying. I’m hoping I’ll ba able to move my Feb 19th date forward but for now it would be wise to keep the February date, at least until some things settle down.

I did manage to book a seat but it’s one of the seats that became available last Saturday, Cisco gives seats out 6 months ahead of time. They are snapped up within hours if not minutes. Many people just book anywhere in the hope they can swap later on, or figure out how to pay for the travel. Mails about swapping lab seats are becoming more and more frequent on Groupstudy.

I must admit that I’ve joined the ranks here. I’m looking for a seat on Sept 10th. Need to call Cisco today, hoping to be able to safely swap seats with someone who is willing to swap Sept 14th for my day in Feb. So my advice to anyone planning to take their lab in the next year: Plan your lab carefully.

[edit, 15 Aug 2007] Well I called Cisco (see this link) and as expected they refuse to swap lab dates. No manual database work will be done. When I argued that seats are booked within minutes after becoming available, their advise was to swap seats during off peak hours. My goodness even I considered flying out to Sao Paulo, this is a global struggle for CCIE lab seats. There are no off peak hours!

So for those planning to swap dates. My advice is get on the phone, MSN, IRC or whatever other low delay medium (this means no e-mail) and make sure you pick each others dropped seats up asap. Sadly there is no safe was of swapping seats.

So I’ll have to pick up speed and book another lab asap.

[edit] To make matters worse, Cisco has no dates available at all. I hope this is a system error but I know that the earliest people have managed to book at this time is around end of Jan 2008…:

There are no available lab dates for the selections you made. You may want to adjust your criteria to find lab dates convenient for you. Also, check back frequently in case there are cancellations.

Oh well, in all I think I lost 14 points to unanswered questions or uncertain answers. This leaves about 6 points leeway, not a lot but just maybe enough. Also nice is that this time I don’t have the mail before I get home so I’m taking that as a good sign: at least this time I wasn’t completely hopeless.

Will post as soon as I know, checking my mail regularly and the certification page. that page is weird by the way, it lists my attempt with links for a  ‘Submit Critique’ & ‘Request for Reread’ but no real result is stated. I’ll be twiddling my thumbs a little longer I guess.

Will post here as soon as I get some time at home after the lab and of course as soon as I have my results.