The Packet's Journey

 Hello Fellow Learners! A couple weeks ago I sat for ISC2 Certified in Cybersecurity exam and passed! While this exam was not crazy hard it was difficult however and honestly by the end when I hit submit I thought I had failed (which is exactly how I felt taking my CCNA exams LOL). The course offer by ISC2 for online training is rather engaging and covers a lot of info, but as with any certification you are studying for multiple resources are your friend. In addition to the course I used  https://www.udemy.com/course/certified-in-cybersecurity-cc-exam-preparation/   which was a tremendous help in having me learn what the exam would be like and to consider not just the information, but the spirit of it as well.  This exam serves as a great primer to leap frog you in all that is security in the Information Technology field. I was able to take the exam for free due to ISC2 is offering free course and exam fees for up to 1million people.  https://www.isc2.org/landin...

I run sound at my church and them knowing that I am a Network Engineer approached me about the Wifi. See the Wifi was outdated and could not handle the amount of traffic it was getting from staff, guest and devices accessing it so it was time for an update. I did some research to find the least expensive option with the least amount of tech savvy needed to continue administration of it should something happen. This research lead me to the eero and its extenders with its ability to have a primary network wand a sub network on it as well using wifi 6 as its base. As you can see below I created 5 different networks that span several buildings and large areas across the the church. This has helped to segment the network for security reasons, but also to break up the amount of traffic that was being sent across a single network.  In each of the networks shown above I have deployed at minimum 2 extenders in each network and each network has its own password and IP pool that does not matc...

 Been a long time since I've blogged, but nevertheless I figured I would start once again. As the blog is label the Packet's journey, learning security is part of that. I've decided to dual study security and CCNP networking as well as embarking on college once again. I'm determined to obtain my associates in Network Administration/Network Security as I'm fast approaching my 41st year on this earth. Learning is a life long passion of mine and I'm fond of saying "If you're not growing, then you're dying".  I endeavor to push myself to learn and grow in my skills to better provide for my family as well as feed that addiction that comes with having knowledge. As you continue in this life you learn that knowledge gives you wisdom which in turn gives you power to make choices and have options in life. So as I find myself looking for a job yet again I figured now is the time to learn things that I've wanted to learn for a long time.  So come with...

 So I have taken a break from my CCNP studies so that I can focus on getting my CCNA renewed which expires at the end of this year. Its amazing the things you forget when you don’t use the regularly and remembering how to subnet has been an adventure down memory lane. I find that some of the things come back just like riding a bike, and having access to Cisco Digital learning library has been a God sent in helping me to re-learn things without having to re-take the exam. I highly recommend that if your work place provides it for you that you take full advantage and squeeze every drop of knowledge it has to offer out of it. I am blessed that I work for an employer that not only offers that, but also reimburses me for exam fees, which when I start working on my CCNP will come in handy as I navigate through this certification journey. Please reach out if you have any questions, want to discuss something or just need to bouncing something off somebody. I’ll try to be more active here. ...

 Hey Fellow Packets! Life has sure been busy lately and I'm working to navigate adding new daily tasks into my family's routine and it has left me little time to blog. So as we have finally found a groove in our  routine I will get back to blogging my study notes for CCNP. I also plan on adding all of my notes from when I was studying for my CCNA for those that can use them. I also have had the opportunity to design and implement a WiFi mesh for my church which will be a blog post in of itself. Thank you for taking the time to come along on my journey with me.  -Charles 

 Software switching is significantly slower than switching done in hardware. Packets are hardware switched whenever possible. ip_input process consults the routing table and ARP table to obtain next-hop's routers IP address, outgoing interface and MAC address. Then it overwrites the destination MAC address with the next-hop router's and the the source with MAC address with the outgoing L3 interface, decrements the IP TTL, recomputes the IP header checksum and delivers the packet to the next-hop router. RIB - Routing information Base - This is built from the info obtained from dynamic routing protocols, directly connected and static routes. CEF is Cisco proprietary and was developed to keep up with evolving networks. It has been the default on most Cisco platforms that doing switching using general CPU since 1990's/ CEF is the default switching used by all Cisco platforms that use ACIS and NPU;s for high packet throughput.  General purpose CPU's on software and hardware ...