Day organisation

The workshop runs from Monday to Friday. Each day is divided into four slots of approximately two hours each. There may be optional evening sessions on some days.

The classes will use approximately the following time slots. These times are not exact.

• 08:30–10:30 — Morning session 1
• 11:30–13:00 — Morning session 2
• 14:00–16:00 — Afternoon session 1
• 16:30–18:00 — Afternoon session 2
• 20:00–21:30 — Optional evening sessions

Related documents

In addition to this detailed course outline, there is a summary timetable showing the entire course at a glance.

The Track SI-E main page will also be of interest.

Monday morning

• Introduction and Logistics [NG] - 9:00-9:45
  • Welcoming information to the workshop with logistical and scheduling details for the rest of the week.
  • Presentation in Powerpoint,
  • Equipment access details in HTML
• TCP/IP and Networking Basics: The OSI Stack [NG] - 9:45-11:00
  • Topics include:
    • Early packet-switching principles.
    • Early transport protocols.
    • Development of the IP protocol.
    • Commercialization of the Internet.
    • How IP glues the Internet together
    • The OSI stack.
    • TCP/IP Architecture.
    • The benefits of layering.
  • Participants will be able to:
    • Recognise the ISO OSI 7-layer model.
    • Recognise the TCP/IP "hour-glass" model.
    • Understand the relationship between the TCP/IP model and the ISO OSI model
    • Describe the unifying effect of the network layer
  • Presentation in OpenOffice, PDF.
• IPv4, IPv6 and IP Address PC Configuration Lab Exercise [SH] - 11:30-13:00
  • Topics include:
    • IPv4 and IPv6 addressing.
    • IPv4 netmasks.
    • CIDR prefix notation
    • Binary arithmetic.
  • Participants will be able to:
    • Describe how IP addresses are constructed: network part, host part.
    • Understand old classful networking terminology: class A, B, C.
    • Understand modern classless networking terminology: CIDR, prefix length, VLSM.
    • Convert between prefix length and netmask notation.
    • Identify network and broadcast addresses.
    • Find the lowest/highest possible IP address in a prefix.
    • Subdivide prefixes.
    • Understand the concepts of subnetting and supernetting.
    • Understand the concepts of IPv6 addressing.
    • Understand the the differences between IPv4 and IPv6.
  • Presentation in OpenOffice, PDF.
  • Additional material:
    • binary/decimal/hexadecimal conversion table, in plain text, HTML, PostScript, PDF.
    • netmask table, in plain text, HTML, PostScript, PDF.

Monday afternoon

• Introduction to Cisco Routers and IOS [NM] - 14:00-14:45
  • Topics include:
    • General Cisco router operations.
    • Basic IOS CLI navigation.
    • Example configurations in IOS.
    • Password Recovery.
  • Participants will be able to:
    • Understand how Cisco routers generally work, e.g., booting, e.t.c.
    • Make configuration changes to the router.
    • Recover from lost passwords.
    • Upgrade the router's software.
  • Presentation, in OpenOffice, PDF.
• Cisco Router TFTP Exercise [NM/NG] - 14:45-16:00
  • Topics include:
    • Updating IOS
    • TFTPing configuration files
  • Students will be able to:
    • show the running and stored configuration files
    • make configuration changes
    • TFTP configuration files to and from a cisco router
    • install a different software version on a cisco router
  • Presentation, in OpenOffice, PDF.
• Static Routing Exercise Using UNIX and Cisco Equipment [SH/NG] 16:30-18:00
  • Students will configure static routes on their Unix systems and routers in order to have reachability to the rest of the lab.
  • Topics include:
    • Configuring IP addresses on interfaces of Unix host and cisco router
    • Configuring static default route on Unix host
    • Configuring static routes on Cisco router
    • Troubleshooting using ping and traceroute
  • Students will be able to:
    • configure FreeBSD as IP client (/etc/rc.conf)
    • change the IP address of an interface on a Unix system (ifconfig)
    • add static routes to a Unix system (route, netstat)
    • use FreeBSD as serial console (/etc/remote, tip)
    • erase configuration of a Cisco router (write erase)
    • configure IP forwarding on Cisco
    • change the IP address of an interface on a Cisco router
    • add static routes to a Cisco router
    • perform basic network troubleshooting tasks such as ping and traceroute
    • explain what a default route is
  • Presentation, in Powerpoint, PDF.
  • Addressing Plan in Text, Cheat-Sheet.

Monday evening — Optional sessions

• No evening session today

Tuesday morning

• Introduction to Dynamic Routing [MN] - 9:00-10:15
  • Topics include:
    • Advantages of dynamic routing.
    • Control (Routing) and Data (Forwarding) planes..
    • Internet routing hierarchy.
    • IGP's.
    • BGP.
    • Distance vector routing algorithms.
    • Link state routing algorithms.
  • Participants will be able to:
    • Understand when IGP's are necessary.
    • Understand the differences between IGP's, BGP and static routing.
    • Explain the differences between routing and forwarding.
    • Understand the routing architecture of the Internet.
    • Understand the differences between distance vector and link state routing algorithms.
  • Presentation in Powerpoint, PDF. (Older version in OpenOffice).
• Forwarding and Routing Simulation On Paper [GJ] 10:15-12:00 (incl 30min tea break)
  • An exercise in which students simulate packet forwarding, distance vector routing, and link state routing on paper.
  • We do the following:
    • Create a network topology on paper
    • Give each group of students information about their directly connected links, but do not give them information about more distant aspects of the topology.
    • Pass distance-vector routing messages around on paper while updating forwarding tables on paper.
    • Pass echo request, echo response and unreachable messages around on paper while consulting the forwarding tables.
    • Repeat the exercise for a link-state protocol instead of a distance-vector protocol.
  • Presentation, in Open Document (original), PDF (for use in the classroom).
  • PDF "ready to print".
• Introduction to OSPF [NG] - 12:00-13:00
  • Participants will be able to:
    • explain when to use an IGP, and when not
    • explain the difference between forwarding and routing; can have multiple routing databases for different protocols but one forwarding table
    • identify the lowest-cost path and equal-cost paths
    • describe the formation of neighbour relations
    • list default values for hellointerval / routerdeadinterval
    • briefly describe the database flooding and recalculation, and purpose of DR/BDR
  • Presentation in Powerpoint, PDF.

Tuesday afternoon

• OSPF Lab Exercise [FH] - 14:00-16:00
  • Topics include:
    • Configuring OSPF in Cisco IOS
  • Participants will be able to:
    • rebuild the classroom exercise using single area OSPF
    • configure appropriate link costs, MD5 authentication, enable OSPF on specific interfaces
    • perform simple inspection of OSPF database (neighbours, routes, DR/BDR)
    • alter topology and observe altered routes
    • configure loopback interfaces
  • Exercises in HTML, PDF, Cheat sheet, IPv4 + IPv6 classroom addressing plan.
  • Lab details : dynamips configuration, final individual router configs
  • Network Layout : OSPF exercise network layout
• Layer 2 Ethernet: 802.1Q VLAN Trunking [SH] - 16:30-18:00
  • Topics include:
    • Layer 2 Ethernet Switching.
    • VLAN's.
    • IEEE 802.1Q VLAN Trunking.
  • Participants will be able to:
    • Understand basic fundamentals of Ethernet switching.
    • Understand how VLAN's work at Layer 2.
    • Understand how 802.1Q VLAN Trunking helps scale Layer 2 Ethernet networking.
  • Presentation in Powerpoint, PDF.

Tuesday evening — Optional sessions

• Filtering Spoofed Packets
  • Topics include:
    • Explain how this can be extended to multi-homed customers
  • Presentation, in OpenOffice, Powerpoint, PDF.

Wednesday morning

• BGP [NG/FH/MN]
  • Topics include:
    • Why use BGP?
    • Review of Forwarding and Routing.
    • Review of IGP's and BGP.
    • BGP Building blocks: ASN's, routing flow, traffic flow.
    • BGP protocol basics.
    • BGP protocol details.
    • Basic BGP configuration.
    • Supporting IPv6 in BGP.
    • Routing policy and filtering.
    • Multihoming in BGP.
  • Participants will be able to:
    • Explain the need for BGP.
    • Define autonomous systems.
    • Describe the key characteristics of BGP-4.
    • Understand how BGP has been extended to support IPv6
    • List important BGP attributes.
    • Describe the typical BGP best path selection process.
    • Set up a BGP peering session to an upstream provider.
    • Set up a BGP peering session to a peer.
    • Set up iBGP peers.
    • Use BGP filtering mechanisms.
  • Presentation (introductory) in Powerpoint, PDF.
  • Presentation (1-5) in Powerpoint, PDF.
  • Presentation (6) in Powerpoint.
  • Presentation (7) in Powerpoint and PDF.
  • Presentation (8) in Powerpoint.
  • Presentation (9) in OpenOffice, PDF.
  • Presentation (10) in Powerpoint.
  • BGP Cheat Sheet in Plain text.
  • Network diagram in JPEG.
  • BGP Exercise 1 in Plain text, and the address plan for exercise 1.
  • BGP Exercise 2 in Plain text, and the address plan for exercise 2.
  • BGP Exercise 3 in Plain text.
  • BGP Exercise 4 in Plain text.
  • Configuration of upstream routers for exercises 1 to 4, for AS 100. AS 200.

Wednesday afternoon

• BGP (continued) [NG/FH/SH]

Wednesday evening — Optional sessions

• No evening session today

Thursday morning

• BGP (continued) [NG/FH/SH]

Thursday afternoon

• iBGP and OSPF Lab Exercise [FH/NG] 14:00-20:00
  • Topics include:
    • Hostmaster responsibilities..
    • Deployment of OSPF across the backbone.
    • Deployment of iBGP across the backbone.
    • Network Manager responsibilities when deploying the network.
    • Deployment of eBGP to the upstream provider.
    • Verification of full Internet connectivity.
    • Filtering of BGP prefixes.
  • Participants will be able to:
    • Build a commercial ISP network.
  • Exercise notes in: HTML, TXT, and Decisions made by the 2014 class.
  • Sample spreadsheet with the network infrastructure in CSV
  • OLD Exercise notes: Cheat sheet.
  • Sample router configuration for upstream ISP: as100, as200.
  • Lab setup details: dynamips configuration, final router configs

Thursday evening

• Finish the iBGP and OSPF exercise

Friday morning

• Internet Exchange Points [NG/FH] 9:00-11:00
  • Topics include:
    • What is an exchange point
    • Why you need one
    • Basic IXP design
    • Scaling an IXP
  • Students will be able to:
    • explain what an Internet exchange point is
    • explain why people use IXPs
    • understand why IXPs are important
    • review some current IXP designs used today
    • think about how to set up an Internet exchange point in your environment
    • understand why Route Servers are useful
  • Internet Exchange Point presentation, in Powerpoint, PDF.
  • Scaling Internet Exchange Point presentation, in Powerpoint, PDF.
• Internet Exchange Points exercise [NG] - 11:30-13:00
  • Students will be able to:
    • build a simple exchange point
    • demonstrate how an IXP benefits their network
  • Students will be introduced to and be able to understand the following problems:
    • Not providing transit to your peer
    • Not providing transit across the Exchange Point
    • Not seeing own routes from anyone else
    • Not accidentally receiving the whole Internet routes from peer
    • Not receiving internal IGP routes accidentally announced by peers
    • Not trusting customers to generate correct routes
  • Internet Exchange Point Exercise in Text, addressing plan in Text, and AS100/200 router configuration in Text.
  • IXP connection Diagram in PDF and notes.
  • Lab setup details : Dynamips configuration, individual router configs

Friday afternoon

• Routing Security Concepts
  • Students will be exposed to:
    • threats on the Internet
    • solutions to resolve these
  • Students will be introduced to and be able to understand the following problems:
    • Route Leaks
    • Route Hijacks
    • Misconfiguration
• Open Q&A Session

Friday evening

• Closing ceremony

Additional Topics

This section contains topics that were not taught this year, but that are nevertheless expected to be useful.

• IPv6 Introduction
  • Topics include:
    • History of the Internet.
    • History of the development of IP numbers.
    • Deployment considerations for IPv6.
    • State of the IPv6 art.
    • Operator implementation of IPv6.
  • Participants will be able to:
    • Understand the physical limitations of IPv4.
    • Understand how the IETF came to decide on IPv6 as a way to scale the Internet.
    • Know which methods are available to implement IPv6 in their networks.
    • Understand how IPv6 will be deployed alongside IPv4.
    • Understand the problems facing the deployment of IPv6.
  • Presentation in Powerpoint, PDF.
• 802.1Q VLAN Trunking Demo
  • Topics include:
    • VLAN operations.
    • 802.1Q VLAN Trunking operations.
    • Basic VLAN configuration.
  • Participants will be able to:
    • Gain a practical understanding of how VLAN's work.
    • Gain a practical understanding of how 802.1Q VLAN Trunking works.
    • Learn the basic commands required to configure VLAN's in Cisco IOS.
  • Presentation in Word, PDF.
• Filtering Spoofed Packets
  • Topics include:
    • Explain how this can be extended to multi-homed customers
  • Presentation, in OpenOffice, Powerpoint, PDF.
• OoB Management
  • Topics include:
    • What OoB management is.
    • The various components involved in setting up an OoB infrastructure.
    • Various options available to implement OoB management.
  • Participants will be able to:
    • Understand the need and usefulness of OoB management.
    • Understand the equipment that goes into deployment effective OoB management infrastructure.
    • Understand the different sets of tools available to deploy OoB management.
  • Presentation in Powerpoint, PDF.
• BGP Best Current Practices
  • Topics include:
    • What BGP is used for, what IGPs are used for
    • Aggregation, how to generate aggregate, how to announce aggregate
    • What prefixes to receive from any eBGP neighbour
    • What prefixes to send to any eBGP neighbour
    • Know about the special prefixes which should never appear on the Internet
    • How to inject prefixes into BGP
  • Presentation, in Powerpoint, PDF.
• BGP Scaling Issues
  • Topics include:
    • BGP Peer-groups
    • Route Reflectors
    • Route Flap Damping
    • BGP Route Refresh
  • Presentation, in Powerpoint, PDF.
• IRR & RPKI
  • Topics include:
    • Intro to IRR
    • Intro to RPKI
  • Presentation, in Powerpoint, PDF.
• Network Traffic Analysis
  • Topics include:
    • Configuring SNMP on Cisco routers and switches.
    • Configuring MRTG on FreeBSD servers.
    • Configuring Netflow on Cisco routers.
    • Configuring NFSEN on FreeBSD servers.
  • Students will be able to:
    • Discover the amount of bandwidth network devices are using.
    • Graph the performance of various services, e.g., Exim/SMTP.
    • Find out which users are using which services on the network.
    • Discover rogue agents or computers that might be virus-infected.
    • Know which services are more popular on your network.
  • MRTG Presentation, in Powerpoint, PDF.
  • MRTG Exercise, in HTML.
  • NFSEN Presentation, in Powerpoint, PDF.
• NOC Services and Applications
  • Topics include:
    • Configuration/Change Management
    • Performance Management
    • Accounting Management
    • Fault Management
    • Security Management
  • Students will be able to:
    • Explain the need for a Network Operations Centre
    • Identify the elements of Network Management
    • Use a basic monitoring system to observe the health of the network, detect faults and changes, and respond appropriately.
      • Explain why Network monitoring is essential
      • Define various types of Network monitoring
      • Configure a Syslog Server and tools to trigger alarms
      • Configure RANCID
      • Configure RT (Request Tracker)
      • Identify suspicious network activities and trends
    • Explain why ticket systems are necessary in a NOC
    • Use a simple ticket system effectively
    • Explain the different types of tools that can be used for network monitoring
    • Communicate with providers, peers and customers
    • Fix Network problems where devices are unreachable
    • Understand the concepts behind Change Management
  • Introductory presentation, in Powerpoint, PDF.
  • Syslog presentation, in Powerpoint, PDF.
  • Syslog exercise, in plain text.
  • Nagios presentation, in Powerpoint, PDF.
  • RANCID presentation, in Powerpoint, PDF.
  • RANCID exercise, in plain text.
  • RT presentation, in Powerpoint, PDF.
• NOC Services and Applications [Hervey Allen]
  • Topics include:
    • Configuration/Change Management
    • Performance Management
    • Accounting Management
    • Fault Management
    • Security Management
  • Students will be able to:
    • Explain the need for a Network Operations Centre
    • Identify the elements of Network Management
    • Use a basic monitoring system to observe the health of the network, detect faults and changes, and respond appropriately.
      • Explain why Network monitoring is essential
      • Define various types of Network monitoring
      • Configure a Syslog Server and tools to trigger alarms
      • Configure RANCID
      • Configure RT (Request Tracker)
      • Identify suspicious network activities and trends
    • Explain why ticket systems are necessary in a NOC
    • Use a simple ticket system effectively
    • Explain the different types of tools that can be used for network monitoring
    • Communicate with providers, peers and customers
    • Fix Network problems where devices are unreachable
    • Understand the concepts behind Change Management
  • See the material from Track NM-E.