Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 1 introduces the course and the concepts of managing and deploying Cisco products in business environments in preparation for the TestOut Routing and Switching Pro certification and the CCNA 200-301 certification. This chapter explains how to navigate the course to effectively learn and practice skills related to network fundamentals and access, IP connectivity and services, security fundamentals, and device automation and programmability. It also covers how to use the simulator and introduces useful Cisco device icons.

Chapter 2: Networking Concepts

Chapter 2 discusses networking basics that are critical in setting up a networking environment. Students will learn about the TCP/IP and OSI Networking models, the purpose of each model, how they differ, and the protocols and functions of each layer. This chapter covers discusses different cable and connection types, addressing, packets, data encapsulation and communication. Students will discover the ethernet, network topologies and architecture. This chapter concludes by exploring switches, LAN connectivity, routers, Internetworks and other appliances like wireless access points and firewalls

Chapter 3: Cisco Devices

Chapter 3 explores Cisco device connectivity, command line interface (CLI), licensing, settings, passwords, and protocols. It explains how to boot a router and modify configuration files, find device information through the CLI, access history, edit, and get help. Students will learn to activate a Cisco Internetwork Operating System (IOS) package, view the current license status and access and configure device settings. This chapter covers password levels, how to configure and enable passwords, and modifying and recovering passwords. It concludes discussing Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP), how to configure, modify and find CDP information.

Chapter 4: IP Addressing

Chapter 4 introduces IPv4 addressing, its history, number system, and format. It also presents how subnets enable network implementation, control broadcast traffic, and isolate networks for routing management purposes. This chapter covers subnet planning and design, subnet calculation, and how to configure a subnet mask. Students will learn to make routing updates more efficient through route summarization which organizes a collection of routes into a single representative route. This chapter discusses IPv6, its ability to create more addresses, and how it will eventually replace IPv4. Students will then learn about Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), its purpose, how to configure DHCP, and its benefits. This chapter concludes discussing the Domain Name System (DNS) how the naming convention helps direct users to the correct IP address, how to configure DNS, create standard zones, create host records, and how to troubleshoot DNS records.

Chapter 5: Switch

Chapter 5 explores switch architecture to create optimized local area networks using access switches, distribution switches, two and three-tier, and spine and leaf. This chapter discusses using MAC addresses to send unicast, broadcast and multicast frames. Students will also learn three switching methodologies, cut-through switching, fragment-free switching, and store-and-forward switching and their impact on latency and frame forwarding. Students will learn switch interface configuration where they will practice configuring switch ports, IP settings, the host and the interface on a switch.

Chapter 6: IPv4 Routing

Chapter 6 introduces routing, how routing protocol metrics determine efficient paths, and administrative distance to determine trustworthiness. This chapter discusses static versus dynamic routing, and static and default route commands. As students learn about dynamic routing, they will better understand best path determination, distance vector routing operations, routing protocols, routing table information, and how to link state routing operations. This chapter also covers troubleshooting for IPV4 routing, and network communications including topics like host and router configuration issues, using commands, Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP), and IP troubleshooting utility.

Chapter 7: IPv4 Routing Protocols

Chapter 7 develops a good understanding of topics related to Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), including characteristics and terminology, areas and border routers, passive interfaces, default routes, neighbor discover, topology exchange, and router designation. Students will learn about OSPF databases, router IDs, configuration, commands, implementation and verification as well as Router LSAs, Network LSAs and Summary LSAs. This chapter reviews adjacency issues, troubleshooting commands, and neighboring requirements for both OSPF and Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP) and explores in depth EIGRP routing. Students will learn how EIGRP compares to OSPG and RIP, its protocols, how it builds a routing table, accepts a neighbor, exchanges topology databases, and calculates the metric to determine the fastest route to each network. This chapter concludes by explaining EIGRP implementation, convergence, commands to verify EIGRP functionality, load balance, and prevent problems with discontiguous networks.

Chapter 8: IPv6 Routing

Chapter 8 explores IPv6 routing beginning with protocols, addressing, assignment process, and common troubleshooting issues related to switches, routers, and host configuration. This chapter discusses how to enable, configure, and verify OSPFv3 routing and its similarities and differences with OSPFv2. Students will also learn about EIGRPv6 routing its commands to verify implementation, its similarities with EIGRPv4, and common neighboring issues.

Chapter 9: Wireless Networks

Chapter 9 introduces using radio frequency waves for wireless computer networks, discusses the architecture of wireless networks and explains the different operating modes of wireless networks, as well as the role of BSS, ESS, and SSID. Students will learn about different wireless mediums like infrared and Bluetooth and what standards to follow for wireless networks, taking into account frequency, speed, distance and compatibility. This chapter includes how to configure a wireless network, change settings through the configuration utility, and connect wireless devices, then explains methods to improve the network range. Students will learn how to design a network, conduct a site survey,  select correct equipment for a wireless network, and set up and configure a small office/home office (SOHO) network. This chapter concludes with instructional training on wireless security and attacks as well as troubleshooting wireless network problems.

Chapter 10: WAN Implementation

Chapter 10 reviews public and private WAN technologies such as leased line, Ethernet, DSL, and cable to create WAN links. Students will get a good understanding of leased line, the components needed to make one work, the speeds available for a leased line, the layer 2 protocols, and back-to-back router configuration to emulate a leased line. This chapter introduces NAT and how to use it to translate internal, private IP addresses to external, public IP addresses. It discusses dynamic and static NAT, introduces useful NAT commands, and explores port address translation and additional NAT operations. This chapter concludes by discussing troubleshooting serial connections, isolating the fault domain using the ping command, narrowing down the problems to specific layers, and restoring connectivity.

Chapter 11: Advanced Switching

Chapter 11 discusses VLANs to segment a Layer 2 switch into multiple broadcast domains, access and trunk ports, switching loops, Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), its topology and its advanced features. Students will learn to design, implement, and troubleshoot STP, select and configure the primary and secondary root bridge, and configure rapid PVST+. This chapter Introduces interVLAN routing, handling it using router-on-a-stick, troubleshooting, and using Layer 3 switches to configure InterVLAN routing. It concludes instructing students how to troubleshoot switches.

Chapter 12. Access Control Lists

Chater 12 Introduces Access Control Lists (ACLs) that regulate traffic between different senders and receivers, discusses design considerations for deploying ACLs and the importance of traffic flow when implementing ACLs. Students will learn about standard and named ACLs their commands and capabilities when permitting or denying traffic, and how to troubleshoot ACLs. This chapter concludes explaining the advantages of extended ACLs, what syntax is needed to create one and the role inverse wildcard masks play in determining traffic permissions through a router. Students will learn to configure allowed networks, create access lists, block invalid addresses, and allow specific services.

Chapter 13: Network Management

Chapter 13 explores Network Time Protocol (NTP) to maintain accurate time across the server, event logging, system updates, and how to configure NTP on a Cisco device and verify it is synced correctly. Students will discover system logs (syslogs) to see what is happening to a Cisco device and troubleshoot issues. They will learn the format of syslogs and configuration options. This chapter covers simple network messaging protocol (SNMP), NetFlow and Quality of Service (QoS) to monitor and prioritize a network. This chapter explores enterprise networking, software defined networking, network device planes, the SDN controller and its APIs, and SDN architecture. Students will learn about cloud resources like cloud networking and cloud virtualization and what Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are and common tunneling protocols for VPNs. This chapter concludes with discussing the importance of installing a redundant default gateway router, what protocols to use, and why it is necessary. It also discusses network automation, popular configuration management tools, data formats such as JSON, YAML, XML, and Application Programming Interface (APIs) to allow interaction between applications.

Chapter 14: Network Security

Chapter 14 discusses network security by implementing a AAA framework, authentication, authorization, and accounting using a server with TACACS+ or RADIUS protocol. It discusses types of hackers, their motivations and threat modeling. Students will learn best practices for network security and different concepts of network threats to help keep a network secure. Students will also learn about switch attacks, how to secure a network switch using DHCP snooping and dynamic ARP, and how to set up and configure port security, harden a switch, and secure access to a switch. This chapter explores malware concepts, Trojan backdoors, concerns and analysis instructing how to combat malware using anti-malware software, scan for ports with Netstat, track usage with TCPView, detect ports with Nmap, view ports with netstat for open ports using a remote computer, and counter malware with Windows Defender. Students will learn several concepts related to sniffing to collect information as it crosses the network using Wireshark, TCPDump, and SMAC. Students will also learn about passive and active session hijacking, learning concepts like client side and network attacks, Man-in-the-middle  attack countermeasures, how to capture HTTP POST packets with Wireshark, and hijack a web session. This chapter concludes by discussing Denial of Service attack types and countermeasures, how to perform a SYN flood, and analyze ICMP traffic in Wireshark.

Chapter 15: Cryptography

Chapter 15 introduces cryptography including cipher algorithms, encryption, and steganography to conceal information. Students will learn about symmetric and asymmetric encryption, and Public Key infrastructure, how it works, common certificate authorities, and certificate signing methods. Students will also learn to verify MD5 hash integrity. This chapter discusses three types of cryptanalysis, linear cryptanalysis, differential cryptanalysis, and integral cryptanalysis as well as diverse methods for code-breaking. Students will also learn different cryptographic attacks and countermeasures.