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■CD-based lab exercises—The companion CD contains a CD-only appendix C (which is a totally different appendix as compared with the printed appendix C in the book) which has several lab exercises. These lab exercises guide you through the steps used to perform the most popular configuration tasks. Like the scenarios, CD-only appendix C includes the answers to the labs, making it useful to just read the materials for extra reinforcement of the commands. You can also perform these labs using the Boson NetSim LE network simulator, or using your own lab gear.

■CD-based subnetting practice—The companion CD contains an appendix that has 25 additional subnetting practice problems. Each problem shows the solutions for the subnet number, broadcast address, and valid IP addresses in each subnet. With this extra practice, you can be ready to answer subnetting questions quickly and accurately on the INTRO, ICND, and CCNA exams.

How This Book Is Organized

This book contains 12 core chapters—Chapters 1 through 12. Chapter 13 includes some summary materials and suggestions on how to approach the exams. Each core chapter covers a subset of the topics on the ICND exam. The core chapters are organized into four parts. The chapters cover the following topics:

Part I: LAN Switching

■Chapter 1, “LAN Switching Review and Configuring Cisco 2950 LAN Switches”—If you’ve taken the INTRO exam, you might have forgotten some of the details. This chapter reviews the basics of LAN switching. It also covers some basic administrative configuration on the 2950 series switches.

■Chapter 2, “Spanning Tree Protocol”—The CCNA INTRO Exam Certification Guide covers Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) briefly; this chapter takes a deeper look, including an explanation of the newer Rapid STP (RSTP).

■Chapter 3, “Virtual LANs and Trunking”—This chapter reviews the concepts of VLANs and VLAN trunking and explains the VLAN Trunking Protocol (VTP). It also covers

VTP configuration.

Part II: TCP/IP

■Chapter 4, “IP Addressing and Subnetting”—This chapter gets into the depths of IP addressing and subnetting. The Boolean math operations required for analyzing IP addresses are explained, and several examples are used to detail how IP subnets are created, what IP addresses are in the same subnet, and the math required to answer exam questions about subnetting. This chapter is actually a subset of Chapter 12 in CCNA

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INTRO Exam Certification Guide, with only some differences in the questions at the beginning and end of the chapter. See the later section “How to Use These Books to Prepare for the CCNA Exam” for suggestions on how to use this chapter.

■Chapter 5, “RIP, IGRP, and Static Route Concepts and Configuration”—Routing Information Protocol (RIP) and Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (IGRP) are two longstanding IP routing protocols. This chapter explains their underlying logic, called distance vector, and shows you how to configure the protocols in a Cisco router.

■Chapter 6, “OSPF and EIGRP Concepts and Configuration”—Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) and Enhanced IGRP (EIGRP) are two more advanced and more powerful IP routing protocols. This chapter explains their underlying logic and shows you how to configure them in a Cisco router.

■Chapter 7, “Advanced Routing Protocol Topics”—Many IP routing protocols have similar features. This chapter covers some of the more complicated similar features of these routing protocols, including variable-length subnet masking (VLSM) support and route summarization.

■Chapter 8, “Advanced TCP/IP Topics”—In this final chapter on topics related specifically to TCP/IP, several small but important topics are covered, including Classless Interdomain Routing (CIDR) and Network Address Translation (NAT).

Part III: Wide-Area Networks

■Chapter 9, “Point-to-Point Leased Line Implementation”—This chapter covers the two popular data-link protocols used on point-to-point links—HDLC and PPP.

■Chapter 10, “ISDN and Dial-on-Demand Routing”—This chapter covers ISDN concepts and configuration, with a fair number of samples covering dial-on-demand routing (DDR), which is one way of causing a dialed ISDN connection to be established between routers.

■Chapter 11, “Frame Relay”—Engineers deploy Frame Relay more than any other WAN protocol today. This chapter reviews the details of how Frame Relay accomplishes its goal of delivering frames to multiple WAN-connected sites. This chapter also describes

Frame Relay configuration, with its many options.

Part IV: Network Security

■Chapter 12, “IP Access Control List Security”—IP Access Control Lists (ACLs) filter IP packets as they pass through a router. This chapter explains the concepts and the configuration.

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Part V: Final Preparation

■Chapter 13, “Final Preparation”—This chapter includes a variety of suggestions for taking the exam. It also provides several exercises that help you review some of the material in the book.

When you are finished with the core chapters, you have several options as to how to finish your exam preparation. Additional questions and exercises in Chapter 13 provide a method of final preparation. You can review the questions at the end of each chapter, and you can use the CD’s testing software to practice the exam.

Part VI: Appendixes

■Appendix A, “Answers to the “Do I Know This Already” Quizes and Q&A Sections”—

Includes the answers to all the questions from chapters 1 through 12.How to Use This Book to Prepare for the ICND Exam

To study for the ICND exam, you can simply take this book and start reading. This study plan is simple. However, if you have some experience in or knowledge of Cisco products and networking protocols, you might be able to save some study time while taking small risks. Figure I-1 shows the progression you should take through the books as you prepare for the INTRO exam.

Figure I-1 How to Approach Each Chapter of This Book

Take the “Do I Know This Already Quiz”

In each chapter, an assessment quiz called the “Do I Know This Already?” (DIKTA) quiz helps you decide if you already know a lot of the material in the chapter. The DIKTA quiz does not quiz you on every topic in the chapter. It focuses on a representative sample from that chapter. Doing well on the DIKTA quiz indicates how much you already know about the topic.