Couple of months ago, I wrote an article on various convenient methods of accessing ProctorLabs CCIE rack rental devices. That article focused on Windows users. This is part two of that series, with focus on students using Mac or Linux.

The biggest challenge for Mac and Linux users is selecting good terminal program to use. There are many choices, but they all share almost the same difficulty – lack of consistency in supporting “bookmarks”, or in some cases, even the basic lack of support for tabs.

With this in mind, we looked into what these platforms had in common and we found one thing. By default, they all support CLI access to terminal, regardless of which application is in use. Many power users are quite happy to use command line to access our rack rental anyway. Capitalizing on that and making that single task is the approach we took. Before I examine that in more detail, here is something very nice for our Mac users.

SecureCrt for Mac

SecureCRT beta is now available for download from the manufacturer, VanDyke. We tested our bookmark set with Mac version and it works flawlessly! Good job, VanDyke.

You can download SecureCRT bookmarks from here: ProctorLabs-SecureCRT.zip

IPexpert’s PodConnect

IPexpert’s approach to remote Pod access from Mac and Linux is quite simple. When you are in your CLI, simply type the command “PodConnect.pl r1″ and you will be connected to the R1 on the ProctorLabs pod you choose as default. If you specified your username and password, PodConnect will log you in. You are now ready to work. Take a look at the example session I use:

Mac ~> PodConnect.pl r2
Trying 74.126.20.111...
Won't send login name and/or authentication information.
Connected to pod111ts1.proctorlabs.com.
Escape character is '^]'.

         ****PROCTOR LABS, INC. SECURE ONLINE RACK SYSTEM****
      WELCOME to Proctor Labs, Inc. CCIE preparation vRack.

    WARNING:  This system is for the use of authorized clients only.
          Unauthorized access is a violation of federal, state,
                        civil and criminal laws.

http://www.ProctorLabs.com

User Access Verification

Username: myusername
Password: 

            You are on line number: 2

R2#

That’s all I have to do. Regardless of the terminal emulator program I use, it will work. Here’s how you install it.

• Make sure you have Perl installed.
• Make sure you have Expect and Perl Expect module installed.
• Download the PodConnect.zip file.
• Unzip the file into the folder in your path. Personally, I use $HOME/bin for this
• Make the file executable: chmod 700 PodConnect.pl
• Try it out!

If you run PodConnect.pl, you will probably notice error message telling you that you need to specify the Pod. You can do that after the device name. For example, running “PodConnect.pl r1 111″, will connect you to the R1 on Pod #111. You can set the default pod by setting “PL_POD” environment variable.

Once you run the Pod, if environment variable PL_USERNAME and PL_PASSWORD are set, PodConnect.pl will attempt to automatically log you in using those credentials. If those variables are not set, you will need to log-in manually.

To make things even quicker, here are couple of tricks you can do. Add the following lines to your $HOME/.profile:

alias c="$HOME/bin/PodConnect.pl"
export PL_POD="111"
export PL_USERNAME="myusername"
export PL_PASSWORD="mypassword"

Next time you open the terminal, you should be able to connect to ProctorLabs devices in your pod by simply typing “c device”, like this:

Mac ~> c r2
Trying 74.126.20.111...
Won't send login name and/or authentication information.
Connected to pod111ts1.proctorlabs.com.
Escape character is '^]'.

         ****PROCTOR LABS, INC. SECURE ONLINE RACK SYSTEM****
      WELCOME to Proctor Labs, Inc. CCIE preparation vRack.

    WARNING:  This system is for the use of authorized clients only.
          Unauthorized access is a violation of federal, state,
                        civil and criminal laws.

http://www.ProctorLabs.com

Username: myusername
Password: 

            You are on line number: 2

R2#

NOTE: If you store your password in .profile, make sure the file is readable only by your user account. The best way to ensure this is to set permissions to 600 on it (chmod 600 ~/.profile).

Enjoy your studies!

–
Marko Milivojevic – CCIE #18427
Senior Technical Instructor – IPexpert
Join our Online Study List

From time to time, we have our students ask us what is the best way to access ProctorLabs equipment? How do you guys (instructors) do it? What should I do, etc. As with many other things, the answer is, of course – it depends! Many people have different styles and use different software and operating systems. I will explore several popular methods, operating systems and terminal programs here.

Please Note: In these example, we are using ProctorLabs Pod #111. Please, use Pod assigned to your session to try things out.

Using The Terminal Server

Picture 1 below shows the portion of your ProctorLabs user interface from which you can initiate connections to various devices.

On the top of the selection is the link called “Terminal Server”. Clicking on this link should open the the link using your operating systems’ Telnet URL handler and connect to ProctorLabs terminal server, allocated for your session. Take note here that Windows 7 doesn’t have Telnet installed by default. Quick search online should help you enable both Telnet client and Telnet URL handlers in Internet Explorer. The remainder of this text assumes that both work.

When you click on the Terminal Server link, you should see the connection open to the Terminal Server. Log in with your ProctorLabs username and password.

Connected to pod111ts1.proctorlabs.com.
Escape character is '^]'.

         ****PROCTOR LABS, INC. SECURE ONLINE RACK SYSTEM****
      WELCOME to Proctor Labs, Inc. CCIE preparation vRack.

    WARNING:  This system is for the use of authorized clients only.
          Unauthorized access is a violation of federal, state,
                        civil and criminal laws.

http://www.ProctorLabs.com

User Access Verification

Username: username
Password: password

PL-POD-111-TS-RS#

You are now connected to Terminal Server. You can see devices connected to it by typing “show hosts”

PL-POD-111-TS-RS#show hosts
Default domain is not set
Name/address lookup uses static mappings

Host                      Port  Flags      Age Type   Address(es)
BB3                       2013  (perm, OK) **   IP    10.1.1.1
BB2                       2012  (perm, OK) **   IP    10.1.1.1
R9                        2009  (perm, OK) **   IP    10.1.1.1
R8                        2008  (perm, OK) **   IP    10.1.1.1
R7                        2007  (perm, OK) **   IP    10.1.1.1
R6                        2006  (perm, OK) **   IP    10.1.1.1
R5                        2005  (perm, OK) **   IP    10.1.1.1
R2                        2002  (perm, OK) **   IP    10.1.1.1
Cat4                      2016  (perm, OK) **   IP    10.1.1.1
Cat3                      2015  (perm, OK) **   IP    10.1.1.1
Cat2                      2014  (perm, OK) **   IP    10.1.1.1
Cat1                      2010  (perm, OK) **   IP    10.1.1.1
BB1                       2011  (perm, OK) **   IP    10.1.1.1
R4                        2004  (perm, OK) **   IP    10.1.1.1
R1                        2001  (perm, OK) **   IP    10.1.1.1

If we take the example of R1 above, we can see that you can connect to it by telnetting to port 2001. You can do so from the server, by just typing “R1″.

PL-POD-111-TS-RS#r1
Translating "r1"
Trying R1 (10.1.1.1, 2001)... Open

         ****PROCTOR LABS, INC. SECURE ONLINE RACK SYSTEM****
      WELCOME to Proctor Labs, Inc. CCIE preparation vRack.

    WARNING:  This system is for the use of authorized clients only.
          Unauthorized access is a violation of federal, state,
                        civil and criminal laws.

http://www.ProctorLabs.com

User Access Verification

Username: username
Password: password

            You are on line number: 1

Router>

We are now connected to R1. We can configure it or do whatever we like. We can go back to the Terminal Server, by typing escape sequence <ctrl><shift> 6 followed by x. We are now back to terminal server, BUT – we are not yet disconnected from R1. Let’s connect to R2.

Router><ctrl><shift>6 x
PL-POD-111-TS-RS#r2
Translating "r2"
Trying R2 (10.1.1.1, 2002)... Open

         ****PROCTOR LABS, INC. SECURE ONLINE RACK SYSTEM****
      WELCOME to Proctor Labs, Inc. CCIE preparation vRack.

    WARNING:  This system is for the use of authorized clients only.
          Unauthorized access is a violation of federal, state,
                        civil and criminal laws.

http://www.ProctorLabs.com

User Access Verification

Username: username
Password: password

            You are on line number: 2

Router#

Let’s go back to R1. Press the escape sequence to go back to terminal server. There, type “show sessions”.

Router#<ctrl><shift>6 x
PL-POD-111-TS-RS#show sessions
Conn Host                Address             Byte  Idle Conn Name
   1 r1                  10.1.1.1               0     0 r1
*  2 r2                  10.1.1.1               0     0 r2

We can see two active sessions. One is connected to R1 and the other one to R2. We can also see small “*” next to R2. If we just press <enter>, we will return to the active session – marked by a star! Note the session numbers just before host name. We can use that to resume some other session. If we want to resume our session to R1, we can type “resume 1″, or simply “1″. Give it a try.

If you wish to destroy the session, type “disconnect <num>” on the terminal server, to disconnect the session <num>. Let’s disconnect our session 1.

PL-POD-111-TS-RS#disconnect 1
Closing connection to r1 [confirm]
PL-POD-111-TS-RS#show sessions
Conn Host                Address             Byte  Idle Conn Name
*  2 r2                  10.1.1.1               0     0 r2

Session 1 is gone. It will come back when we connect to, say, R4:

PL-POD-111-TS-RS#r4
Translating "r4"
Trying R4 (10.1.1.1, 2004)... Open

         ****PROCTOR LABS, INC. SECURE ONLINE RACK SYSTEM****
      WELCOME to Proctor Labs, Inc. CCIE preparation vRack.

    WARNING:  This system is for the use of authorized clients only.
          Unauthorized access is a violation of federal, state,
                        civil and criminal laws.

http://www.ProctorLabs.com

User Access Verification

Username:<ctrl><shift>6 x
PL-POD-111-TS-RS#show sessions
Conn Host                Address             Byte  Idle Conn Name
*  1 r4                  10.1.1.1               0     0 r4
   2 r2                  10.1.1.1               0     0 r2

Beware of this session number reuse, especially when time-pressed. You may want to open your devices in logical order and use them that way. If you decide to do so, it may be a wise idea to configure “exec-timeout” appropriately on destination hosts, otherwise your sessions may time out.

Once you get the hang of the idea, using Terminal Server is really quick and powerful way to access all your Proctor Labs devices.

However, some of use think there are more efficient ways. Read on for few suggestions.

Direct Sessions to Devices

Remember when we looked at Terminal Server and we connected to port 2001 for R1? You don’t have to connect to terminal server to open that session. You can telnet directly to port 2001 from your own computer, using any telnet client, or by clicking on the appropriate device from your ProctorLabs Web GUI! Let’s connect to R1 by clicking on it.

Connected to pod111ts1.proctorlabs.com.
Escape character is '^]'.

         ****PROCTOR LABS, INC. SECURE ONLINE RACK SYSTEM****
      WELCOME to Proctor Labs, Inc. CCIE preparation vRack.

    WARNING:  This system is for the use of authorized clients only.
          Unauthorized access is a violation of federal, state,
                        civil and criminal laws.

http://www.ProctorLabs.com

User Access Verification

Username: username
Password: password

            You are on line number: 1

Router>

We are now directly connected to R1! If you click on some other router or other device, you will be connected directly to it!

You should note that you cannot have more than one connection to the same device. In a case you are getting “Connection Refused” message, you need to telnet to Terminal Server and clear the existing session to the device you wish to connect to.

Using direct sessions to devices is an efficient method. Using built-in telnet client in Windows (and some other operating systems) on the other hand is not. Many of them lack features like increased scroll buffer, resizable windows, etc. For that reason, there are other clients that can be used instead. Here are some of the more popular ones.

SecureCRT (Windows)

SecureCRT is the terminal application available you in the CCIE lab. Newer versions of it support some options not available during the exam (for example, tabs), but those advanced features may prove to be useful during studies, when you are not trying to replicate the exact environment in the lab.

The most efficient way to use SecureCRT is to utilize its built-in bookmarks, called Connections. This system can be accessed by choosing File->Connect menu, or <alt>-c keyboard shortcut. Screenshot below is an example of bookmarks created for ProctorLabs Routing and Switching Pod 111.

Double-clicking on any of the bookmarked devices will open a new tab (or window) with the connection to the appropriate device. What’s nice with this approach is that the title bar of the window will be automatically set to the name of the device.

Of course, the most difficult and time consuming bit is actually building bookmarks. Well, I have special treat for you here. We’ve already done it for you – for all our pods in all our tracks, you can get them here: ProctorLabs-SecureCRT.

Installing IPexpert’s Bookmarks to SecureCRT

Now that you have the bookmarks, it’s time to install them. Please, follow this step-by-step procedure for an easy install.

1. Download the ProctorLabs-SecureCRT.zip above and save it to temporary folder
2. Open SecureCRT and find Options -> Global Options menu
3. Open the above menu and select General from the tree on the left. Copy “Configuration folder” path to clipboard. See picture below:



4. Close SecureCRT, find and open that folder in Windows Explorer. Go to subfolder called Sessions. If one does not exists, please create it.
5. Extract the contents of the ProctorLabs-SecureCRT.zip file into this folder. You should now have subfolder called ProctorLabs.
6. Start SecureCRT and select File->Connect.

You should have all of our bookmarks in your SecureCRT now!

Putty and Putty Connection Manager (Windows)

Putty is a free terminal application for Windows, which is proving to be very popular. By itself, it provides cumbersome bookmarks management, however, there is 3rd party add-on, called Putty Connection Manager. If you happen to be Putty user, look for this one online – you will be pleasantly surprised. To see it in action, just watch our Routing and Switching Video on Demand or a screenshot below.

Just as with SecureCRT, most of the work is to create bookmarks for your Pod. If you take a look at the screenshot above, you will notice that it shows many pods. Yes, you guessed it right! You can get database file here: ProctorLabs-PuttyCM.

Installing IPexpert’s Bookmarks to Putty Connection Manager

This operation is a little bit different than the one with SecureCRT. Especially so because there are two ways in which it can be done (CCIEs love alternative solutions, don’t we?). After you have downloaded the ProctorLabs-PuttyCM.zip file above, extract the contents to a temporary folder.

If you don’t already have any bookmarks in your Putty Connection Manager, you can copy the file to more permanent location and change extension from XML to DAT. Next, from File menu, select Open and navigate to your ProctorLabs-PuttyCM.dat file. When you open the database, make sure that Connection Manager option in View menu is enabled. You should now have nice ProctorLabs bookmarks tree on the right.

If you already use Putty Connection Manager, using another database may or may not be the thing you want. Another approach is to import the entries from XML. You can use the same file, but in order to import bookmarks, you need to have an open database. To initiate import process, go to Database menu, select Import and Export menu. Chose option to import and in the next step navigate to ProctorLabs-PuttyCM.xml file. When you have finished, your existing bookmarks should be updated with new ProctorLabs ones!

Whatever step you used, you can make the database as the default one to open every time you open Putty Connection Manager and you are all set.

But… what if you are using some other operating system, say, Mac or Linux? Stay tuned, that’s coming soon!

–
Marko Milivojevic – CCIE #18427
Senior Technical Instructor – IPexpert

Mailto: markom@ipexpert.com
Telephone: +1.810.326.1444
Fax: +1.810.454.0130

CCIE Voice Candidates (Mainly those ever renting Voice vRacks from Proctor Labs)

UPDATE FOR ALL VPNs – PLEASE READ IF YOU USE Proctor Labs vRacks

Four things have been changed to give everyone a much better experience when renting Voice vRacks from Proctor Labs. I’ll list each of them briefly here, and then go into more detail on each one of them regarding what each enhancement means for you as well as what you need to do to take advantage of the new changes.

1. There is only ONE vpn group that is still functional.
2. You can now connect your VPN (Hardware or Software) over TCP port 80 or 443.
3. Network Extension Mode (NEM) is now supported for every Voice vRack.
4. ASA5505 Users VPN’s *should* now work.

Details:

1) There is only ONE vpn group that is still functional

Everyone that connects to Proctor Labs Voice vRacks and thus our VPNs, should by now, have downloaded the latest VPN configuration file (either hardware or software) from your Voice vRack VPN webpage. This is the page you come to after you login to ProctorLabs.com, and before you get to your actual vRack webpage (the page where you Load Lab Configs, Telnet to routers, Link to CUCM servers, etc).

This configuration file hasn’t changed for a long number of months now – but just to be sure – you might want to check it.

This does two things for our clients:

• Gives you a much simpler configuration. There is only 1 VPN configuration file that you will ever need to connect to our Voice vRacks – regardless of which Pod you are assigned from session to session.
• This gives every client of ours peace of mine that when they rent a vRack session from us, that they not only will they be guaranteed to connect to the correct Pod#, but there is no chance that someone else could possibly also connect to your pod and accidentally overwrite your configuration. We do this by checking each login UserID against the timeslot and pod# rented, and then place you dynamically in the proper VRF where traffic from another vRack Pod can never route to yours.

Most of you (99%) will still be able to connect to VPN just fine – as you always have. However, if for some reason you cannot connect to your VPN session, take 2 minutes to simply check the “VPN Group Authentication Name” in your Software client to make sure the name and password are exactly as follows (respectively):

vpodgroup

proctorvoice

For you hardware VPN users – I have provided the configuration below:

crypto ipsec client ezvpn IPx-Voice-vRack

group vpodgroup key proctorvoice

2) You can now connect your VPN (Hardware or Software) over TCP port 80 or 443.

Many people have reported not being able to connect their software or hardware client VPN to Proctor Labs. This most normally occurs due to a over-restrictive corporate or hotel firewall that stands in their way, not allowing UDP 500 or UDP 4500 to pass through.

We have fixed this issue from our side and have now allowed users with Software (or Hardware) VPN clients to “Tunnel” all traffic (both the IKE Phase 1 and the ESP Phase 2) over You can now connect to your Voice vRack VPN using TCP port 80 or TCP port 443 – either of these ports should allow you to connect with us.

For software VPN users, see somewhere about 3/4 of the way down on this page for a screenshot of “Tunneling” your VPN connection over TCP Port 80 or 443.

(This link shows TCP port 10001. Just change that to 80 or 443. Almost all firewalls allow web traffic – so unless they are doing DPI – you should connect).

http://tinyurl.com/VPN-Port-80-443

For hardware IOS VPN users, make the following change:

crypto ipsec client ezvpn IPx-Voice-vRack

ctcp port 80

3) Network Extension Mode (NEM) is now supported for every Voice vRack.

I have now enabled (and tested thoroughly today) NEM for those of you using hardware-based VPN to connect your hardware IP phones to our Proctor Labs Voice vRacks. This will not work with software based VPNs.

This means that none of your traffic will have to NAT or PAT any longer to reach us – and all of these issues with phones not registering correctly, or registering and then when a call is made – potentially unregistering the phone from the cluster.

For hardware VPN users, make the following change:

crypto ipsec client ezvpn IPx-Voice-vRack

mode network-extension

In order to use the Network Extension Mode, and also not to override any of the internal subnets for the Voice vRack Pod you are on, I have enabled a small set of subnets that you may use for your *inside* interface on your IOS Router or ASA.

They are:

192.168.X.0/24   Where X can equal any number 0 – 16.

so 192.168.0.0 , 192.168.1.0 , you get the picture.

Any other network on your inside – and we don’t redistribute it through the vRack (i.e. – No route back to you :)

If anyone “needs” any other networks – email support and let us know about them.

4) ASA5505 Users VPN’s *should* now work.

After having troubleshot people’s ASA 5505 connection problems multiple times – we always came back to the issue being a bug – since it was the ASA that was failing to PAT the traffic – since the ASA packet tracer would always tell us it was at that step that the ASA would drop the traffic. However with the previous announcement that NEM is supported, this means no more NATing/PATing! Thus it *should* work fine with NEM enabled. (Read the “NOTE ABOUT SUBNETS FOR INSIDE INTERFACES” above!)

We say *should* because we don’t have an ASA5505 to test out the client side with. (anyone care to donate one?)

Also – every hardware VPN user – PLEASE CHECK your config to make sure that this line is in there:

crypto ipsec client ezvpn IPx-Voice-vRack

connect manual

If you don’t have “connect manual” in there, then your router constantly tries to connect its VPN with us – but will always fail because its not always your time to rent a rack, and in effect, performs a sort of mild DoS on our router.

As soon as we notice that type of repetitive traffic over a long period of time (not one or two or three failures when you are testing) – we have no choice but to block your source IP.

So all together – hardware IOS VPN users should have this config:

crypto ipsec client ezvpn IPx-Voice-vRack

connect manual

ctcp port 80

group vpodgroup key proctorvoice

mode network-extension

peer 74.126.20.247

xauth userid mode interactive

So all together – hardware ASA5505 VPN users should have this config:

vpnclient enable

vpnclient ipsec-over-tcp port 80

vpnclient mode network-extension-mode

vpnclient server 74.126.20.247

vpnclient vpodgroup password proctorvoice

In the (slightly modified) words of Napolean Dynamite:

I hope your wildest [CCIE studying] dreams come true,

Mark Snow

This page has been updated! Read below for changes to this post …

So now that this seminar is over – this blog post has morphed into a permanent update and archive of what was confirmed here at the CCIE Voice Techtorial at Cisco Networkers.

Without further ado, below is a quick bullet list of things that are now officially confirmed from the Cisco CCIE Voice Content Manager, Ben Ng, for the new CCIE Voice v3.0 Lab Exam.

The format that will follow below is this: Each bullet point will first contain the new piece of information regarding the v3.0 blueprint CCIE Voice Lab Exam that is now confirmed from Cisco and Ben Ng here at Cisco Live! (Networkers), and then will have this character “—>”  and then our Proctor Labs response regarding our preparedness to this announcement about a particular given new piece of information.

• All IP Phones will be 7965′s —> Proctor Labs vRacks updated our IP Phones to 7962′s sometime back. Only thing 7964 & 7965 can do that 7962′s can’t is GigEthernet and Color displays – neither of which have any bearing for the Cisco CCIE Voice Lab. Ben’s reason for 7965′s then? Simply more of these type of hardware available to them when they were developing the lab.
• CUCM and CUCME versions confirmed: 7.0(1) (bugs and all)  —> This is the versions we are running in all of our Proctor Labs vRacks.
• All servers (CUCM, UC, CUPS, UCCX) are running on VMWare —> We are running our Proctor Labs vRacks on VMWare ESX – looks like we are in good company.
• “Possible” that AD/DNS Server introduced down the road, but not Day 1. This means VPIM cannot be tested Day 1 either, since UC requires DNS to function (CUE can use IP addresses, but UC cannot). DNS Server cannot be run on UCCX (only Windows box), so again – will not be tested right away. I would imagine 6-12 months down the road.  —> We have an AD/DNS server ready at Proctor Labs vRacks, and will introduce it into our Mock Labs around that timeframe (expect 4-6 months).
• To reiterate: It is confirmed that Native DC Directory will be what is tested Day 1 and for a little while until they “run out” of content to add.
• Two Windows devices in Lab: UCCX Server and Test PC – both will be used for running CUPC for testing Presence and Device Mobility. RDP into UCCX, VNC into Test PC.  —> Proctor Labs vRacks have CUPC installed on UCCX and will have the candidate install CUPC on his/her Mac/PC (it runs on both) to test this. This way we maintain more physical CPU/Mem (Power) on VMWare Host machine (unlike Cisco has been known for in this lab in the past :-0  ).
• 3 site topology preserved. CUCM at HQ, BR1 remote CUCM site, BR2 is CUCME  —> We are, of course, good here.
• IOS on 3 site routers: 12.4(22)T —> This is the version we are running on our Proctor Labs vRacks.
• Confirmed: NO Video Endpoints in new v3.0 Lab —> Figured as much, but had VTA endpoints ready if we needed to add.
• E1-R2 and T1-CAS are testable topics, however – MANY features require ISDN technology-based features – so expect that ISDN (T1 & E1) PRIs will be much more heavily tested  —> We allow testing of BOTH, and have a ridiculously easy-to-use web interface that requires all of a push of a button to change the PSTN T1/E1 format (CCS/CAS) at Proctor Labs vRacks.
• Some of the new features in CUCM 7.0 that specifically require ISDN (and require a 7961 or better IP Phone) are +Dialing Support, Call Globalization, Localization, and Mapping the Globalized Variant to a Localized Route Pattern. —> As we have mentioned, Proctor Labs vRacks has newer 7962 IP Phones, as well you will see quite an intense international dial plan lab surrounding these CUCM Features coming out here in the next couple of weeks as Volume 2, Mock Lab 2.
• All CCIE test pods will have same IP addressing scheme and PSTN numbering scheme. No more “YY=pod#” for IP or Dialplan numbering schemes
• All CCIE test pods will have same IP addressing scheme – no more “YY=pod#”. However, PSTN and Dial Plan numbering scheme WILL change from lab to lab! —> We made the decision long ago to work tirelessly to provide EXACTLY this feature using Proctor Labs vRacks! Simple press of a button on our web UI pre-loads your PSTN Dialplan (as well as many other pre-configurations)! NO OTHER PROVIDER CAN DO THIS!! (Some claim that they can – but rent a single rack session from them and you will quickly see that their definition of pre-loading configuration means simply a wipe back to a single base clean config – nothing more).
• “Very Likely” that UCCX and VM Ports will be integrated beforehand
• New update to UCCX integration: UCCX Integration WILL BE DONE for you, however be prepared to Troubleshoot the integration.
• New update to Unity Connection integration: UC will be pre-configured with “base” integration info, however you will still be required to know and create Subscribers, Call Handlers, etc. Both of these previous two announcements are very nice timesavers indeed for the candidate. —> As stated above, Proctor Labs vRacks does custom, per-lab, pre-loading of configurations to every device including servers, this means that all future Mock Labs in Volume 2 and Instructor-Led Courses, we will have UCCX/UC ports pre-integrated.
• CUPS Server will NOT be pre-integrated with CUCM (this keeps in line with the blueprint). Also there are 3 types of Presence clients used in exam: IPPM (IP Phone Messenger – basically IM on the IP Phone), CUPC-control of 7965, and CUPC standalone softphone-mode. —> Proctor Labs vRacks has all three of these our labs today.
• IP Phones “Do not have VLANs assigned”, but that does not preclude them from being pre-configured in CUCM(E), just definitely not registered when candidate sits down  —> See our above note for how we can and do test both (or any scenario for that matter really).
• IP Phone Firmware changes are definitely testable topics at both CUCM and CUCME sites (study this well folks or else it could cost you a LOT of time!!) —> We test it!
• @ Dialplan (predicated upon a given country’s national numbering plan), and so therefore also Route Filters – has not ever previously been a testable topic. At this point it will still not be tested, however in the future Ben stated that they reserve the right to leave it open as a future testable topic, although it probably won’t be anything that happens in the near future. —> Again, we are on top of it and plan to  incorporate it into later Volume 2 Mock Labs.
• 4 Open-Ended Questions (OEQ’s) focusing on “Core Knowledge” will be tested from Day 1 (July 16)  —> For this and the next few topics regarding these OEQ’s: We will be releasing our CCIE OEQ Prep Quizzer tomorrow (Monday, June 29th).
• RE:4 Open-Ended Q’s: Will have 30 mins to answer 4 questions, answers will be 5 words or less, if you finish early you can proceed onto Lab Configuration
• RE:4 Open-Ended Q’s: Must answer 3/4 correctly, if you do answer EITHER 3 or 4 of the 4 Q’s correctly – both result in award of 21pts, then you need 59 points from Lab Config portion of exam, so in essence – you need ~75% to pass the CCIE Voice Lab
• RE:4 Open-Ended Q’s: Purpose is specifically designed to “Preserve Integrity and stop [people from] passing who just memorize lab [tasks from cheat websites]“
• RE:4 Open-Ended Q’s:  During these 4 questions you will NOT have access to any resources (Cisco Documentation Website or 4 SRND PDFs on desktop). Restated: You have no resources other than your brain during the 4 OEQ’s.
• Voice Lab Exam testing centers to include Dubai, Bejing, and Bangalore. More seats “should” mean more availability. We hope.
• All CCIE Voice grading is still being done by hand by the Proctors at the moment. May integrate automated grading at a later date.
• Configuration of Dial Plan is not checked. Grading is based on results: (i.e. test calls are made, primary gateways shutdown, test calls are made again to test backup gateways, etc).
• If a gateway is not registered you will score 0 on dial plan.

So as clearly stated next to each update, we starting planning ahead more than a year ago for this change, and all of these updates confirm that we were dead-on track for 100% of these changes. We have ALL (repeat 100%) of these things in our Instructor-Led Training courses and our Workbooks: TODAY!

Cheers,

Mark and Vik

Any of you who have been studying for your CCIE Voice for any time now, know the importance of having phones to test your calls with. In the past, with the v2 exam, this was not too much of a problem because of the wonderful product called IPBlue (the only SCCP-based softphone client on the market). With it you could test all of the needed calls, XML display functions such as Services, Softkeys, and Line appearances.

Approximately 1 year ago when we began internal preparation meetings for what we knew would become the new v3 Voice blueprint, we knew that the older 7960 phone models wouldn’t do. In fact, they are largely incapable of performing (and thus testing) approximately 25-30% of the newer functions listed in the blueprint for the v3 Voice Lab Exam (Even much more so on the SIP side of phones, but SCCP has quite a few large features as well that can’t be tested without newer model phones) (For only a partial list, take a look at the CUCM SRND pg 819). 30% is an overall huge percentage of things for you to not be able to study and test for, before reaching your actual lab exam. It’s much more than a failing percentage. So it quickly becomes obvious that this is simply an unacceptable amount of testable content for us not to cover. We would be much more than remiss in not providing you with a test platform for such testable topics, we would be dreadfully in violation of our duties to fully prepare you for the CCIE Voice 3.0 Exam. It should be noted that to date (as of this penning), none of the other vendors claiming to teach or develop for the new v3.0 Voice Lab Exam has anything except 7960 phones in their online racks and in their classrooms. We simply don’t understand how they are claiming to prepare people. The simple fact is that they are leaving out this 25-30% in their self-study workbooks and in their classroom instruction.

To that end, we decided upon, and procured long ago, newer 7962 model phones for our classrooms. We decided on 7962′s vs 7961′s simply for the fact that they can perform one additional feature that the 7961 models could not, and could be tested.

All of that brings me to this statement, for all future development IPexpert does, and all future workbooks or labs to be released (including the remainder of Volume 1 next week!!), we will focus all of our labs and testing around the 7962 phone primarily. This allows us as developers to test everything in hardware instead of software, ensuring that 100% like-functionality will occur from our labs and solutions to your actual experience sitting the CCIE Voice Lab Exam.

So the good news is two-fold:

So for item #1: IPBlue now (in this next week actually) supports the 7962 phone type! However, while that is great news, they only supports the SCCP protocol, and from the blueprint we easily see at the top that we will need to know and be able to test both the SCCP and SIP protocols for both the CUCM and CUCME cluster types.

So our layout for the 5 phones that you will need to own either in hardware or in softphone fashion to test our self-study products with are:

• (Qty 1) Cisco 7960 IP Phone (or any other model above a 7960 for that matter) running the SCCP protocol load is needed for your PSTN site. An IPBlue VTGO-Lite softphone will suffice in the case that you don’t have a hardware phone available to you.
• (Qty 1) Cisco 7962 IP Phone running the SIP protocol load is needed for your HQ site Phone 2 (Phone 1 is physically located back at our Proctor Labs Data Center). A Cisco CIPC softphone will suffice in the case that you don’t have a hardware phone available to you.
• (Qty 2) Cisco 7962 IP Phones running the SCCP protocol load are needed for your BR1 site Phone 2, and BR2 site Phone 3 (BR1 Phone 1 and BR2 Phone 1 & 2 are all physically located back at our Proctor Labs Data Center. IPBlue VTGO-Lite softphones will suffice in the case that you don’t have hardware phones available to you.
• (Qty 1) Cisco 7960 IP Phone (or any other model above a 7960 for that matter) running the SIP protocol load is needed for your BR2 site Phone 4. A Couterpath X-Lite softphone will suffice in the case that you don’t have a hardware phone available to you.
• By the way, if you can’t procure hardware 7962 phone models, 7961′s should suffice quite well. The only thing they can’t test is the G722 protocol – which shouldn’t be too big of a problem. They do support all of the other needed features necessary to prepare you for the actual lab exam.

For item #2: Here are simple directions on how you can easily use Cisco Hardware IP Phones with your Cisco Software IPSec VPN Client:

1. When you have a rack session (or if you simply want to test your VPN – you can use our Demo Voice vRack), using your Cisco IPSec VPN Soft Client – connect to Proctor Labs via your wireless network interface, and simply ensure that VPN works properly (that you have it setup properly – btw we give you a PCF file to import when you log into any vRack including the demo vRack), and that you can ping what you should be able to ping.
2. Setup ICS so that your Ethernet shares your WiFi connection. Your WiFi NIC will be the one connected to the internet and thus where your Cisco VPN Client will connect to Proctor Labs through. Your Ethernet will attach either to a 802.3af powered switch which has connected to it all of your hardware phones (all in one VLAN for ease of setup); or else if you don’t have a 802.3af switch then you can connect one of the phones’ “Switch” ethernet ports directly to your laptop/desktop Ethernet port, and then daisy-chain all of the other hardware phones that you have together – making sure that phone 2′s “Switch” port connects to phone 1′s ”PC” port, and so on and so on. These can all be straight-through ethernet cables that you use. Then you will need to power all 5 phones with individual power cubes, bearing in mind that any 7960 phones (PSTN and BR2 Phone 2) only need 6.3W of juice, but that the 7962 phones will need 15.4W, so your power cube size may vary.  (Link to setup ICS on a Mac running 10.5) (Link to setup ICS on Windows Vista) (Link to setup ICS on Windows XP)
3. From the Settings Button: Set all of your phones to Static IP Addressing, making sure that they are all on the same IP Subnet as your Mac/PC Ethernet port is statically set to, set your Default Gateway to the IP Address statically assigned to your Mac/PC Ethernet port, and then statically point TFTP to the following addresses (you do not need to turn on “Alternate TFTP” since that is only when you are running DHCP, and here you are not): Regardless of vRack (Pod) that you rent from Proctor Labs – For the 2 phones (HQ Ph2 & BR1 Ph2) pointed to the CUCM Cluster: TFTP = 10.10.210.10 ; For the 2 phones (BR2 Ph3 & BR2 Ph4) pointed to the CUCME Cluster: TFTP = 10.10.110.3 ; For the 1 phone (7960 PSTN) pointed to the PSTN Cluster: TFTP = 10.10.100.2.

That should be it. When you have your vRack session, and you have connected your Cisco VPN Client to the Proctor Labs vRack, and you have taken care of any necessary infrastructure configuration/troubleshooting steps, as well as phone configuration/MAC address changes/TFTP/CCM Services activated and running – all pointed out to you by your Lab scenario, you will now be able to register those hardware phones to your CUCM, CUCME, and PSTN CUCME respectively – no switch needed!

We hope that this blog post has been informative, and certainly welcome any comments related to either of these two topics!

Cheers,

Mark

OK, the wait is finally over for the upgrade we have been promising.

Before I even get into the main announcement, I thought I should bring something else small to your attention. We just made a large investment in our server farm infrastructure, and have increased server performance by a factor of almost 6 times! For instance, the CUCM CallManager Service Parameter’s web page used to take around 60 seconds to load.

It now takes 10.

Now, I’m really not trying to brag about our new capabilities, but this announcement is really exciting and extremely unmatched, so please be sure you read this thoroughly! ;-)

Quite frankly, after checking out the competitor’s offerings first hand, I can tell you that we are the only CCIE training vendor that can bring you any of the new features that I’m about to announce.

First off, one of our avid OSL_Voice posters, Jonathan Charles, made this comment and proceeded to ask this question over the weekend:

OK, the V3 Lab Blueprint has this statement:

The blueprint is a detailed outline of the topics likely to appear on
the lab exam. This blueprint introduces pre-configurations of basic
tasks (such as phone registration, basic application integration,
basic dial plan, etc.), in order to devote additional focus on expert
level skills (advanced configuration and troubleshooting) assessments.
As usual, knowledge of troubleshooting is an important skill and
candidates are expected to diagnose and solve issues as part of the
CCIE lab exam. The topics listed are guidelines and other relevant or
related topics may also appear.

The statement, “This blueprint introduces pre-configurations of basic
tasks (such as phone registration, basic application integration,
basic dial plan, etc.), in order to devote additional focus on expert
level skills” seems to indicate that the phone will be preconfigured
and registered and the dial plan may already be built…

Am I understanding this correctly?

Yes Jonathan, you are reading that correctly.

So what does it all mean? Well, quite simply put it means that depending on which lab you receive when you sit down to your actual CCIE Voice Lab Exam, you may have some phones that are pre-registered but not necessarily fully configured, you may have some basic app integration (e.g. Presence or UCCX might be integrated, maybe Unity Connections), maybe there is a basic Dial Plan in place (e.g. Basic CSS/PT infrastructure and/or basic Route Patterns configured). But look what is also contained in that statement, and also what follows directly afterward on Cisco’s v3 Blueprint webpage:

..in order to devote additional focus on expert level skills (advanced configuration and troubleshooting)

and then:

… As usual, knowledge of troubleshooting is an important skill and candidates are expected to diagnose and solve issues as part of the CCIE lab exam.

If you take the pre-configuration statement, along with the fact that not only in the above preface on statement about troubleshooting on the Cisco v3 blueprint page, but also the fact that every single one of the 13 sections contain the heading “Implement and Troubleshoot“, I’d say it is fairly clear that Cisco is going to have errors introduced into pre-configuration of your lab exam, before you sit down, that you are going to need to troubleshoot and correct (of course they will point you in a general direction to find the errors, and not simply leave you guessing as to what they are). Well if that is the case, then how are you going to practice those types of troubleshooting skills, if the errors are not already pre-loaded into your practice labs? Same thing with the advanced configurations – how are you going to be able to focus more on the advanced sections, leaving time to still finish your entire lab in a timely 8 hours, if your practice labs don’t already have those pre-configurations in them? I suppose you could put everything in yourself, but that takes a bit of your very valuable (and very limited) practice time, not to mention that, even if someone else wrote the practice lab, if you are forced to introduce the errors into your starting configuration yourself, they are going to be fairly easy to troubleshoot – don’t you think? – and thus not giving you even near adequate preparation for what you will face in the real CCIE Lab Exam.

So all of this, along with our experience in building, maintaining, renting, and getting user feedback and feature requests on our virtual Voice vRacks over the past 4 years is what formed the very impetus behind our long struggle to provide and perfect what we have come to offer on our v3 blueprint Voice vRacks: namely Proctor Labs Load Lab Configs feature.

Proctor Labs vRack: Load Lab Configs

Let’s dive into what is new about this feature. As we have mentioned before, this feature allows us as developers to not only pre-configure all router and switch devices with basic configs and errors for troubleshooting, but also allows us to have all of this pre-configured for you in every server used in any practice lab that we offer. NOTE: This does NOT mean that we have a “wiped clean CUCM server” (as some competitors have told me they are doing and that they think somehow compares to what we are doing – it’s not even close). This means that your CUCM Pub, Sub, CUPS, CUC and UCCX – ALL have DIFFERENT pre-configurations and DIFFERENT specific errors loaded onto them for EACH lab, before you begin said practice lab! So you may be working on a particular Mock Lab, let’s call it Mock Lab A, and maybe there are 5 errors for troubleshooting (few in QoS, few in DialPlan, etc), and some phones and gateways registered. Then later you may be working on, say Mock Lab B, and there are NEW errors pre-configured for you for this lab (maybe a few in CSS/PT, some problems with your GWs registering or sending calls to the PSTN, and maybe some basic CSS/PT/RPs are already there for you to use).

Loading these pre-configurations used to take around an hour for us to do, and admittedly, sometimes there were errors (hey – this is still CUCM, and it’s not exactly perfect in DB functions when hitting it hard in a lab environment). I mention that in case there are those that read this, that used this new feature on our vRacks as early adopters, and decided not to continue using it due to the long wait.

Well the wait is over.

They now load, error free, in under 3 minutes.

That’s everything, servers, routers, switches. New pre-configs, errors, everything, with proper DB replication working on CUCM Pub/Sub. Under 3 minutes.

On top of that – we did away with the “Show Status” button. We thought it too cumbersome to have to go back to another webpage to view the status of your routers and servers loading their basic configs. So we decided to put that status directly next to the device on the main vRack webpage. And of course in the screenshot below note that we offer not only T1/E1 PRI, but also T1/E1 CAS in the PSTN config, as well as the ability to enable SRST Mode for BR1 Router – all with simply the press of a button. One more new thing is that if you click on the Server name or IP Address, servers that should be HTTP’d into will launch a web page to that IP Address, while servers that should be RDP’d into (UCCX) will launch the RDP window.

Proctor Labs vRack: Router and Switch Status

One last thing, we previously mentioned that you were able to use your own hardware phones, not only for all of your practice labs, but also as your PSTN phone. However we limited this to only the Cisco 7960 model.

Limit removed. Use a 7960, 61, 62 or 65 model if you like. Simply choose the model before entering your MAC address and click Submit.

Proctor Labs vRack: PSTN Phone Type and MAC Address

So that’s it!

• 6X faster servers
• New PSTN Phone support
• New status directly on main vRack page
• … and most exciting, Load Lab Configs, that work everytime, in under 3 minutes!
• On all twenty-four of our new v3 Voice vRacks

Don’t you just love technology? Even if you don’t have a rack session at the moment, feel free to login to Proctor Labs using our demo account, and play around with the new features. We’re sure you’ll agree, there is nothing like this anywhere.

Happy labbing folks,

Mark

Many folks have requested the ability to be able to log into the Proctorlabs web UI and interact with a “demo” vRack before they purchase a rack session. It would give them the ability to “test-drive” our acclaimed web UI and easy-to-use controls before they purchase. Well in response to many requests, I have setup such a vRack for access.

Starting out with Voice v3 vRacks, we now have a permanent demo vRack that can be logged into at any time using our standard web UI, giving the viewer complete simulated functionality over what would be an otherwise actual Voice vRack. Being that there is actually no hardware hanging behind this demo vRack – there are a few things that will not show up, such as “status” for any device. Of course you also will not be able to telnet to any router, or log into any CUCM Server or otherwise. However you will get a good feeling for what your actual vRack session will be like when you rent from us – and you will be able to see the changes we have made in terms of features such as “Load Lab Configs” and “PSTN MAC Address and Phone Type” configuration.

One other major benefit from this is the fact that, upon clicking on the right nav-bar controls to go to your vRack session, you will be taken through the Software or Hardware EzVPN setup pages, where you can download an working PCF file (Software VPN) or working Hardware VPN configurations depending on what type of router or ASA you are using to connect to us with. These files will allow you to actually connect to our EzVPN Servers, and ping to ensure that you have the proper configuration prior to your paid vRack session.

It should be noted however, that when you connect to the VPN session, since you are not actually connecting to a live vRack, that you will only be able to ping two IP addresses. This still should give you confidence that your configuration is correct, and that only your VPN Group name (last digit actually) will need to be changed before your next paid vRack session.

The username and password to connect to the Web UI as well as the VPN X-Auth (username and password window that pops up) are as follows:

Login to ProctorLabs
username: voicedemo
password: voicedemo

The only two IP addresses that you will be able to ping are Loopbacks on the two EzVPN Servers and are as follows:

10.10.105.117
10.10.105.217

Hope this makes life easier for a number of folks!

Cheers,
Mark

Lab(s) 5 A/B have now been released and should be in your ipexpert.com “Members Area”. Lab 5 deals with Configuration and Troubleshooting of Advanced Call Routing Policies. This lab is not for the faint of heart! This lab not only covers advanced topics like Local Route Groups and Calling/Called Party Transformation combined with Translation Patterns, but also dives deep into Device Mobility, Unified Mobility (Single Number Reach), and Mobile Voice Access.

Please be sure to read the “pre-requisite” section as we outline some rather important changes to phones – both type and MAC address if you are using the software VPN option – and following the prerequisites will ultimately determine your success or failure when it comes to both performing the lab as well as testing it later.

You will find the Workbook and detailed Proctor Guide (solutions guide) in your “My eBook” section, and the text-based configurations in your “My Configs” section. Along with the router/switch configs, you will also find an updated “All Volume 1 Labs – Tables” PDF with some new information. As well, along with those previous documents, you should find some .reg files to assist you in a much easier setup process if you happen to be using IP Blue for softphone SCCP clients for the changes mentioned above.

We have actually gone back and made a number of changes and some improvements to previous sections as well, and in fact all sections have been updated to some degree or another. So please be sure to download those previous sections as well. Also we have made changes and improvements to the PSTN Dial Plan for Volume 1 – so don’t forget to use the “Load Lab Configs” feature every time you sign onto Proctor Labs – so that you receive the latest PSTN config, as well as the CUCM Servers, etc. For those of you using your own labs at home – please update your PSTN-WAN router files with the latest you download from your ipexpert.com account. (BTW – for Volume 1, whenever we make a change to a PSTN-WAN file – we go back and retroactively make the change for all PSTN-WAN files – so choosing any file is perfectly fine – they should all be the same. Again – only for Volume 1 will this occur).

We have also upgraded few more of our Voice vRacks to the v3 BP standard. Out of our 24 full racks of equipment for CCIE Voice – we now have 16 running the current v2 BP – and 8 running the new v3 BP – plenty for both sets of folks preparing for either version of the lab exam. Our new v3 vRacks aren’t yet at capacity – so have confidence we will have a rack for you when you need one. As soon as they begin coming close to capacity, and as we grow closer to approaching the new lab exam – we will be converting more of them.

Speaking of which – many of you may have seen this – but if not – the official “Go-Live” date for the new CCIE Voice Lab Exam is July 16, 2009.

Lab 6 and 7 are going to be finishing up here shortly, and we are already getting underway with some Multi-Protocol (Mock) Labs – so stay tuned!

IPexpert continues to prove to you, our clients, that we have the largest list of CCIE’s in the world – and it keeps growing.  Keep following the blog to see more of your successful peers’ success stories!  

Congratulations to: 

Jeremy Combs – Voice CCIE # 23890

______________________________

Ioan Branet – R&S CCIE # 23474

Ioan wrote:

I want to inform you that I’ve passed the R&S lab exam on Friday, February 6 on my first attempt.

I used IP Expert BLS VOL1, VOL2 and VOL3.

I used also Rack Rentals from Proctor Labs for the switching part from VOL1 and for VOL3 mock labs (I took labs1-5 for 2 times and 6-10 for one time.)

I started to prepare for the lab on January 2007 and 3 weeks before my lab I prepared 12-13 hours/day (doing labs, reading doc.cd and watching video materials at home without any pressure or disturbance.)

I want to say that IPexpert BLS materials are great and helped me a lot and I consider video materials very helpful.

I couldn’t have made it for the first time without IP Expert materials.

I really appreciate the help and support from Mr. Neil Apolzan.

Thank you,

Ioan Branet

CCIE #23474 (R&S)

______________________________ 

Richard Willetts – R&S CCIE # 23779

Richard said:

I used the IPexpert study material, specifically the R&S workbooks, for my CCIE preparation. I studied for about 8 months before my 1st attempt and passing 7 months later on my 3rd attempt. 

The material provides the building blocks to cement your knowledge of the topics covered in the LAB. Knowing the answer to a question gives you the ability to instantly configure the solution, providing valuable time on the day to test and re-test the solutions you provide. 

I would thoroughly recommend the material for preparation of the CCIE journey.

Richard Willetts 

CCIE #23779 (R&S) 

______________________________ 

Brad Holding – Security CCIE # 20684

Brad commented:

I’d like to let you know that I passed my Security lab on the first attempt in Sydney on Wednesday (my second CCIE). Your training materials were great and I especially liked the detailed explanations in the proctor guides. I’d also like to mention the top quality service I received from your sales and support staff (Ryan and Drew). These guys responded quickly and resolved a couple of issues I had with some rack rentals and config. access. Thanks a heap.

I’m going to make a start on the Voice track soon and you guys will be my first port of call for training material.

Cheers! 

Brad Holding

CCIE # 20684 (Security, R&S)

______________________________

Have you used IPexpert or Proctor Labs to help you pass the CCIE lab exam?  If so, we want to hear your story, please email us at success@ipexpert.com

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