PhoneView is the hottest IP telephone remote control and estate management tool on the market today. Currently managing CISCO sites of up to 30,000 phones and proven in global enterprise environments, it is a vital tool for IP telephony management functions, professionals and students.

This special lab edition of the PhoneView application is specifically designed for (but not restricted to) students preparing for the CCIE Voice lab exam.

Candidates studying for the CCIE Voice that do not own their own hardware have historically used Proctor Labs rack rental sessions to gain the hands-on experience necessary to adequately prepare for the grueling CCIE Voice lab exam.

More than 500 engineers who have cleared the CCIE Voice exam have prepared in this way with Proctor Labs.

Typically candidates use physical phones that connect to the remote racks via EzVPN through a supported router. The PhoneView application will enhance the end user experience since the Cisco 7962 and 7960 phones that are located in the Proctor Labs racks can be remotely controlled via the PhoneView application. This can either reduce (or potentially eliminate) the need for customers to invest in the out of date 79XX phones that are required to study for the lab.

A single instance of PhoneView software can be used to manage multiple phones connected to multiple clusters. Multiple instances of software and/or multiple windows/tabs are not necessary each time one wishes to remotely manage a new device. This makes the PhoneView software much more scalable and usable to solve real world problems. Proctor Labs customers will be able to see all of their CUCM and CUCME devices (both SIP and SCCP also applicable for SRST) in a single window. Currently users are not able to hear the audio when calling into applications such as Voicemail or Contact Center but this capability is just around the corner!

The ability to create macro’s to perform certain keystrokes is a great time saving tool and will make your testing of certain services / features much more efficient. For example the user can create a macro to enter the Received Calls Log of one of the 7962 phones housed in Proctor Labs, for example, to check for the globalized / + number). Therefore this can be done with one command as opposed to having to press directories, wait for refresh, scroll down to received calls, wait for refresh, select received calls and wait for another refresh.

The application can be used to control phones connected to all versions of CUCM including the most recent version (CUCM 8.5) as well as all versions of CUCME. PhoneView also supports all of the latest IP Phone models such as the 69xx, 89xx & 99xx range and is compatible with Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.

For a brief demo video on how you can use Phoneview in the Proctor Labs environment please click here: https://proctorlabs.com/swf/demo/PLDemo.html

To get your free full function lab copy of PhoneView go to:

http://www.unifiedfx.com/IPExpert

Vik Malhi – CCIE #13890
Managing Partner / Instructor – IPexpert, Inc.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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!

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I want to take a brief moment and describe to you the new format of both of these Tracks’ Workbooks. In fact it will be a very brief moment since little description is necessary, and common sense kicks in that this, of course, is the most logical way to do it. We re-arranged our chapters quite a bit from the old format. Basically it boils down to the fact that we now have one chapter (called labs of course) for every section that Cisco has in that track’s blueprint. So since the Security 3.0 Blueprint has 8 sections to it – so does our Security Volume 1 Workbook. Since the Voice 3.0 Blueprint has 13 sections to it – so does our Voice Volume 1 Workbook. This accomplishes a number of things. One is that you know that everything in the blueprint is covered in our workbook, merely by taking a look at the table of contents structure. Two it gives CCIE candidates a great way to go back and quickly identify, then proceed to study in remediation, any specific section that you may have, God forbid, actually gotten less than say around 80% when you sat the actual Lab Exam last. The third, and I personally think maybe the most important, is it gives us the ability to break each section out, not just by configuration techniques for every technology listed, but also by troubleshooting techniques for every technology. You see, if you happened to be fortunate enough to go to Cisco Live: Networkers last year in Orlando, then surely you heard some of the various Proctors and Content Managers talking quite a bit about troubleshooting and that while it had only been a small part of the lab previous to that time, how moving forward with the advent of the new blueprints it would become a much heavier focused on and tested topic. This makes good sense seeing that we have all heard of a few (not many, but a few) candidates out there who managed to learn the commands to configure everything and pass the lab, but didn’t have a thorough enough understanding of the technology to apply it in the real world. It also helps to cut down on the possibility of the previously mentioned candidates succeeding if they had been in fact cheating by possibly memorizing any of the actual test questions. In this fashion (as in the real world) the candidate has to really know well the technology to be able to not only configure it, but also troubleshoot problems that could have been introduced by the Proctor before the candidate sat down to take the actual lab exam (Bear in mind that I am not at all suggesting that the proctors might be causing problems during your lab exam, only that there will be existing erroneous configurations introduced before you sit down to the exam, and that you would most likely be given some general technology to expect to see them appear in). So that being said – both tracks of our new workbooks have every Lab section broken down into two sub-sections, A and B to reflect configuration and troubleshooting respectively.

So the Table of Contents for Voice looks like this:

• Section 1A: Implement Campus Infrastructure and Services
• Section 1B: Troubleshoot Campus Infrastructure and Services
• Section 2A: Implement CUCM Endpoints (SIP and SCCP)
• Section 2B: Troubleshoot CUCM Endpoints (SIP and SCCP)
• Section 3A: Implement CUCME Endpoints (SIP and SCCP)
• Section 3B: Troubleshoot CUCME Endpoints (SIP and SCCP)
• Section 4A: Implement Voice Gateways
• Section 4B: Troubleshoot Voice Gateways
• Section 5A: Implement Call Routing Policies
• Section 5B: Troubleshoot Call Routing Policies
• Section 6A: Implement High Availability Features
• Section 6B: Troubleshoot High Availability Features
• Section 7A: Implement Media Resources
• Section 7B: Troubleshoot Media Resources
• Section 8A: Implement Supplementary Services
• Section 8B: Troubleshoot Supplementary Services
• Section 9A: Implement Other CUCM Voice Applications
• Section 9B: Troubleshoot Other CUCM Voice Applications
• Section 10A: Implement QoS and CAC
• Section 10B: Troubleshoot QoS and CAC
• Section 11A: Implement Messaging
• Section 11B: Troubleshoot Messaging
• Section 12A: Implement Cisco Unified Contact Center Express
• Section 12B: Troubleshoot Cisco Unified Contact Center Express
• Section 13A: Implement Cisco Unified Presence
• Section 13B: Troubleshoot Cisco Unified Presence

And the Table of Contents for Security looks like this:

• Lab 1A: Implement secure networks using Cisco ASA Firewalls
• Lab 1B: Troubleshoot secure networks using Cisco ASA Firewalls
• Lab 2A: Implement secure networks using Cisco IOS Firewalls
• Lab 2B: Troubleshoot secure networks using Cisco IOS Firewalls
• Lab 3A: Implement secure networks using Cisco VPN solutions
• Lab 3B: Troubleshoot secure networks using Cisco VPN solutions
• Lab 4A: Configure Cisco IPS to mitigate network threats
• Lab 4B: Troubleshoot Cisco IPS to mitigate network threats
• Lab 5A: Implement Identity Management
• Lab 5B: Troubleshoot Identity Management
• Lab 6A: Implement Control Plane and Management Plane Security
• Lab 6B: Troubleshoot Control Plane and Management Plane Security
• Lab 7A: Configure Advanced Security
• Lab 7B: Troubleshoot Advanced Security
• Lab 8A: Identify and Mitigate Network Attacks
• Lab 8B: Troubleshoot Network Attacks

So now that we have talked about the workbook materials, lets move to talking about the latest changes we made to ProctorLabs vRacks for both Security and Voice new v3 blueprint. Most of the new features we have already covered in previous posts, but I will briefly recap:

• The ability to with a single button, load up all of the initial configs necessary for any given workbook volume and lab, without having to open any text files, copy or paste anything in a router or switch. Oh – did I mention that this covers ALL of your servers as well? So for Security – the ACS server DB will be restored, and for Voice – the CUCM-Pub, CUCM-Sub, CUPS, and UC DB will be restored to where we the developers wish them to be for any given tech-focused or even multi-protocol lab. This will help you a great deal with pre-existing troubleshooting configs. In fact I don’t know how we could do without it now that troubleshooting is such a big part of the exam.
• The ability to go ahead and work on your rack devices and later go back and check your DB restoration status.
• The ability to clear any terminal server line or clear all lines
• The ability to revert your entire pod back to a blank default status (great for those of you who might wish to rent back-to-back sessions for a power study weekend – but need to revert everything and load new configs for a new lab without calling tech-support.
• For Voice: The ability to input your own MAC address for your own PSTN phone (be it software or hardware – no difference).
• The ability to Start, Stop, Revert your VMWare Guest servers back to a snapshot (if you only want to clear the config on one server perhaps).
• For Voice: New clients for a total of 3 supported software clients for your SCCP and SIP devices connecting to CUCM and CUCME.
• For Voice: The ability dynamically change your PSTN simulator (router) for E1-R2 or E1-PRI
• For Voice: The ability dynamically change your PSTN’s dialplan so that before your lab, you have studied with a varied view of dialplans – and don’t just have one specific one stuck in your head. This will be dynamically loaded based on the lab you choose when doing a “Load Lab Configs”.
• And of course as always the ability to control the power to your devices

But enough of the talk of what’s new – we’d rather show you what’s new.  This is an in-depth look (and by in-depth I mean a ~40 minute runtime video – HD of course), at not only what’s new – but also how to use it. It covers both Voice and Security, and also for Voice walks you though how to correctly setup the IPBlue client so that it works for both signaling, and maybe more importantly, RTP streams going to the proper instance of the client, and is quickly deployed every future time you open it. In case you didn’t happen to catch any of those links, then CLICK HERE. ;-)

As for what’s up next? Well we have developers continuing to press forward writing new chapters for both the new Voice and Security workbooks, as well as working on the new class material for our ILT and OWLE courses. Since some of you have been asking about what that order looks like – here is the order we have been and will continue working on things in for both tracks:

• Workbook and Proctor Guide Volume 1 (Voice, Security)
• ILT Courseware (Voice, Security)
• Workbook and Proctor Guide Volume 2 (Voice, Security)
• Lab Mentoring Kit (Voice, Security)
• Video/Audio on Demand (Voice, Security)
• Newer, Bigger, Better Somethings ???

As always, the moment they are ready for press, we will upload them to your IPexpert.com Members area, and now also upload all of the new Initial and Final configs for your ProctorLabs “Load Lab Configs” section as well.

And of course – this will always be the first place you will find out about it – so I’d pull an RSS feed to your reader of choice if I were you! As well many times great questions get asked and unclear topics get cleaned up by us in the comments section – so you may want to pull an RSS feed to the comments as well. If you just want info on Voice, for example, but not necessarily on other tracks, you can get more specific on the feed by simply clicking on any category on the right of the page and adding “/feed” to the end of the URI in the address bar. For instance here is just Voice posts, and here is just Security posts.

Happy CCIE Labbing folks!

-Mark

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I would like to post a compilation of FAQ files that pertain to common questions asked by customers utilizing the CCIE Voice Proctor Labs vRacks. I’ll follow up with FAQ for the Security, R&S and SP racks as well…

CCIE VOICE Racks FAQ

I cannot connect to CCM/Unity!

There are a couple things to check when you are unable to connect to Callmanager or Unity:

1. Make sure you have a vpn connection to Proctor Labs and that you are using the proper vpn group policy for your vRack.  If you are able to ping CCM/Unity but cannot connect via RDP, this usually means you’ve connected with the incorrect group policy for your vRack.
2. Be sure that you have made the appropriate configurations on the Catalyst 6500 before attempting to reach CallManager or Unity.  All the required information for the proper vlans and ports can be located here.

How do I set up a VPN connection to Proctor Labs?

To connect to your Voice vRack, you must first install the Cisco VPN Client.

Follow the steps below to configure your VPN Client:

1. Open the Cisco VPN Client
2. Create a VPN Connection
3. Set the “Host” to vpn.proctorlabs.com
4. Enter in the group policy credentials for the connection, depending on which pod you are onGroup Authenticationfor POD11 name: vpodg1for POD12 name: vpodg2for POD13 name: vpodg3for POD14 name: vpodg4for POD15 name: vpodg5

   for POD16 name: vpodg6

   for POD18 name: vpodg8

   for POD19 name: vpodg9

   for POD20 name: vpodg20

   for POD21 name: vpodg21

   for POD22 name: vpodg22

   for POD23 name: vpodg23

   for POD24 name: vpodg24

   for POD25 name: vpodg25

   for POD26 name: vpodg26

   for POD27 name: vpodg27

   for POD28 name: vpodg28

   for POD29 name: vpodg29

   for POD30 name: vpodg30

   for POD31 name: vpodg31

   for POD32 name: vpodg32

   for POD33 name: vpodg33

   for POD34 name: vpodg34

   for POD35 name: vpodg35

   Password: proctorvoice

5. Click Save to create the connection.
6. Select your Proctor Labs connection and press “Connect”
7. You will next be prompted for a username and password. Use your Proctor Labs username/Password

You willl also note that a PCF file of each vrack for the Cisco VPN client is presented to you before you reach the session page.

I cannot obtain a VPN connection to Proctor Labs!

If you have had no luck obtaining a VPN connection after double-checking the settings on your client software, please review the following items to help correct the problem:

1. Ensure that you are not behind a firewall that would prohibit you from obtaining a valid VPN connection to Proctor Labs.  This includes firewalls found in Windows, Norton, and certain security settings on home and commercial routers/firewalls.  If you are behind a firewall, you will not be able to obtain a VPN connection, thus losing the ability to RDP to CCM/Unity and reaching the catalyst 6500.
2. Try toggling the transparent toggling option on your Proctor Labs VPN connection:
   1. Disconnect for your VPN connection
   2. Ensure you are using the correct VPN account for your POD
   3. Select the VPN Connection for your POD and click “Modify”
   4. Select the “Transport” tab.
   5. If you are behind a NAT router or a Firewall, Such as a Linksys or Netgear Cable/DSL Router, you may need to “Enable transparent Tunneling”. Also, ensure the option “IPSec over UDP (NAT / PAT)” is selected
   6. If Enable Transparent Tunneling is checked and you are having issues, uncheck the option and try reconnecting

I cannot log in to the AIM-CUE because of a username/password!

If you are unable to gain access to the CUE on your pod due to an unknown username/password, please issue the following commands from the BR2 router:

Step 1: PX-BR2-RTR# config t [Enter]

Step 2: PX-BR2-RTR(config)# int service-engine 0/0 [Enter]

Step 3: PX-BR2-RTR(config-if)# no aaa new [Enter]

I can no longer reach a router or switch on my vrack

If you are unable to reach a device on your vRack, here are a couple things to check for:

1. Power-cycle the device via the web GUI.  A simple reboot solves more problems that you can imagine!
2. If you are unable to connect to a device you were once able to, try clearing the line!  You’ll find that the Proctor Labs web GUI has a clear line link integrated for this purpose, or you can always do it the old fashioned way by issuing the following commands of the terminal server for your vRack:

HQ-RTR:        clear line 2

BR1:                clear line 4

BR2:                clear line 5

BR2-3550:      clear line 6

I would like to clear the configurations on my vRack and restore the initial configurations

Please read the following items if you wish to revert/clear out device/server configurations:

1. Each router and switch on your vrack should have a reload button next to it on the Web GUI host table.  This reload button clears out the configurations made and enters in the original “clean-config” that comes preloaded at the beginning of each voice vrack session.  The reload button takes around 3-5 minutes to complete.  If you would like to do this the old fashioned way, enter in the following on the device you wish to reload:
   Device-prompt# erase start

   Device-prompt# reload

   (if prompted to save configurations, press “n” on your keyboard)

   Device-prompt# copy clean-config start

   Device-prompt# reload

   After the router or switch finishes booting, it will be back to it’s initial configuration!

2. If you would wish to reset the Callmanager and/or Unity server to default configurations, you’ll notice there is a revert button on your vrack’s Web GUI!  This will take approx. 10-15 mins to complete – please be patient!
3. If you are unable to reload your devices to a clean configuration with the previous solutions, please be sure to contact Proctor Labs support!

I’m having issues with IPBlue/softphone software

Proctor Labs does NOT support the IPBlue software, nor do we support any softphone programs, for that matter.  All questions or issues regarding softphone applications should be directed to the program’s vendor or posted on our forums; Certification Talk or Online Study List.

Were can I obtain the Cisco VPN Client software?

We are unable to distribute the VPN client software. However, it is easily obtainable after you register for your Cisco CCO (http://www.cisco.com).  We recommend version 4.7 and up.

What username and password do I use on the Catalyst 6500?

The following credentials allow you to access the 6500, no matter which vRack you are assigned:

Username: ipexpert

Password: ipexpert

What’s the enable password for my router?

There has been a recent increase in the number of customers using non-standard enable passwords during their sessions. In order for our reload scripts to run on the switches, they need to guess these passwords. If they can’t guess the password, the reload script does not run. If the reload script does not run on a switch, we are unable to recover the device remotely.

If you need to set any passwords during your session, please use one of the following:

• ipexpert
• ccie
• cisco
• ip?expert

How do I perform a password recovery on a router?

Step 1: Power-cycle the router (via your power management GUI on yoru session’s page)

Step 2: During the post, send a break signal (press ctrl-shift-6 B) to boot into rommon mode

Step 3: At the rommon prompt type in:

confreg 0×2142 [enter]

reset     [enter]

Step 4: Let the router boot as normal.  When you get to the router> prompt:

enable [enter]

erase start [enter]

config t [enter]

config-reg 0×2102 [enter]

end [enter]

reload [enter]

(when prompted to save your configurations, hit the “n” key)

Step 5: When the router boots up, you’ll have a clean configuration!

Note: Performing a password recovery doesn’t really “recover” as much as wipe out the existing config.  If you wish to save the config, or obtain the enable password, simply enter enable mode before going to step 4 and do a “show start”.

I give up! How do I contact Proctor Labs for support?

During our normal office hours, Monday-Friday, 8:00am – 12:30am EST (-5:00), technical support is available via our Live Chat application.  This is, by far, the BEST and most prompt method to contact support.

If you find that you need to reach a Proctor Labs support representative concerning any connectivity issues after our office hours (and on weekends), use the After-Hours Support system.  Simply locate the After-Hours Support link on your session’s page under “Technical Support”. When you send your issue this way, a support technician will be paged to be alerted to your issue.  (This link will only become available during active sessions.)

I have booked two or more consecutive sessions and I would like them on the same vRack.

Sessions are linked together automatically by our scheduling system.  Sessions are usually not linked until immediately before or during the first session.  If you wish to schedule a next-consecutive session to one that’s already in progress, we ask that you book the second session at least 1 hour before its scheduled start time. This will ensure us enough time to disable the revert scripts from running during your rack session.

I’m currently in a session and would like to book another session immediately after this one on the same vRack. I don’t want the scripts to blow away my configurations.  What can I do?

Contact support ASAP! Due to the nature of the reload scripts, we need to link the sessions 45 minutes or more before the next session starts to ensure the scripts do not run.  Keep in mind that we cannot guarantee the linking of your session if you schedule with less than an hour to go until the following session starts.

I didn’t have a clean configuration when my session began – what gives?

Please ensure you book your session at least 45 minutes before the scheduled start time.  Our scripts need this amount of time to update and clear out the vRack on which your session is scheduled on.  If this happens to you, feel free to follow the steps listed in this blog post to clear out any configurations that may be present or contact support for any assistance in clearing out the vRack.

What is the Username/Password for IPCC?

Case-sensitive…

• Username: Administrator
• Password: ciscocisco

I hope you will find this FAQ to be helpful in your future CCIE Voice rack sessions!

Stay tuned for FAQ posts for the Security, R&S and SP racks.

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