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Latest articles in ‘Cisco’

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   • lab
   • networking
   • cisco
   • gns3

   How to install Cisco Secure Access Control System (ACS) server in GNS3

   Cisco Secure Access Control System (ACS or CSACS) server is Cisco’s Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) server, allowing to centralize network devices users permissions and auditing.

   It supports TACACS+ (Cisco proprietary) and RADIUS (open standard, usable with non-Cisco devices) protocols. It has its own users store, which is useful for lab tests, but in real life it will most likely be connected to a Microsoft Active Directory server to centralize users credential management.

   Note

   ACS is in the process of being replaced by its successor Identity Service Engine (ISE).

   For some time, the two products were to be used together, with ACS handling authentication and authorization while ISE was focusing on hosts policy-compliance checking.

   For CCNA-Security students, as for now only ACS is really covered by the curriculum. ISE is just mentioned from time to time so you know what it is and why it is used.

   Evaluation …

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    • career
    • certification
    • networking
    • cisco

    Cisco CCNA Routing & Switching certification review

    The five Ws

    • What: CCNA Routing & Switching is a technical certification about enterprise-grade IT networking from Cisco. It covers the involved devices, protocols and how to implement them using Cisco technologies.

    • When: This is an entry-level certification with no prerequisite.

    • Why: This certification demonstrate a good level of familiarity with enterprise networks and Cisco’s IOS-based devices.

      It is a de-facto standard in terms of IT networking certification, valuable even for employers using different technologies than Cisco, and is also a prerequisite for several other Cisco certifications.

      Note

      Note that Cisco certifications may not have the actual CCNA R&S certification as a prerequisite, but the CCENT instead which is half of the CCNA R&S.

      If you are interested in networking (and I expect you are when you intend to pass a Cisco exam) I warmly encourage you to pass the full CCNA R&S certification instead of …

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    • lab
    • networking
    • cisco
    • gns3
    • virtualization

    How to add Cisco IOS-based devices in GNS3

    GNS3 historical use-case was to act as a GUI around Dynamips to emulate Cisco devices. However, while stable, this emulation may not be as straightforward as it could be and has some limitations.

    To understand the negatives, we first need to understand how IOS-based Cisco hardware work.

    How real gear works

    Professional switch and router devices cannot be reduced to a general purpose small-factor computer with a few additional network interfaces.

    When using a general purpose computer with classical network adapters to build a router/firewall appliance, all the processing occurs at the software level, generally the operating system kernel.

    On specialized hardware such as Cisco switches and routers, the operating system (here IOS) works tightly with some underlying specific (and usually proprietary) hardware and delegates parts or all of the processing to dedicated chips, the Application Specific Integrated Circuits or ASICs, to allow faster processing.

    On general-purpose computers …

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