CCNA Home Lab: Survival Guide

I never thought building a well-balanced home lab would be so challenging. Sure, anybody can buy a 2500 router and have at it, but to put together multiple routers and switches for CCNA and have a starter lab for CCNP is more work than I thought.

So this blog will be about my practical, ongoing experiences in trying to build this lab and is geared towards arming you, the aspiring CCNA, with practical information about facing the challenges of doing so. Just FYI, I began my self-study for the 640-802 exam about 3 weeks ago (June 1 2008) so I'm just getting started as well, but have already learned that a lot of the issues I'll mention here are not addressed anywhere in a single place that I could find.

NOTE: I had tried the popular router simulators but found them to be too limited for one reason or other, so decided not to use them. I should also mention that I hadn't tried Dynamips/GNS3 for reasons I'll mention here a little later.

Also before I get started, I want to mention that eleven days ago, I happened across Wendell Odom's 9-part blog mini-series on building a home lab for CCNA study and I must say it was a lifesaver in many respects. I had spent two days prior, sifting through forums all over the Internet and one consistent thing I had found was that everybody has a different opinion about what makes a good lab, and since few seem to give the same advice, it was tough for a person like me with no Cisco hardware knowledge to believe one over the other. So again, Wendell's series was a lifesaver and I read it over twice, bookmarking it as well, just to make sure I knew what I was doing. In fact I would consider it a pre-requisite to what I'm about to write.

I got started on my shopping efforts, but quickly ran into a lot of hurdles that hadn't been addressed even in the 9 part series!

So I'll share those with you now.

The lab design I had settled on was to be the following:

3 x 3640 routers
2 x 2950 switches
2 Serial interfaces per router
2 Ethernet (ideally Fast Ethernet) interfaces per router
Budget Limit: $1000 (remember, this was to be a starter lab for CCNP as well).
- depending on pricing I might find on Ebay, I was prepared to swap in a lower-end router or switch, as long as I had at least one 3640 and one 2950.

I should also mention that I had never shopped on Ebay before.

#1 - Be Prepared to Read 100's of Offerings
I basically saved searches for "Cisco 2950", "Cisco 3640", and went through all of them that weren't crazy expensive. One thing you'll find is that some sellers have no concept of pricing - one will have a router for $50, whereas another will have the same unit for $300. But the real trick is to cross-check what's included with that router in the way of add-on modules, cables, whether they give you a warranty (not Cisco's warranty, but their own) etc. So if an item's current price is below or around what you'd be willing to pay for that unit, read it's full description details and see if it is worth a shot. Then, use the Watch This Item feature and monitor it until you're ready to bid.

#2 - Network Modules & WAN Interface Cards
You will need to spend some time at Cisco.com reading about these, as having a good understanding of what's included in an Ebay sale helps you know when you're getting a good deal for the price of that unit. For example, buying a 3640 for $150 with no NM's installed is very pricey because you can often find the same router but with a NM-1E2W with say, two WIC-1T's for maybe the same price or a bit more, on average.
The chipset of the 3640 router supports a lot of technologies required for CCNA/CCNP (I hear it supports them all, but don't quote me on that part), but you still need to install Network Modules (NM's) to get it to connect to another switch or router as it has no "fixed configuration ports" (ports that are built into the chassis). There are 4 NM slots on the 3640, but for CCNA you won't need to fill all of them up. So, the point of #2 here is to tell you go to read up on NM's and WIC's. My suggestion is to search at cisco.com on each of "WIC-1T", "WIC-2T", "NM-1FE-TX", "NM-1E2W", "NM-1FE2W", "Cisco 3640", and "Cisco 2950", and let your curiosity take you from there.

#3 - Make sure the 3640 has 128D/32F
Many sellsers on Ebay ship this router with less dram memory and flash memory than the maximum needed to fully support all technologies covered by the exam, but they'll price the router around the same as one that is fully "maxed". From everything I've gathered regarding this router, you need 128MB of DRAM (128D) and 32MB of Flash memory (32F) to support everything such as IPv6 testing and what not. You can still buy the memory seperately, but you almost always find a better deal when you get the router with the max memory already installed.

#4 - Ethernet or FastEthernet?
At first, before seeing the prices extensively on Ebay, I had thought I'd just buy devices that had all Fast Ethernet (FE) interfaces so I could interconnect my home PC's and have a decent ability to copy large files between them etc - after all, Gigabit speeds are still kind of expensive on a router I thought. But it seemed most of the used router market didn't have FE ports, or when they did, they were a lot more expensive for my limited budget. So that took me down a notch, realizing that a Cisco home lab isn't necessarily a great platform for your home networking unless of course you're ok with 10Mbps. So you have to come to accept that buying routers with FE interfaces is more expensive. Keep in mind, switches with FE interfaces are the norm, so that's ok there, it's the routers I'm talking about. Now, having said that, apparently you cannot do 802.1q trunking (aka inter-VLAN routing) on anything less than FE interfaces. I don't yet know why but I've seen this several times in Cisco documentation at cisco.com and mentioned by Wendell as well. So, perhaps having one router with 2 FE's and then putting a switch on each FE will allow you to test this specific thing, then you can revert your lab back to the multiple router layout again for testing other stuff. Or, just buy FE's on all routers. On this, you'll have to find your balance. For my part, I'm desperately trying to find sellers that include FE's but haven't thought to raise the price too much.

#5 - Ebay Bid Wars - UGH.
I've come to learn that a lot of people out there know how to spot a great deal on a sale and will fight you for it, big time. My first (and so far only) successful bid on a 3640 came for a unit that started off at $55 and included 1 x NM-1E2W and 2 x WIC-1T's. I placed a bid at $56, went to bed, and woke up to find that I had been outbid. And with about an hour left to the auction, I decided I'd wait until 5 minutes before the end to put in my bid and snatch it up at the last second. Remember, this was my first time on Ebay so I had no idea people were so hawk-like in their hunting. So, I put in another dollar and yay, I was the highest bidder. Just to be sure though, I kept refreshing the timer so I knew when the bid would finish. And whoa, 55 seconds to go and he/she bid again! With an elevated heartrate, I went through the motions of putting another dollar on that bid, then immediately got an outbid message! I later learned this was due to the "Maximum Bid feature, which I didn't know about. So with probably 45 seconds left, I kept incrementing the bid until I had $66 entered and I won the item, likely with only 2 to 3 seconds to spare. Since then I've gotten trounced on a few other tries and am currently attempting at another 3640 with some stuff installed.

#6 - IOS Versions
Wendell's blogs mention how the software is your responsibility, but doesn't really go into much detail which is understandable. Soon after, I learned that you have to be tight with Cisco to even get access to download an updated IOS (as in, be a CCIE, or have a Smartnet contract). So be on the lookout for what version of the IOS is installed on the router you're shopping for, if possible. A lot of sellers are quantity sellers and won't go through the trouble of booting the router to the CLI and getting the IOS version # for you. They just do a power-on "yep the lights turn on" test which doesn't help much. You want 12.4 on your routers to have full support for all the features covered by CCNA but that's with the 3640. Some routers (like the 2600 non-XM versions) don't go up to 12.4, so I'm not sure what you'd be missing out on but those much more knowledgeable than I say you can still get by with them.

Switches use a slightly different version of an IOS but from what I can gather, it's not as much a concern and unfortunately I know little more than that on switches. But you'll notice that nobody fusses about posting IOS versions for switches on Ebay as long as you pick the 2950 (or 3550).

Lastly on the subject of IOS's - the reason I choose not to use Dynamips/GNS3, is that apparently it requires you to have real copies of the IOS to load into it, thus only those who can obtain IOS's can use it.

#7 - Catalyst 3550 Switch vs. 2950's
Originally, the 2950 was my target unit. Then I came to realize there are a variety of submodels to pick from, and knowing their differences is key towards interpreting pricing variances. So, reading up at Cisco.com is all the more important. You have 12, 24, and 48 port versions, ones with GBIC slots, ones with fixed ports for 100Base-FX fiber and 1000BaseT copper, etc. And you have to choose from the Standard Image (SI) and the Enhanced Image (EI). Get the EI when possible but for CCNA, SI is fine as well though I don't know if it has the feature-set for CCNP or not. But you can always justify adding more switches later if you pass your CCNA since you'll be moving to another level at that point.

One switch I hadn't thought to look at but occasionally have seen for the same starting bid prices as 2950's, is the 3550. The 3550 switch is the next level up from a 2950, and it supports Layer 3 switching - not something you need for CCNA but definitely for CCNP, so if you can get it now, do so. Again though, you run into the SI vs. EI thing, but the 3550 can be upgraded to an EI image, that is, if you have access to obtain IOS's from Cisco.

#8 - Serial Cables
It seems that in order to test Frame Relay, you need two serial interfaces per router and you would link them all together so you have a loop all around your routers. I'm not far enough along in my studies yet to know how this works, or why it is some people say it's good to get a 2520 router that has 4 serial interfaces (why 4?, I have no idea), but you will get the job done at 2 per router. My experience has been not so great in this area - finding serial-capable NM's and/or WIC's isn't hard, but finding "back to back" (aka crossover) serial cables that join a Smart Serial interface (that the WIC-2T uses) to a DB60 (used by WIC-1T and other serial cards/modules) is almost impossible on Ebay. Well, somebody out of Hong Kong has lots of them, but they're not genuine Cisco and well, shipping from Hong Kong is as much as the cable. I've also had a really hard time finding a Cisco part # for such a cable. The format should be CAB-SS-something but oddly, the only ones I can find are the ones that go from a Smart Serial to an actual serial network interface such as EIA/TIA-232, 449, 530, X.21, V.35 etc, but nothing for the back to back (crossover) cable for linking two routers. The battle continues on that one unfortunately, so be prepared to deal with that in your shopping. Or, just query one of the stores that stock items and be prepared to pay their usually higher costs for these.

So, to date I've assembled the following:

1 x 3660 with max mem/flash, two built-in FE's, one fiber FE port, and 2 x NM-1E2W
1 x 3640 shipping to me - no idea about the memory but comes with 1 x NM-1E2W, and two WIC-1T's
2 x 2610 routers (standard config), one of them has a WIC2T in it
1 x 2950G switch

I've purchased 128MB ram for the 3640 seperately as I was I wasn't sure about the memory count in the one I ordered (plus, it'll double as upgrade insurance or parts replacement later on).

Total $ spent so far: $651

The 3660, 2950G and 2610's were a $500 local purchase so I did cheat just a bit and on Ebay would have paid much more. I went with the 3660 in this case as obtaining a 3640 with that many FE + other interfaces would have been more expensive.

Well, if you've read this far then you must need this info and so I hope I've been of some assistance. Please post your comments/corrections and any feedback on how I can build a lab better, that would be much appreciated.