AppendixC.Troubleshooting Tips

Appendix C. Troubleshooting Tips

The original two-day CCIE lab had a "Troubleshooting" section where a host of faults were introduced into your network and you had two hours to rectify them. This final section of the exam was where most candidates failed and missed out on their numberit was extremely tough. The new one-day format, as you should be aware, does not have this "Troubleshooting" section. You might think this is excellent news, but you have to realize that you only have eight hours to perform your configuration. You cannot afford to spend any time troubleshooting problems you cause yourself through invalid configuration or by a landmine question breaking earlier configuration.

This appendix provides some tips you can use to verify what probably caused your network to stop receiving routing updates, why you are not able to ping a specific router, or even why everything was working before and suddenly not anymore.

As stated in earlier chapters, the proctors will make sure there are no problems with the backbone, ISDN switch, or physical problems on the routers and switches in your rack, but any problem concerning your configuration is your own responsibility to rectify. So, that is the intention of this appendix. It is not a troubleshooting course; instead, it is quick reference about the most common problems you may find during your lab exam.

The best approach is to avoid getting trapped in problems by reading the session questions to get the big picture and identify landmines before you begin typing commands. One of the most common error-introducing problems are typos.