A Cisco Router Lab is a hands-on practice environment for learning, configuring, and troubleshooting Cisco networks from the foundational CCNA level all the way to the expert CCIE level.
This hands-on lab configures 802.1X on a switch port requiring RADIUS-based authentication before granting network access, verifying an unauthenticated device is blocked while a properly authenticated device is granted access to the assigned VLAN.
This hands-on lab configures MAC Authentication Bypass as a fallback authentication method on an 802.1X-enabled port, allowing a device incapable of 802.1X (such as a printer) to still gain network access based on its MAC address after the 802.1X exchange times out.
This hands-on lab extends the basic single-hub DMVPN topology from an earlier lab to two spokes, configuring Phase 3 settings that allow direct spoke-to-spoke tunnels to form dynamically rather than forcing all inter-spoke traffic through the hub.
This hands-on lab extends the Phase 3 DMVPN topology from the previous lab with a second hub, configuring each spoke to register with both hubs simultaneously and verifying automatic failover when the primary hub becomes unreachable.
This hands-on lab configures an EEM applet that automatically detects an interface flapping and executes a corrective action, demonstrating how IOS itself can respond to specific events without external monitoring software or manual intervention.
This hands-on lab enables NETCONF on a router and uses it from a management station to retrieve interface configuration as structured XML data, demonstrating the model-driven programmability approach that complements traditional CLI-based management.
This hands-on lab enables RESTCONF on a router and interacts with it using standard HTTP methods (GET, PATCH) to read and modify interface configuration, contrasting its familiar REST-based approach against the SSH-based NETCONF session covered in the previous lab.
This hands-on lab configures a router to stream interface statistics continuously to a collector using model-driven telemetry, contrasting this push-based approach against the pull-based polling every prior monitoring method in this series relied upon.
This hands-on lab configures a DHCP server to point a factory-default router toward a bootstrap configuration file, verifying the device automatically downloads and applies its full configuration on first boot without any manual CLI interaction.
This hands-on lab enables the Guestshell container on a router, installs a Python package inside it, and runs a simple script that reads live interface data from the IOS CLI, demonstrating on-box programmability distinct from the external NETCONF/RESTCONF automation covered in earlier labs.
This hands-on lab writes a simple Ansible playbook from a control node to configure a banner and verify connectivity across two routers simultaneously, contrasting agentless, SSH-based automation against the on-box Guestshell scripting covered in the previous lab.
This hands-on lab configures SNMPv3 with full authentication and encryption on a router, verifying successful polling using proper credentials and confirming an SNMPv2c-style plaintext community string no longer works at all, addressing the security gap identified in an earlier SNMP lab.
