In this blog post, we want to show how to enable a zone-based firewall on the Cisco SD-WAN platform. The example continues on the topology in the Direct Internet Access article. We introduced an additional site to demonstrate that the configuration applied doesn’t affect inter-site traffic.
The diagram below shows the topology with a PC behind CSR1. It can access the Internet without any restrictions after enabling Direct Internet Access. If we want to restrict what is reachable from the service side, two options are available – access lists attached to the internal interface and zone-based firewall functionality. As on the traditional, non-SD-WAN router, access-lists are used in scenarios when no stateful inspection is required, for example, when you want to drop RFC 1918 traffic coming from your guest WIFI segment. Cisco zone-based firewall adds the ability to identify the application and stateful inspection, which allows return traffic if it’s part of the permitted session.
Figure 1. Sample Topology
Initial setup for DIA blocking all outbound traffic
The first section will create and associate a security policy that will block all traffic from the internal network to the Internet.
To apply the firewall rules, use a localized security policy. Navigate to Configuration > Policy. Click on Add Security Policy. Choose a custom policy from the list below, as this option shows all possible configuration elements.
Figure 2. Create a Security Policy
The first screen in the wizard is firewall configuration. Click on Add Firewall Policy, and then on Create New.
Figure 3. Add New Firewall Policy
Define source and destination zone pairs by clicking on Apply Zone-Pairs button. Select source and destination zones. You can create zones within the wizard by specifying which VPNs will be part of them.
Figure 4. Define Security Zones
Provide Name and Description for the firewall policy. We can add rules as required; however, we want to drop all the traffic first. The default action, which is applied when no rules match the packet, is Drop (you can change this behavior by selecting Pass in the dropdown menu).
Figure 5. Name and Description of Security Policy
Review created firewall policy and press Next.
Figure 6. Firewall Policy Review
We’ve clicked through all remaining pages of the wizard without adding any configuration. On the “Policy summary” page, provide Security Policy Name and its description.
Figure 7. Security Policy Review
After clicking on the Save Policy button, we can see the policy we’ve just created in the list.
Figure 8. List of Security Policies
Now it’s time to apply the policy to the device. The device template applies the policy to the device.
Figure 9. List of Device Templates
Choose ISR1-Security-Policy in the Security Policy dropdown. And press the Update button to push the configuration to the device.
Figure 10. Apply Security Policy to Template
The listing below shows the config lines are sent to the device based on the configuration we’ve made so far (you can check this via configuration difference preview before the configuration push). As we haven’t specified any specific rules, the policy uses only the class-default class with drop action. The ‘inspect’ firewall policy is defined and applied within the zone-pair configuration block.
parameter-map type inspect-global
alert on
log dropped-packets
multi-tenancy
vpn zone security
policy-map type inspect VPN1-to-VPN0
class class-default
drop
zone security VPN0
vpn 0
zone security VPN1
vpn 1
zone-pair security ZP_VPN1_VPN0_VPN1-to-VPN0 source VPN1 destination VPN0
service-policy type inspect VPN1-to-VPN0
The test shows that the ICMP traffic is blocked as soon as the policy is applied.
Figure 11. Traffic to the Internet is now blocked
To demonstrate that our policy didn’t affect traffic within VPN 1, let’s ping the PC behind CSR02 at another site.
Figure 12. Site-to-site traffic is not affected
Adjust policy to allow ICMP traffic
This section will allow ICMP traffic to the Internet by modifying the policy.
Return to the policy list via Configuration > Security. Choose the policy that we’ve created earlier and press Edit.
Figure 13. Edit existing security policy
Click on the firewall section, choose the “VPN1-to-VPN0” firewall rule and press Edit.
Figure 14. Edit existing firewall policy
Add the new rule by clicking on the “Add Rule” button.
Figure 15. Add a rule to the firewall policy
Specify ACL entry name and choose action to apply. Drop is self-descriptive. Inspect creates a stateful record of the session and automatically allows return traffic. Pass action – will not allow return traffic; for this action to work, you will be required to create another zone-pair for reverse direction and explicitly allow return traffic.
Define matching traffic and action. Protocol number 1 matches ICMP. Select one of the pre-defined protocols for TCP and UDP traffic. If unavailable or non-standard port numbers need to be specified, use ‘tcp’ or ‘udp’ as a protocol along with the “Destination Ports” condition.
Figure 16. Define the access-list entry
Review the rule, save it, and its parent firewall policy.
Figure 17. Firewall rule and policy summary
vManage sends the following commands to the device.
The first three commands are object groups that identify the source, destination, and protocol.
Then access list is defined using the object groups. The class map that follows uses the ACL as a “match” condition.
Finally, policy-map now has a custom class-map statement placed above the default. The action for this traffic is ‘inspect,’ so return packets are automatically allowed.
object-group network VPN1-to-VPN0-seq-Allow_ICMP-network-dstn-og_
host 15.15.15.10
object-group network VPN1-to-VPN0-seq-Allow_ICMP-network-src-og_
192.168.11.0 255.255.255.0
object-group service VPN1-to-VPN0-seq-Allow_ICMP-service-og_
icmp
ip access-list extended VPN1-to-VPN0-seq-Allow_ICMP-acl_
permit object-group VPN1-to-VPN0-seq-Allow_ICMP-service-og_ object-group VPN1-to-VPN0-seq-Allow_ICMP-network-src-og_ object-group VPN1-to-VPN0-seq-Allow_ICMP-network-dstn-og_
class-map type inspect match-all VPN1-to-VPN0-seq-1-cm_
match access-group name VPN1-to-VPN0-seq-Allow_ICMP-acl_
policy-map type inspect VPN1-to-VPN0
class type inspect VPN1-to-VPN0-seq-1-cm_
inspect
class class-default
drop
Figure 18. ICMP traffic to the Internet is now allowed
To monitor or troubleshoot firewall sessions, use the Real-Time menu in the device monitoring, as shown in the screenshot below. The following options provide relevant real-time information:
Policy Zone Pair Sessions – displays list of sessions and which zone pair and class map is matched for each session
Policy Zone Pair Statistics – shows statistics of packets and bytes matching per class-map
IP NAT Translation – displays NAT translations, which can be useful in DIA troubleshooting scenarios
Figure 19. Use vManage Web interface to view firewall sessions
To view active sessions using CLI as they are passing, use show policy-firewall sessions command:
CSR01#show policy-firewall sessions platform ?
all detailed information
destination-port Destination Port Number
detail detail on or off
icmp Protocol Type ICMP
imprecise imprecise information
session session information
source-port Source Port
source-vrf Source Vrf ID
standby standby information
tcp Protocol Type TCP
udp Protocol Type UDP
v4-destination-address IPv4 Desination Address
v4-source-address IPv4 Source Address
v6-destination-address IPv6 Desination Address
v6-source-address IPv6 Source Address
| Output modifiers
<cr> <cr>
It is possible to filter the output using one of the keywords above. We will display all sessions with 'all' keyword.
CSR01#show policy-firewall sessions platform all
--show platform hardware qfp active feature firewall datapath scb any any any any any all any --
[s=session i=imprecise channel c=control channel d=data channel A/D=appfw action allow/deny]
Session ID:0x00000001 192.168.11.10 8 15.15.15.10 1 proto 1 (1:1:1:1) (0x3:icmp) [sc]
To display detailed information on the session, which includes ingress and egress interfaces, translated addresses, and other information use detail keyword.
SD-WAN deployments use the Internet as the transport to replace WAN networks traditionally designed to leverage centralized Internet access via the data center. Direct Internet Access (DIA) refers to the configuration when Internet-facing traffic breaks out directly from the branch router.
Is Network Address Translation (NAT) required for DIA to operate? Yes, NAT maintains a translation table, that tracks outbound sessions from the service side VPNs (LAN), so the return traffic can be sent back without having to leak service VPN routes into VPN 0.
In the Cisco SD-WAN solution, transport-facing and user-facing interfaces belong to different VPNs or VRFs. VPN 0 contains transport (or underlay) network-facing interfaces, such as Internet and MPLS. Service-side VPNs contain user-facing interfaces.
The figure below shows logical VPN isolation within a router. In the routing table of VPN 0, there will be no entries for subnets where Host A and Host B are located. These subnets can even have the same IP addresses.
Figure 1. Transport and Service-Side VPNs and DIA
For DIA to work we need to allow traffic to flow between these virtual routers (or VPNs). To direct traffic from service-side VPNs we can use either static routes or a centralized data policy. NAT in transport VPN allows return traffic to be sent back.
Direct Internet Access on Cisco SD-WAN platforms is enabled in 2 steps. The first one is the NAT configuration on the transport interface. The second step directs traffic from service-side VPN using either a static route or centralized data policy.
Step 1: Enable NAT on the transport interface
Let’s start with a very basic topology, shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Sample DIA Topology
Edge router has a device template assigned, which references a basic set of feature templates required to provide connectivity.
The first step of both static route and policy-based configuration is to enable NAT on an interface in the transport VPN – GigabitEthernet2. This is done by adjusting the interface template.
Figure 3. Enable NAT on transport interface
The following commands are pushed to the device.
ip nat inside source list nat-dia-vpn-hop-access-list interface GigabitEthernet2 overload
ip nat translation tcp-timeout 3600
ip nat translation udp-timeout 60
interface GigabitEthernet2
ip nat outside
We couldn’t find a way to modify the nat-dia-vpn-hop-access-list used in ip nat insidecommand. This ACL is not visible in the running configuration or in the output of show ip access-lists. In IOS-XE this access list identifies traffic to be translated. In SD-WAN, however, to achieve this data policy needs to be configured.
Step 2: Direct traffic from service-side VPN
There are 2 ways to achieve this:
Static route in service VPN template
Centralized data policy
Step 2 (option 1): Static Route Configuration
Let’s configure a static default route under VPN 1 (Service VPN). Note that VPN is selected as a gateway option.
Figure 4. Configure a static default route
The static route command that is pushed to the device looks like this: ip nat route vrf 1 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 global
Note that the static route command has nat keyword. If we turn off NAT enabled in the previous step, the route will disappear. This essentially means that you have to do address translation for the configuration to work.
Let’s do the test from our test PC, confirming that the remote server sees the request as it’s coming from the router’s external IP address.
Figure 5. Test NAT configuration from Windows PC
To check the list of translations, we can run the following command on the router:
CSR01#show ip nat translations verbose
Pro Inside global Inside local Outside local Outside global
tcp 21.1.1.2:5062 192.168.11.10:49158 15.15.15.10:80 15.15.15.10:80
create: 11/14/21 23:16:21, use: 11/14/21 23:16:27, timeout: 00:00:56
RuleID : 1
Flags: timing-out
ALG Application Type: NA
WLAN-Flags: unknown
Mac-Address: 0000.0000.0000 Input-IDB:
VRF: 1, entry-id: 0xe9f7f840, use_count:1
In_pkts: 7 In_bytes: 978, Out_pkts: 7 Out_bytes: 982
Output-IDB: GigabitEthernet2
CSR01#show ip nat translation
Pro Inside global Inside local Outside local Outside global
tcp 21.1.1.2:5062 192.168.11.10:49158 15.15.15.10:80 15.15.15.10:80
Step 2 (Option 2): Centralized policy
We have removed the static route created in Step 2 (option 1), as the traffic will be directed by the centralized policy.
To implement DIA we will configure the traffic data section of the centralized policy that will match traffic coming from 192.168.11.0/24 (LAN segment) to 15.15.15.10/32 (the webserver).
Only one centralized policy can be activated globally at a time. The centralized policy contains multiple component policies. In this example, we will define a data policy, which then can be applied to a site list. In the following steps, we will create a new policy.
Create a centralized policy
Navigate to Configuration > Policies and click on Add Policy button.
Figure 6. Add Centralized Policy
The first step of creating a policy is called “Create Groups of Interest”. These are variables that we can later use in the policy. For our example, we will define:
Data Prefix – for source prefix 192.168.11.0/24, and we will use 15.15.15.10/32 directly in our traffic matching configuration without variable definition
Site List – we want apply only to a single site with Site ID of 1; it is recommended not to have the same site in multiple site lists to ensure that only 1 policy of each type is applied to that site
VPN List – service VPN 1
Figure 7. Configure Groups of Interest (variables)
After defining all required variables and pressing the Next button, we are moved to the Topology and VPN Membership section of the wizard (see the top part of the screenshot below). We don’t need to configure anything for our data policy, so we just press Next.
On the Configure Traffic Rules step of the wizard click on the “Traffic Data” section of the policy, click on Add Policy > Create New (refer to the bottom part of the next screenshot).
Figure 8. Configure Traffic Rules
In a new data policy window enter the name and description of the policy. Adjust the default action to Accept to ensure that the packets that don’t match our criteria for DIA will not be dropped. Finally, press + button to add a rule that will be matching DIA traffic and apply NAT to it.
Figure 9. Create Data New Policy
In the pop-up window select Custom policy. The other options are just a subset of the match and set conditions tailored for different scenarios, custom lists all of them.
Custom rule is added on top of the default action. If there are several rules, you can re-arrange them on the left panel. Ensure that the Match section is selected, add Source and Destination data prefixes to set the conditions for the rule.
Select the data prefix that we set up earlier in groups of interest as the source. Type-in destination as the actual address without the use of the variable. Both options lead to the same result, however, the use of variables allows you to use descriptive naming of the object plus adjusting the values outside of the policy configuration. Click on the Actions button.
Figure 10. Add a new custom rule to the policy and define match conditions
Select NAT VPN action, as shown in the following screenshot. The fallback option is useful when you want this traffic to follow the routing table when NAT cannot be used, for example, when the interface is down. Press the “Save data policy” button.
Figure 11. Set policy action to NAT VPN
The next screenshot list the data policy that we built in the previous step. Notice that the reference count is 0, as we haven’t yet applied it yet. Press Next.
Figure 12. Traffic data policies
The final step is to apply the policy. Click on the Traffic Data section, and then under data-policy-1 press “New Site List and VPN List”. In the pop-up window select “From Service” direction, site-1 as the site list, and VPN1 as the VPN list. Press the Save Policy button.
Figure 13. Apply data policy
The final step is to activate the policy.
Figure 14. Activate centralized policy
At this stage vManage will push the policy to vSmart as part of its running-config:
vSmart will use OMP to distribute the policy to edge routers. In contrast to vSmart, edge routers will not display the policy in the running configuration. Use show sdwan policy from-vsmart command instead.
Let’s check from the client machine that NAT works:
CSR01#show ip nat translation
Pro Inside global Inside local Outside local Outside global
tcp 21.1.1.2:5064 192.168.11.10:62121 15.15.15.10:80 15.15.15.10:80
CCNA Exam (200-301) blueprint includes only a single dynamic routing protocol – OSPF (Open Shortest Path First).
The protocol is simple to enable. The basic configuration of OSPF requires only a couple of commands. However, to understand how the protocol works an exam candidate must learn OSPF components, some of them are complex. CCNA exam tests knowledge of OSPF operation in a single-area network. Multi-area components are covered in CCNP-level exams.
Routing protocols help routers to exchange reachability information and calculate the best path to the remote networks. In this blog post, we will explain how OSPF routers perform these tasks.
CCNA Exam blueprint at the time of writing comprised of the topics listed below.
The exam expects knowledge of the following facts about OSPF:
OSPF is a link-state routing protocol
OSPFv2 is the current version for IPv4; IPv6 is supported by OSPFv3
OSPF uses IP protocol number 89
2 multicast groups are reserved and used for some of the OSPFv2 protocol messages – 224.0.0.5 (AllSPFRouters) and 224.0.0.6 (AllDRRouters)
OSPF on Cisco devices has an administrative distance of 110
Overview and Basic Configuration
OSPF builds a link-state database (per area), which contains information about routers, their interfaces, and networks. The database content is synchronized across all routers.
Each router applies the Shortest Path algorithm to the database. As the result, the loop-free tree of the most efficient paths is derived. The router performing calculation is at the root of the tree having paths to every other router and network.
Initial OSPF configuration on a Cisco router uses 2 parameters:
Process ID
Router ID
Process ID
OSPF configuration starts with enabling it globally using “router ospf <process-id>” command.
The process ID is a locally significant number and doesn’t have to be the same on different routers in the network. It is possible to start several independent OSPF processes on a router, which will be assigned different process IDs.
The example below enables the OSPF process with an ID of 100 on a router. Basic router configuration, such as the assignment of IP addresses to interfaces, is omitted.
After OSPF is enabled, “show ip ospf” command confirms that the process is started.
Router# show ip ospf
Routing Process "ospf 100" with ID 10.10.10.2
<output is truncated>
Router ID
Router ID provides an identifier for an OSPF router in the form of an IPv4 address, which doesn’t need to be reachable by other OSPF routers and is not used in data forwarding. Ensure that the router ID is unique across the network. Router ID associates information with the router generating it. It is also used in multiple election processes as a tie-breaker.
As Figure 1 shows Router ID is part of the OSPF header and effectively part of every OSPF packet that the router generates.
Figure 1. OSPF Header
By default, the OSPF process will automatically assign Router ID by selecting the highest IP address of a loopback interface on the router. If there are no loopback interfaces available, then the highest IP address of a non-loopback interface is selected. As shown in Figure 2, the router has 2 physical and 2 loopback interfaces configured. Numbers are shown next to the interface name in green display the priority of interfaces for the purpose of Router ID selection.
“show ip ospf” output from the example above demonstrates that the router ID was selected to match the highest IP address of a loopback interface (10.10.10.2). The example also demonstrates that candidate interfaces for router ID selection don’t have to run OSPF.
Figure 2. OSPF Router ID Selection
Setting Router ID manually is a recommended best practice, that ensures that IDs are allocated to OSPF speakers in a pre-determined manner.
Let’s change router ID manually to 10.0.0.1.
Router(config)# router ospf 100
Router(config-router)# router-id 10.0.0.1
% OSPF: Reload or use "clear ip ospf process" command, for this to take effect
Router ID change requires the process restart. It will disrupt the packet flow, so it should be planned for in the production environment. To confirm that router ID is now adjusted let’s clear the OSPF process and then execute “show ip ospf” command.
Router# clear ip ospf 100 process
Reset OSPF process 100? [no]: yes
Router# show ip ospf
Routing Process "ospf 100" with ID 10.0.0.1
<output is truncated>
Link-State View of the Network
This section introduces some important concepts that will help to understand link-state advertisements (LSAs), the algorithm, and neighbor adjacencies described later in the article.
To visualize how OSPF sees a network, let’s use a sample network topology shown in Figure 3. All routers and networks are part of the same area.
Figure 3. Link-State Database Example – Full Network Diagram
Network Types
If more than 2 routers can attach to a network, it is a multi-access network, which can be divided into 3 subtypes:
Broadcast multi-access
Non-broadcast multi-access
Point-to-multipoint
A network connecting a maximum of 2 routers classified as a point-to-point network. It can be a physical point-to-point technology, or a multi-access network, such as Ethernet, administratively configured as point-to-point.
Only point-to-point and broadcast networks are listed in the blueprint of the CCNA exam. These types are commonly used and routers can auto-discover each other without any additional configuration.
For demonstration purposes, assume that yellow links (X-A, X-B, A-B) are point-to-point and blue links (A-C, B-D, C-D-Z) are multi-access broadcast networks in the sample topology shown in Figure 3.
OSPF database describes a network as a directed graph, with routers and subnets as vertices, connected to each other with the directional edges.
Let’s first re-draw the diagram displaying only routers and subnets as vertices without any connections between them.
Figure 4. Link-State Database Example – Routers and Networks as Vertices
Routers are connected bi-directionally to each other over point-to-point links, i.e. not connected via subnet vertices. We will explain how numbered point-to-point subnet vertex is connected to the routers in the next step. For now, these links are introduced between routers:
X -> A, A -> X
X -> B, B -> X
A -> B, B -> A
Transit Networks
Each multi-access broadcast network is a vertex on the graph if there are two or more routers connected to it. Such networks are called a transit and represented by vertices, which connect bi-directionally to the attached routers:
A -> N5, N5 -> A, C -> N5, N5 -> C
B -> N6, N6 -> B, D -> N6, N6 -> D
C -> N7, N7 -> C, D -> N7, N7 -> D, Z -> N7, N7 -> Z
Networks N5 and N6 have only two routers connected in this topology, however, as per our earlier assumption, the underlying data link is a multi-access broadcast network, such as Ethernet. Therefore, router pairs (A-C) and (B-D) are not connected directly as was the case on point-to-point networks. Instead, they bi-directionally connect to the transit network vertices.
Figure 5 shows the resulting connectivity.
Figure 5. Link-State Database Example – Point-to-Point and Transit Networks
Stub Networks
Finally, N1 and N8 are multi-access broadcast networks with each having only a single router connected. Both are considered to be stub networks and described by unidirectional connections from routers X and Z.
Numbered point-to-point subnets are also represented as stub networks, connected using directional link from each router: X -> N2, A -> N2, X -> N3, B -> N3, A -> N4, B -> N4. Point-to-point networks are not transit vertices, which is different to broadcast multi-access networks (N5, N6, and N7).
One of the reasons for this is that the physical point-to-point links can be unnumbered (when there are no IP addresses assigned to both sides), in which case no network vertex exists. Also, physical point-to-point links can have IPs allocated from different subnets on each side of the connection. In this case, each router has a unidirectional connection to the IP address on the other side, which are also represented as stubs.
The summary of new connections:
X -> N1
X -> N2, A -> N2
A -> N4, B -> N4
X -> N3, B -> N3
Z -> N8
Figure 6. Link-State Database Example – Stub Networks Added
Interface Cost
OSPF uses cumulative cost as the metric to compare multiple paths to the same destination. Figure 7 shows an updated diagram with associated costs displayed next to each directional edge. The cost for each vertex is calculated in the outbound direction.
Cisco routers calculate cost by dividing reference bandwidth by interface bandwidth. Consider that the reference bandwidth is 100Mbps. Interfaces of 100Mbps and higher will have a cost of 1. 10Mbps interface is 10-times slower than 100Mbps, so it will be assigned a cost of 10.
The cost value can also be manually specified using “ip ospf cost <cost-value>” interface command. As each connection between routers is represented by 2 directional edges, the cost doesn’t have to match on each side of the link. While routers connected over point-to-point links usually should have the same cost, edges from transit networks always have the cost of 0 (for example, N5 -> A).
Figure 7. Link-State Database Example – Interface Cost
Reference Bandwidth
As mentioned in the previous section, Cisco routers use reference bandwidth to calculate interface cost. “show ip ospf” command displays the reference bandwidth, which has default value of 100Mbps:
Router#show ip ospf
<output is truncated>
Reference bandwidth unit is 100 mbps
The virtual router that we are using in this lab has Gigabit interfaces, however, as the default reference bandwidth is 100Mbps, all interfaces with a speed higher than 100Mbps have the cost of 1.
The reference bandwidth should be adjusted on all routers in the network to match the highest bandwidth interface in the network.
Selecting Best Path
The best path within the area is calculated by each router applying the Dijkstra algorithm to its link-state database. A simplified overview of the algorithm is presented below. For more detailed information, refer to the RFC (https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2328#page-161).
The algorithm starts with a vertex representing the router performing the calculation. The distance to directly adjacent vertices (i.e. other routers or transit networks) is calculated and recorded in a candidate list.
The algorithm then changes the focus to the closest vertex from the candidate list. Its adjacent non-visited vertices are added to the candidate list along with their distances. The current vertex is now considered to be visited. It is removed from the candidate list and added to the shortest path.
The algorithm goes through the updated candidate list and selects the closest vertex. The process in the previous paragraph repeats till there will be no unvisited vertices left – as the result of the algorithm all reachable vertices will be added to the shortest-path tree.
After distance to all routers and transit networks is known, distances to stub networks are added via the corresponding router.
Neighbors and Adjacencies
Hello Protocol
Hello protocol is responsible for 2 tasks:
Neighbor discovery and establishment of bidirectional communication
Designated and Backup Designated Routers election on a broadcast multi-access network
OSPF routers automatically discover each other by periodically sending multicast Hello packets. On broadcast and point-to-point networks routers send Hello packets to the AllSPFRouters multicast group address (224.0.0.5).
The format of Hello packet is shown in Figure 8.
A router receiving any OSPF packet, including Hello packets, checks that Area is the same as locally configured on the router and that the authentication parameters are correct.
Then Hello-specific parameters are validated. Fields listed in the first line of the Hello packet must match between two routers to establish bidirectional communication:
Network mask must match on multi-access networks, however, is not being compared on point-to-point links.
Hello and Router Dead Intervals (in seconds) specify how often Hello packets are sent and how long other routers should wait for a Hello packet before declaring advertising router dead.
Options include a flag called E-bit. When this flag is set, the area is capable of processing External routing information, i.e. is not a stub. This flag must match between neighbors too.
Figure 8. Hello Packet
Routers include a list of neighbors on the same network segment if they have received Hello packets from them. If a router sees itself in the list of neighbors from another router it knows that bidirectional communication is established.
Neighbors go through series of states as part of Hello protocol.
Down is a state when 2 neighbors haven’t seen or stopped receiving Hello packets from each other.
In Attempt state, available only in NBMA (Non-Broadcast Multi-Access) networks, no Hello packets were received from a manually configured neighbor. The local router sends periodical unicast Hello packets to a such neighbor.
Init state means that a Hello packet has been received from the neighbor, but the router hasn’t seen itself in the list of the neighbors.
In the 2-Way state, the router receives Hello packets from the neighbor. The local router appears in the Neighbors field of these Hello packets.
Hello protocol responsibilities end when neighbors achieve the 2-Way state. Only valid neighbors will be able to reach the 2-Way state. Further stages are controlled by the Database Exchange process and routers progressing past 2-Way are referred to as adjacent routers.
On point-to-point networks, valid neighbors always become adjacent. However, on multi-access networks adjacency is established in a dual-hub-and-spokes fashion. Hubs are called a Designated Router (DR) and Backup Designated Router (BDR).
DR and BDR on Multi-Access Broadcast networks
Designated Router and Backup Designated Routers are elected on multi-access broadcast networks to decrease the number of network adjacencies required to be built (full-mesh vs dual-hub-and-spokes).
The election is based on configurable router’s interface priority and the highest router ID serves as a tie-breaker. Numerically higher priority wins. If it is set to 0, the router is not eligible to become a DR or BDR.
Hello protocol facilitates the election process by having 3 fields within the Hello packet – DR, BDR, and Router priority. If a router joins a network and receives packets with DR and BDR populated, it will not initiate the election process even if it has a better priority. This behavior is described as being non-preemptive.
Designated Router has also an important purpose – it originates Network Link State Advertisements (LSAs) representing transit network. We will discuss LSAs after we review the next stages that lead to adjacency – Database Exchange.
Database Exchange
Neighbors that have established bidirectional communication can start a process to form OSPF adjacency and synchronize their databases. As mentioned previously, routers on point-to-point links always become adjacent and routers on multi-access networks become adjacent only with DR and BDR routers.
Routers progress through a set of states before reaching a fully synchronized state:
In the Exstart state, routers decide which router will be responsible for managing the database synchronization process. Router with the highest Router ID performs the master role and its neighbor operates as a slave. OSPF Database Description packets describe LSAs that constitute each router’s database. If either neighbor sees missing or newer LSA, it will add it to the Link State Request list.
By reaching Exstart state, the routers have already progressed through all Hello protocol stages and most of the protocol parameters are found to be compatible. During the Exstart stage, theDatabase Description packet MTU field is compared with the receiving router’s interface MTU. If it doesn’t match on both sides of the adjacency, one of the routers will drop the Database Description packets. This will prevent progressing to the next stages. The behavior can be disabled on Cisco routers.
During Exchange state routers describe their link state databases by exchanging Database Description packets. The Master increments sequence numbers and waits for the Slave to acknowledge the last sequence number received from the Master.
In Loading state routers send each other Link State Request packets asking the neighbor to send LSAs that were discovered during Exchange state.
Routers in Full state are fully adjacent and have synchronized their Link State Database.
Link State Advertisements
Link State Advertisements (LSAs) describe router and network state. As reviewed in the Link-State View of the Network section earlier, OSPF sees a network as a graph of vertices connected to each other. Different types of LSAs correspond to different types of vertices, for example, a router LSA is a representation of a router vertex and a network LSA – of a transit network vertex.
We will discuss only intra-area types of LSAs (Router and Network) in this blog post. There are also other types of LSAs that exist describing inter-area and external destinations.
All LSAs share the same header. Some fields can have different values depending on the LSA type. LSA header comprises of (some of the fields are omitted in the description below and diagrams):
LSA Type. 1 is Router LSA, 2 is Network LSA
Link State ID. For Router LSA – Router ID, for Network LSA – interface IP address of the Designated Router.
Advertising Router. Router ID of the router originated LSA.
LS Age. In seconds, increments as routers transmit LSA and while it is stored in the database. Used to age out LSAs once they reach MaxAge, after which such LSAs must be re-flooded.
LS Sequence Number. Assigned by the originating router and is used for versioning of LSAs.
Router LSA
Router LSA describes the router’s links. Each link is described by several fields (not all fields are shown in the diagram and the description below):
Link ID. Depending on link type can be neighbor’s Router ID, DR’s IP address, or Network IP address.
Link Data. Depending on link type, identifies the local interface of the router or subnet mask (see mapping in the diagram below).
Figure 9. Router LSA
Network LSA
This LSA describes a multi-access network. Designated Router (DR) generates this LSA and lists all attached OSPF routers on the segment with which it formed an adjacency.
Link State ID in the header is DR’s IP address on the network. The mask is carried as a field with LSA, which makes it possible to identify the network address.
Figure 10. Network LSA
OSPF Packets
Earlier we have explored how OSPF sees the network, how routers describe their links and networks by generating LSAs that are flooded through the area. We also discussed how two routers synchronize their databases by becoming adjacent.
This section provides an overview of different types of packets that OSPF uses to distribute LSAs. Hello packet was introduced in the “Neighbors and Adjacencies” section. Figures 9 to 12 show the remaining types of OSPF packets.
Database Description packets are used during the Database Exchange process. The packet has fields describing interface MTU, various options controlling database exchange process, and sequence numbers. The payload consists of LSA headers, which format we reviewed in the previous section.
Figure 11. Database Description Packet
The next packet is the Link State Request packet. A router learns missing LSAs from received Database Description packets. To request those LSAs, the router sends a Link State Request packet which contains enough information to identify the LSA. These fields are LS Type, ID, and Advertising Router. The other LSA header fields, such as LS Age and LS Sequence Number, are not included. This means that the router is requesting the most recent version of LSA and not for the specific instance of LSA.
Figure 12. Link State Request Packet
The next 2 packets are Link State Update and Acknowledgement packets. These are used to reliably flood LSAs throughout the network. Link State Update carries a list of full LSAs with their headers.
Figure 13. Link State Update Packet
Link State Acknowledgement packet is used to explicitly confirm the receipt of a Link State Update packet.
Figure 14. Link State Acknowledgment Packet
Let’s finalize the configuration of our sample network and review different diagnostic commands.
OSPF Configuration and show commands
In this section, we will enable OSPF on different types of network interfaces using the sample topology we used earlier.
Point-to-Point Interfaces
Let’s enable OSPF between X, A, and B. In this topology, a Layer 3 LAN switch X connects to two WAN routers (A and B), which are also connected to each other.
Figure 15. Point-to-point network sample topology
Switch X configuration is shown in the listing below.
X(config)#router ospf 100
X(config-router)#network 172.16.100.0 0.0.0.3 area 0
X(config-router)#network 172.16.100.4 0.0.0.3 area 0
X(config-router)#network 10.0.0.0 0.0.0.255 area 0
network command’s purpose is to identify interfaces that will have OSPF running and which area they will be placed in. The command uses a wildcard mask, which reverses the logic of the subnet mask. In a wildcard mask, binary 0 means “match” and 1 means “ignore”.
As subnet masks use consecutive 1s followed by consecutive 0s, it can be easily converted to wildcard mask by subtracting mask value from 255.255.255.255. For example, the hostmask of 255.255.255.255 converts to a wildcard mask of 0.0.0.0.
It is possible to use a less specific wildcard mask with a network command to match multiple interfaces with a single statement. For example, instead of the 3 commands above, we could use “network 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 area 0”, which would enable OSPF on all interfaces and place them into area 0.
Some data-links technologies are physically point-to-point and some of them are not. As we use Ethernet in this topology, which, by default, is treated as a multi-access network additional OSPF command is required, as shown in the listing below:
There is also an alternative way to enable OSPF on interfaces available in Cisco IOS-XE. Instead of performing configuration under the OSPF process, the interface-level mode can be used. Commands in OSPF process mode are still required for global parameters, such as setting router ID. The listing below demonstrates configuration on router A, a similar configuration is also applied to router B.
“show ip ospf interface” command provides relevant to OSPF interface information. The network type of both interfaces is set to point-to-point with the cost of 1.
The next important information in the output below is the OSPF timers value. Hello timer defines how often Hello messages are sent and Dead interval specifies when the router will declare another one as dead without receiving hello messages. The values are automatically selected based on the network type or can be manually configured. Timers must match between neighbors.
In the example, hello and dead intervals have default values of 10 and 40.
X#show ip ospf interface
GigabitEthernet2.12 is up, line protocol is up
Internet Address 172.16.100.1/30, Interface ID 13, Area 0
Attached via Network Statement
Process ID 100, Router ID 10.0.0.1, Network Type POINT_TO_POINT, Cost: 1
<output truncated>
Timer intervals configured, Hello 10, Dead 40, Wait 40, Retransmit 5
<output truncated>
Neighbor Count is 1, Adjacent neighbor count is 1
Adjacent with neighbor 10.0.255.1
GigabitEthernet2.13 is up, line protocol is up
Internet Address 172.16.100.5/30, Interface ID 14, Area 0
Attached via Network Statement
Process ID 100, Router ID 10.0.0.1, Network Type POINT_TO_POINT, Cost: 1
<output truncated>
Timer intervals configured, Hello 10, Dead 40, Wait 40, Retransmit 5
<output truncated>
Neighbor Count is 1, Adjacent neighbor count is 1
Adjacent with neighbor 10.0.254.1
Interfaces were added using the router process “network <x> area <y>” configuration command, and this is indicated by the “Attached via Network Statement” line.
On routers A and B we used alternative configuration on the interface – “ip ospf <x> area <y>“. On these routers “Attached via Interface Enable” would be displayed instead.
“show ip ospf neighbors” command displays information about neighbors. Neighbor ID displays Router ID, and address specifies IP address of network interface over which neighbor is reachable. On point-to-point networks, neighbors always become adjacent and should be in FULL state. Because DR and BDRs are not elected on point-to-point networks priority value of 0 is set for both neighbors.
Deadtime is a count-down timer, which starts at 40 seconds and in normal conditions will not drop below 30 seconds, as hello packets are transmitted every 10 seconds.
X#show ip ospf neighbor
Neighbor ID Pri State Dead Time Address Interface
10.0.254.1 0 FULL/ - 00:00:34 172.16.100.6 GigabitEthernet2.13
10.0.255.1 0 FULL/ - 00:00:39 172.16.100.2 GigabitEthernet2.12
Broadcast Multi-Access Network Interfaces
Let’s now finalize the configuration of the network topology by enabling connections between WAN routers (A <> C, B <> D), and connectivity between WAN routers C, D, and a switch Z.
Figure 16. Sample Network Diagram
The commands used for the configuration are similar to the ones shown in the previous sections. All remaining network connections are broadcast multi-access networks, which is the default OSPF network type on Ethernet interfaces. We will omit the configuration from the previous examples that set the network type to point-to-point.
Earlier, we used interface-based configuration on routers A and B. We will apply interface-level commands for additional interfaces.
A
interface Gi2.24
ip ospf 100 area 0
B
interface Gi2.35
ip ospf 100 area 0
For the remaining routers, we will use the router process-based configuration. For demonstration purposes, we will set router IDs as some random values to demonstrate that these addresses are neither required to be reachable over OSPF nor belong to any of the router’s interfaces. And instead of specifying individual network statements for each interface, we will use 1 wide statement that will enable OSPF on all interfaces at once.
C
router ospf 44
router-id 4.4.4.4
network 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 area 0
D
router ospf 55
router-id 55.55.55.55
network 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 area 0
Z
router ospf 66
router-id 66.6.6.6
network 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 area 0
The next example shows “show ip ospf interface” command output on router Z. Both interfaces have OSPF network type of broadcast, which is the default for Ethernet. A manually configured router ID of 66.6.6.6 is also displayed.
Z#show ip ospf interface
GigabitEthernet2.456 is up, line protocol is up
Internet Address 10.0.2.2/29, Interface ID 12, Area 0
Attached via Network Statement
Process ID 66, Router ID 66.6.6.6, Network Type BROADCAST, Cost: 1
<output truncated>
Transmit Delay is 1 sec, State DR, Priority 1
Designated Router (ID) 66.6.6.6, Interface address 10.0.2.2
Backup Designated router (ID) 55.55.55.55, Interface address 10.0.2.3
Timer intervals configured, Hello 10, Dead 40, Wait 40, Retransmit 5
<output truncated>
Neighbor Count is 2, Adjacent neighbor count is 2
Adjacent with neighbor 4.4.4.4
Adjacent with neighbor 55.55.55.55 (Backup Designated Router)
GigabitEthernet2.2 is up, line protocol is up
Internet Address 10.0.3.1/24, Interface ID 11, Area 0
Attached via Network Statement
Process ID 66, Router ID 66.6.6.6, Network Type BROADCAST, Cost: 1
<output truncated>
Transmit Delay is 1 sec, State DR, Priority 1
Designated Router (ID) 66.6.6.6, Interface address 10.0.3.1
No backup designated router on this network
Timer intervals configured, Hello 10, Dead 40, Wait 40, Retransmit 5
<output truncated>
Neighbor Count is 0, Adjacent neighbor count is 0
“State DR” means that the router performs the role of the Designated Router on the network segment. Backup DR will have a state listed as BDR, and all other routers will be in DROTHER state. “Priority 1” is the default priority, so the router with the highest Router ID is elected as DR if all routers start at the same time. As the process is not preemptive, the role of DR can be performed by the router with a smaller priority or Router ID value if it starts before other routers.
Information about Designated Router and Backup Designated Routers is displayed next, followed by Hello and Dead timer settings.
The last lines of output list information about neighbors and adjacencies on the interface. Both DR and BDR become adjacent with all neighbors on the network. Routers that are neither DR nor BDR will display all routers on the segment as neighbors, however, establish adjacencies only with DR and BDR.
Link State Database
In this section, we will explore the link state database on router Z.
“show ip ospf database” command displays the content of the database. For the purpose of CCNA exam preparation, the example focuses on a single-area topology.
Z#show ip ospf database
OSPF Router with ID (66.6.6.6) (Process ID 66)
Router Link States (Area 0)
Link ID ADV Router Age Seq# Checksum Link count
4.4.4.4 4.4.4.4 64 0x80000014 0x00EFCE 2
10.0.0.1 10.0.0.1 1655 0x80000005 0x00F639 5
10.0.254.1 10.0.254.1 116 0x8000000A 0x00B55B 5
10.0.255.1 10.0.255.1 336 0x80000007 0x00DE3B 5
55.55.55.55 55.55.55.55 64 0x80000011 0x00B077 2
66.6.6.6 66.6.6.6 208 0x8000000C 0x0071D4 2
Net Link States (Area 0)
Link ID ADV Router Age Seq# Checksum
10.0.2.1 4.4.4.4 209 0x80000002 0x00C617
10.0.254.1 10.0.254.1 300 0x80000001 0x00C27F
10.0.255.1 10.0.255.1 1730 0x80000002 0x00B753
Router LSA
Each router generates a Router LSA, with Link ID matching the generating router’s ID. 6 LSAs are displayed matching number of routers in our topology. To understand link count, review the previous section called “Link-State View of the Network” and Figure 6, where each outbound arrow from a router is counted as a link.
For example, let’s review in detail the content of router LSA with ID 10.0.255.1 (Router A). Below is part of Figure 6 focusing on router A.
Figure 17. Router LSA Example Topology
“show ip ospf database router <router-id>” command displays detailed information about router LSA. As the link-state database is the same on all routers we can gather output on any routers in the same area. In the example below, the command is launched on router Z.
Z#show ip ospf database router 10.0.255.1
OSPF Router with ID (66.6.6.6) (Process ID 66)
Router Link States (Area 0)
LS age: 142
Options: (No TOS-capability, DC)
LS Type: Router Links
Link State ID: 10.0.255.1
Advertising Router: 10.0.255.1
LS Seq Number: 80000006
Checksum: 0xE03A
Length: 84
Number of Links: 5
Link connected to: a Transit Network
(Link ID) Designated Router address: 10.0.255.1
(Link Data) Router Interface address: 10.0.255.1
Number of MTID metrics: 0
TOS 0 Metrics: 1
Link connected to: another Router (point-to-point)
(Link ID) Neighboring Router ID: 10.0.254.1
(Link Data) Router Interface address: 172.16.100.9
Number of MTID metrics: 0
TOS 0 Metrics: 1
Link connected to: a Stub Network
(Link ID) Network/subnet number: 172.16.100.8
(Link Data) Network Mask: 255.255.255.252
Number of MTID metrics: 0
TOS 0 Metrics: 1
Link connected to: another Router (point-to-point)
(Link ID) Neighboring Router ID: 10.0.0.1
(Link Data) Router Interface address: 172.16.100.2
Number of MTID metrics: 0
TOS 0 Metrics: 1
Link connected to: a Stub Network
(Link ID) Network/subnet number: 172.16.100.0
(Link Data) Network Mask: 255.255.255.252
Number of MTID metrics: 0
TOS 0 Metrics: 1
The links in the output are shown in the following order:
A -> N5 (A is BDR on this network, so the output displays its own IP address as DR)
A -> B (A has point-to-point connectivity to B over N4; this is described by this link and additional link from A to N4 listed below)
A -> N4 (numbered subnet for the point-to-point link is represented as a connection to a stub network)
A -> X
A -> N2
Network LSA
The next example focuses on the network LSA which represents a transit network. To display network LSA, run “show ip ospf database network <id>” command. For this example, we will use the N7 network (10.0.2.0/29) connecting routers C, D, and Z.
Figure 18. Network LSA Example Topology
Network LSA ID matches the IP address of Designated Router (router Z) on this network and it lists router IDs of attached routers. The output shows routers Z, C, and D as attached to N7.
Z#show ip ospf database network 10.0.2.2
OSPF Router with ID (66.6.6.6) (Process ID 66)
Net Link States (Area 0)
LS age: 1435
Options: (No TOS-capability, DC)
LS Type: Network Links
Link State ID: 10.0.2.2 (address of Designated Router)
Advertising Router: 66.6.6.6
LS Seq Number: 80000002
Checksum: 0x7325
Length: 36
Network Mask: /29
Attached Router: 66.6.6.6
Attached Router: 4.4.4.4
Attached Router: 55.55.55.55
Network mask (/29) is also stored as part of the network LSA, which together with Link State ID represented by DR’s IP address can be used to obtain network IP prefix – 10.0.2.0/29.
represented by DR’s IP address can be used to obtain network IP prefix – 10.0.2.0/29.
Self-Test Questions
How OSPF router ID is selected if it's not manually configured?
The highest IP address on a loopback interface. If there are no loopback interfaces, select the highest IP address assigned to a physical interface.
What OSPF uses to compare multiple paths to a destination?
By combining costs of interfaces through each path. Each interface’s cost reflects how many times its bandwidth is smaller than a reference bandwidth. If interface speed is faster or the same as the reference value, then 1 is used as cost.
What is the difference between neighbors and adjacent routers?
Neighbors are the router that can communicate with each other and have matching parameters. Adjacency is formed between neighbors for the purpose of exchanging routing information. On multi-access networks, some of the neighbors don’t establish adjacency between each other.
What are 2 main tasks of OSPF Hello protocol?
Neighbor discovery and DR election
Explain what is router and network LSAs?
Link State Advertisement is a unit of information that is stored in each router’s Link State Database. Each router LSA represents a router and its links. Network LSA describes a transit network and lists routers connected to it.
In this blog post, we will discuss the JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) data format. The target audience is CCNA and CCNP candidates preparing for the exams.
The content provides fundamental overview of the following topics:
CCNA exam
6.7 Interpret JSON encoded data
CCNP ENCOR exam
6.2 Construct valid JSON encoded file
JSON Overview
JSON is an open standard text-based file format to store and exchange serialized data. Serialization is the process of converting an object into a format that can be stored or transported to later recreate it.
JSON was originally derived from JavaScript, however, many other programming languages can interpret and generate JSON data. Figure 1 shows how JSON components fit together.
JSON text can represent one of the following values (orange and blue circles):
String
Number
Literal name (false, true, null)
Array
Object
Figure 1. JSON Values, Objects and Arrays
JSON simple values
Strings, numbers, and literals
The simple values can represent some text or number and cannot contain other values. For example, below are examples of valid JSON texts:
Listing 1
"I'm a JSON"
100
true
null
As per RFC 8259, JSON text can be represented by any serialized value. Some specifications of JSON require that valid JSON text must be an object or an array.
Note that the string values must be enclosed in quotation marks.
JSON structured data values
Structural characters
JSON values that represent structured data (blue circles) created using 6 structural characters listed below:
Square brackets [] – beginning and end of an array
Curly brackets {} – beginning and end of an object
Colon : – Name separator
Comma , – Value separator
JSON allows the use of whitespaces, such as spaces, tabs, and new lines to format the text for readability. Contrasted to Python, indentation is used only for readability.
Array
An array contains zero or multiple ordered elements. Elements don’t have to be of the same type.
Listing 2
[ "abc", 23, null ]
Object
An object contains zero or multiple members, separated by commas. Each member is in the name: value format. Name must be unique within an object.
Arrays and objects can contain both simple values, other arrays, and other objects.
For instance, below is the object, as we can see it starts with an opening curly brace. The object contains 2 members with name tags of “primary_address” and “secondary_address”. Each of the member’s value is another object that consists of 2 more members, named “address” and “mask”.
Let’s create an array that will contain 2 objects representing addresses. The opening square bracket starts the definition of an array. Then we wrap each of the members from the previous example into curly brackets to create an object, as array stores elements – not members consisting of name: value pairs.
In one of the previous blog posts dedicated to REST API, we’ve programmatically extracted a JSON representation of an interface from the IOS-XE router. This listing below shows several router’s interfaces, so we can have some arrays in the example.
Let’s interpret this document. Figure 2 shows the structure of the JSON code from the example above.
The top-level object (#1) has a single member with the name of “Cisco-IOS-XE-native:interface”. This member’s value is another object (#2).
The object #2 also has a single member named “GigabitEthernet”, whose value is an array (#3).
Array contains 2 elements – object #4 and object #5.
Object #4 has 4 members, with the following names:
“name”
“ip”
“mop”
“Cisco-IOS-XE-ethernet:negotiation”
Member called “name” has a string value of “1”. The next member named “ip” has an object (#6) as a value. Object #6 has a single member with the name of “address” having another object (#7) as a value.
The pattern of finding array elements and object members should be apparent by now.
Figure 2. Cisco IOS-XE RESTCONF JSON interpretation example
How to construct JSON encoded data
Online Tools
The easiest way to create a JSON encoded data is to use one of the available online JSON editors. For example, one is available via this URL. It automatically checks JSON file syntax, which can be useful to find a missing bracket. The other feature of this tool is the ability to auto-format code into a compact format or full format (with line breaks and indentation, as shown in the previous example).
The screenshot of the tool with JSON text from the previous example is shown below.
Figure 3. JSON Editor Online
Python Collections Overview
To continue with the following examples, we recommend checking this article (URL) for a brief quick start and Python installation instructions.
Let’s discuss several Python fundamental topics before proceeding with the practical examples.
Data Structures: lists and dictionaries
Lists and dictionaries are examples of collections in Python. Python’s JSON module maps lists to JSON arrays, and dictionaries to JSON objects.
The syntax is identical between matching pairs of data structures, as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4. Mapping of JSON structured data to Python collections
The listing below shows an example of a list and a dictionary definition in Python.
A list is defined in Python using square brackets. Python uses None instead of null literal in JSON.
The dictionary is wrapped with curly brackets and has familiar from JSON example syntax. JSON’s name tag (value just before the colon) corresponds to a dictionary key in Python. It is followed by a colon and a value, which is in our example a string.
We will save and read JSON files to and from a file saved on the disk in the next examples.
To open a file for read access in Python the following code is used:
Listing 12
with open("json_test.json","r") as json_file:
… some code that makes use of json_file
To open the same file for write access, use “w” instead of “r” as a parameter for the open() function. Use of keyword “with” ensures that the file is properly closed after the use.
Decoding JSON in Python example
Python module called json provides JSON encoding and decoding capabilities. There are 2 methods performing these functions:
dumps – Python data structure to JSON text
loads – JSON text into Python data structure
Let’s create a text file containing JSON text from Listing 6 and save it as json_ios_xe.json.
As the next step, we will create a file named json_example.py that will have the following Python code in it.
Listing 13
import json
with open("json_ios_xe_interfaces.json", "r") as json_file:
json_file_content = json_file.read()
decoded_json = json.loads(json_file_content)
print(decoded_json)
print()
print(type(decoded_json))
Line #1 imports json module, so we can use its feature in our code.
The code in line #3 opens our file for read-only access. The access to the file content is provided via json_file variable. The code in line #4 reads-in content of the file into a string variable.
Line #5 uses json.loads() function to read the string representation of JSON text. The returned value is assigned to the decoded_json variable. As the JSON text is a JSON object, the decoded_json object will be a Python dictionary.
Line #7 prints the Python dictionary, followed by an empty line created by line #8. Finally, line #9 prints out the type of decoded_json object, so we can validate that it is in fact a Python dictionary.
In this example, we will use the dictionary created in the previous example, change the IP address to “192.168.7.5” and will encode it as another JSON file.
The first task is to identify the full path to the IP address. We have several nested layers of hierarchy within the outer-most dictionary. To access inner dictionaries and lists we will append [<index_or_key_name>] to the parent identifier.
In the example above the index of [0] is used, as the ‘GigabitEthernet’ key has the value of a list and we are interested in the first element.
Below is the full listing of a program code that changes the IP address and saves it as a new JSON file on the disk.
Listing 16
import json
with open("json_ios_xe.json", "r") as json_file:
json_file_content = json_file.read()
decoded_json = json.loads(json_file_content)
decoded_json['Cisco-IOS-XE-native:interface']['GigabitEthernet'][0]['ip']['address']['primary']['address'] = \
"192.168.7.5"
encoded_json_compact = json.dumps(decoded_json)
encoded_json_indented = json.dumps(decoded_json, indent = 4)
with open("json_ios_xe_compact.json", "w") as json_file:
json_file.write(encoded_json_compact)
with open("json_ios_xe_indented.json", "w") as json_file:
json_file.write(encoded_json_indented)
Line #8 sets the value to a new IP address. Lines #11 and #12 create a string containing JSON text, it passes our modified dictionary called decoded_json to json.dumps() function. The example demonstrates that the named parameter called “indent” can be passed to the dumps() method to perform the formatting of the JSON file.
Line #15 and #18 saving the resulted text to files on the disk.
Let’s run the code and see the result.
Listing 17
c:\PythonExamples>python json_example.py
Two new files are created in c:\PythonExamples folder, as shown in the screenshot below.
Figure 5. JSON text decoded by Python’s json.dumps()
Self-Test Questions
List 6 types of value types that JSON text can represent?
String, number, Boolean (false, true), null, array, and object.
Describe JSON array and the process of defining one.
A JSON array contains ordered elements and defined using square brackets. For example, [ “abc”, 23, null ]
Describe JSON object and the process of defining one.
A JSON object contains members separated by a comma. Each member has a name and value separated by a colon. It is defined using curly brackets. For example, { “address”: “192.168.8.1”, “mask”: “255.255.255.255” }
Name Python types that are mapped to JSON's array and object
Python’s list maps to JSON array, and Python’s dictionary maps to a JSON object
What Python's module is responsible for encoding and decoding of JSON-formatted data?
json module. To decode use json.loads() and to encode – json.dumps().
In this blog post, we will provide an introduction to Python components and scripts in the context of Cisco certification. We will show how to get started with Python and explain the most commonly used elements of Python scripts – variables, functions, program flow, conditional logic, and “for” loops.
The content aims to help CCNP/CCIE Enterprise track candidates to prepare for the ENCOR exam, which includes the following topic:
6.1 Interpret basic Python components and scripts
Many CCNP tracks have automation sections that assume some knowledge of Python. DevNet track expects more extensive knowledge in Python.
Python Installation
Python is an interpreted language, which means that the code of a program is not pre-compiled into an executable that contains machine instructions. Python code can be opened and edited with any text editor. Python programs have a .py extension.
To run a Python code an interpreter is required. It reads the code and converts it into machine instructions.
Python is available for different platforms. Python 3.x is the recommended version and we will use it in our examples.
To download Python installation files navigate to this URL. Start the installer.
We use Windows 10 in our examples. Enable the checkbox “Add Python 3.x to PATH” and press Install Now.
Figure 1. Python Installation Options
Start Windows CLI utility by starting typing “Command Prompt”. Once started type in the following command to confirm that Python interpreter is available.
Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.18362.836]
(c) 2019 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
C:\PythonExamples>python --version
Python 3.8.3
Keep the command prompt window opened.
Hello World!
We will start with a simple “Hello World!” example.
Open a text editor, such as Notepad, and type-in the following code:
print("Hello World!")
The example uses a built-in print() function that displays a message on the screen.
Save the file as hello_world.py in a folder on your computer. To run the program, we will pass the full file name to python interpreter:
A variable stores some value, which can be accessed in the code by using its name. In Python, variables are not declared and can be used by assigning a value to them.
Let’s add a few more lines to the hello_world file. The new code creates a line number variable that is changed after each use. First two times it was statically set to 2 and 3, and in the line, before the last, we’ve just incremented its value by 1. The print function is being provided with 2 arguments – descriptive text and the line number variable.
print("Hello World!")
line_number = 2
print("This is the line number", line_number)
line_number = 3
print("This is the line number", line_number)
line_number = line_number + 1
print("This is the line number", line_number)
When the program is launched the following output is displayed on the screen.
C:\PythonExamples>python c:\PythonExamples\hello_world.py
Hello World!
This is the line number 2
This is the line number 3
This is the line number 4
Functions
A function minimizes the amount of duplicate code. It can also provide better structure and improve the readability of program code, by wrapping related logic under the function definition, which can be called by a descriptive name from other places of the program.
Let’s adjust our program to demonstrate the use of functions.
def line_number_printer(number):
print("This is the line number", number)
def calculate_next_line_number(previous_number):
return previous_number + 1
print("Hello World!")
line_number = 2
line_number_printer(line_number)
line_number = calculate_next_line_number(line_number)
line_number_printer(line_number)
line_number = calculate_next_line_number(line_number)
line_number_printer(line_number)
The program produces exactly the same output as the code in the previous example.
We have introduced 2 functions:
line_number_printer(number)
calculate_next_line_number(previous_number)
Figure 2 shows how the functions are defined and used in the example above. Not all lines from the example are shown for brevity.
Figure 2. Python Functions Example
Let’s go through the diagram and discuss each element:
A function’s definition must precede its use. The code within the definition is not executed unless it is called.
Function definition starts with a keyword “def”.
The function name should be in lower case with underscore used as a word separator. Python’s style guide is called PEP 8. It explains different elements of style, such as the naming convention and how the code must be formatted (https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008).
A function can accept a value as an input in the form of parameter. Variable name in parentheses stores value supplied when the function was called. This variable is available for use within the function body.
The line containing function definition ends with a colon showing that function statements will follow in the next lines.
The code statements within a function are indented. PEP 8 recommends the use of spaces for indentation instead of tabs. Also, 4 spaces should separate each indentation level.
A function can be invoked to perform some action without returning any values to the caller. It can also return a value; such as a result of a calculation or a success code back to the caller. To create such a function, a statement starting with keyword return is used. When this statement is encountered, function execution stops.
Conditional Logic
Conditional logic statements allow us to perform certain actions based on an evaluation result of a condition. Let’s modify our example, so the line_number_print function displays different strings depending on whether the number is odd or even. The listing below shows the modifications made, the remaining code is not changed.
def line_number_printer(number):
if number % 2 == 0:
print("This is the line number", number, "and it is even")
else:
print("This is the line number", number, "and it is odd")
When the program is launched the following output is displayed on the screen.
C:\PythonExamples\>python c:\PythonExamples\hello_world.py
Hello World!
This is the line number 2 and it is even
This is the line number 3 and it is odd
This is the line number 4 and it is even
Figure 3 shows how conditional logic is used in the example above.
Figure 3. Python Conditional Logic Example
Let’s go through the diagram and discuss each element:
“if” keyword is followed by a logical test that can be either True or False.
If the test is evaluated as True, the statement (or multiple statements) under the “if” section is executed.
As with the functions, the body of “if” or “else” sections comprises of indented statements.
If the test is evaluated as False, the statement (or multiple statements) under the “else” section is executed.
for Loops
The “for” loops can be used to apply an action to each element of a collection. For example, we can store a list of switch interfaces in a list. To check the status of each of these interfaces we can use the “for” loop to iterate through the list and then run a command against each of the interfaces.
Let’s rewrite our program using “for” loops to automatically assign line numbers.
The listing below shows the complete code, as we removed the line calculation function and multiple calls to print function.
def line_number_printer(number):
if number % 2 == 0:
print("This is the line number", number, "and it is even")
else:
print("This is the line number", number, "and it is odd")
print("Hello World!")
for line_number in range(2, 5):
line_number_printer(line_number)
When the program is launched the same output is displayed on the screen.
C:\PythonExamples>python c:\PythonExamples\hello_world.py
Hello World!
This is the line number 2 and it is even
This is the line number 3 and it is odd
This is the line number 4 and it is even
Figure 4 shows how “for” loop is used in the example above.
Figure 4. Python “for” loop Example
Let’s go through the diagram and discuss each element:
“for” keyword is followed by a variable name that will be changing its value on each pass.
“in” keyword is followed by a list of values that will be assigned one at a time to the “for” variable on each iteration.
Statements that perform actual work during each cycle are indented under the “for” loop.
Not shown in the example, “break” keyword stops loop processing and continues with the code following the loop. Similarly, the “continue” keyword stops the current pass processing, but in contrast to “break”, it starts the next cycle of the loop.
Self-Test Tasks:
Task 1
Write a function that accepts a number and prints it out followed by “is the number passed as a parameter”.
Task 2
Write a function that accepts a number and prints out “Greater than 10” or “Less or equal than 10” depending on the number that was provided. The greater operator is “>” and less or equal is “<=”.
Task 3
Write a “for” loop that iterates over a list of interfaces Ethernet1/1, Ethernet1/2, and Ethernet1/3 and prints out the output below. To supply interfaces for “for” loop, use a list [ “Ethernet1/1”, “Ethernet1/2”, “Ethernet1/3” ]
interface Ethernet1/1
description Added by Automation Script
no shutdown
interface Ethernet1/2
description Added by Automation Script
no shutdown
interface Ethernet1/3
description Added by Automation Script
no shutdown
Self-Test Answers:
Task 1
def print_number(number):
print(number, "is the number passed as a parameter")
Task 2
def compare_number_to_ten(number):
if number > 10:
print("Greater than 10")
else:
print("Less or equal than 10")
Task3
for interface_name in [ "Ethernet1/1", "Ethernet1/2", "Ethernet1/3" ]:
print("interface", interface_name)
print(" description Added by Automation Script")
print(" no shutdown")
In this blog post, we will discuss REST-based APIs. We will also demonstrate how to use such APIs with step-by-step scenarios using a Cisco virtual router running on the ESXi platform.
This article aims to help CCNA candidates in preparing for the following exam topic:
6.5 Describe characteristics of REST-based APIs (CRUD, HTTP verbs, and data encoding)
APIs and Representational State Transfer (REST)
Application Programming Interface (API)
API of an application or a service specifies how other applications can access and change its information. For example, a service may expect certain parameters to be specified when a client application makes a request. The service generates some output as a response, which is also part of API.
A network device manufacture develops and maintains API. CCNA candidates should understand how to use APIs from the client perspective. Automation scripts and software use APIs that network devices expose.
Command-Line Interface (CLI) cannot be classified as API. It provides means to change how a device operates, but its primary purpose is to interact with a user, i.e. not with another program. CLI, however, can be used in automation scripts, which interactively send and parse command output.
SNMP operation fits the definition of API. However, it didn’t receive wide adoption in network automation and is mostly used in read-only monitoring.
Cisco devices and controllers expose RESTful APIs, i.e. APIs that meet specific architectural criteria. We will discuss this type of API in the following section.
RESTful API
REST defines a set of architectural guidelines that were defined by Roy Fielding in his dissertation.
REST is not a protocol and doesn’t provide specific implementation details. For example, it doesn’t mandate the use of HTTP, which is, however, is most often used and often associated with REST APIs.
REST defines a set of constraints that must be met for a web service to be considered RESTful. The full list of constraints is:
Must have client-server architecture.
RESTful services must have a uniform interface.
The client must track the state of the session and send request containing all information required to process such a request. The server must not store user session context information.
The server must state whether information can be cached on the client.
The system must have a hierarchical layered design.
The server can send executable code to a client to extend its functionality.
RESTful API constraints provide multiple benefits for an application and are important for an API designer to follow. However, for a network engineer, the main areas of focus are centered around how to access and change information behind API.
REST Resources and Representation
In REST API a resource is any type of information that can have a name. For example, a network interface or an access list can be used as resources in API.
A resource is identified with a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). Type of URI that specifies a location and access protocol of a resource is called Unified Resource Locator (URL). When a client sends a request to REST API, it must include a resource identifier. For example, if HTTP is used as protocol, the URL of https://fastreroute.com/category/ccna consists of the URI scheme of HTTPS, followed by colon, authority “//”, hostname – fastreroute.com, and resource identifier (or path) – /category/ccna.
Representation of a resource is a self-describing state of a resource at a specific moment. The server provides a representation of a resource to the client, which can perform different operations on the resource. For example, the representation of the resource identified with the URL in the previous paragraph is an HTML page that contains all CCNA posts of the blog. REST APIs can return representation as a serialized object, for example, in (JavaScript Object Notation) JSON format.
CRUD and HTTP Verbs
CRUD stands for 4 generic types of operations that can be applied to data:
Create
Read
Update
Delete
HTTP request methods, also called verbs, can be mapped to CRUD operations. For example, in an HTTP-based RESTful API, a client can change the parameters of a network interface by using the HTTP PATCH method. We will show how it can be done in the example section.
HTTP GET method corresponds to Read operation. The server responds with a representation of a resource identified by URI.
HTTP POST verb Creates a child or subordinate to resource specified in URI.
HTTP PUT maps to both Update and Create operations. If a resource specified in the PUT request exists on the server, it should be replaced with the one in the request. If the resource doesn’t exist, PUT can create it.
HTTP PATCH verb can also perform the Update operation. PATCH contains instructions on how to update a resource, while PUT contains a modified copy of a resource.
HTTP DELETE maps to Delete operation.
REST API Example: CSR1000v
Let’s apply concepts from the previous section to practice. The next few sections will show how to perform each of CRUD operations with REST-like API provided by Cisco IOS-XE routers.
This API is based on RESTCONF. It can return the representation of resources in XML or JSON formats. RESTCONF uses YANG, which is modeling language describing a router’s configuration and operation states.
In our example, we will generate API requests to a CSR1000v IOS-XE router running on ESXi.
Our router runs IOS-XE version 16.9.5 with the following configuration applied:
interface GigabitEthernet1
ip address 192.168.7.4 255.255.255.0
no shutdown
aaa new-model
aaa authentication login default local
aaa authorization exec default local
username admin secret ciscocisco
username admin privilege 15
enable secret ciscocisco
ip http server
ip http authentication local
ip http secure-server
restconf
Refer for details to the Cisco configuration guide, which is available via this URL.
Postman helps with testing and discovery of API prior to writing automation programs. The automation scripts can be written using programming languages, such as Python with requests library.
Download the software for the platform of your choice. We use the Windows version of Postman in the next examples and the screenshots.
Start Postman and disable SSL certificate validation, as we are going to use the router’s IP address and self-signed certificate in our examples:
In the first example, we will send a simple GET request to obtain a list of interfaces of the router.
Figure 2. REST API READ
The next figure shows the sequence of steps creating the request in Postman that returns the list of interfaces of the router. The username and password values must match ones configured on the router.
192.168.7.4 – hostname or IP address of the router
/restconf/data/Cisco-IOS-XE-native:native/interface/ – path or resource ID
Figure 3. Postman –GET Request Parameters
The result of the request is shown in the next screenshot. The server replied back with a 200 OK message and a representation of its interfaces in XML format.
Figure 4. Postman – Read list of the Router’s Interfaces in XML Format
To switch to JSON we can adjust the request by modifying Headers as shown in Figure 5. Accept key is set to value of application/yang-data+json. The response looks very similar to the one in Figure 4, as both XML and JSON represent the same resource – a list of interfaces of the router.
Figure 5. Postman – Read list of the Router’s Interfaces in JSON Format
Create new interface with HTTP POST
As the next step, let’s create a new loopback interface using the HTTP POST verb. Figure 6 demonstrates a message exchange between the client using URI representing a list of interfaces and the POST method containing the JSON representation of the new loopback interface. The server returns HTTP response with the code of 201 (created).
Figure 6. Cisco IOS-XE REST API Create an Interface with HTTP POST
Figure 7 shows Postman configuration for this request.
Figure 7. Postman – Create an Interface with HTTP POST
The listing below shows JSON representation of the interface:
The router has its configuration updated with new Loopback1 interface:
ROUTER#show run interface Loopback1
!
interface Loopback1
description Test
ip address 192.168.8.1 255.255.255.255
!
Update interface description with HTTP PATCH
In this example, we will create a query that sets the GigabitEthernet1 interface’s description. Figure 8 shows the message exchange between the PC and the router. URI includes interface name, as PATCH is used to apply partial updates to an existing interface.
Figure 8. REST API Update with HTTP PATCH
Postman query configuration steps are shown in Figure 9. Note that authorization settings must be set in the same way as done in the HTTP GET example.
Figure 9. Postman – Updating Interface Description using HTTP PATCH
The listing below shows JSON representation of the description change:
{
"Cisco-IOS-XE-native:GigabitEthernet": {
"description": "Very Important Interface",
}
}
The router has its configuration updated with a description:
ROUTER#show run interface GigabitEthernet1
!
interface GigabitEthernet1
description Very Important Interface
ip address 192.168.7.4 255.255.255.0
negotiation auto
no mop enabled
no mop sysid
!
Delete interface description with HTTP DELETE
The final example will delete the Loopback interface using the HTTP DELETE verb. Figure 8 shows the message exchange, which identifies the resource that we want to delete.
Figure 8. REST API Delete with HTTP DELETE
Figure 9 shows configuration parameters in Postman.
Figure 9. Postman – Deleting Interface with HTTP DELETE
And the listing below demonstrates that the interface doesn’t exist anymore:
Router#show run interface Loopback1
^
% Invalid input detected at '^' marker.
Self-Test Questions
What is REST and RESTful API?
REpresentational State Transfer (REST) is an architectural style that defines a set of constraints to create APIs. RESTful API is an API that meets all the constraints.
Does RESTful API have to be HTTP-based?
No, REST doesn’t mandate the use of any specific protocols.
What is the difference between Resource and Representation in REST?
A resource is a named piece of information, while a representation of the resource is a description of the resource at a specific moment.
Map CRUD operations to HTTP verbs
Create – POST or PUT. Read – GET. Update – PATCH or PUT (by replace). Delete – DELETE
In this blog post, we will cover the role of 2 important services – DHCP and DNS. The CCNA exam includes the following topics that we will explore in detail:
4.3 Explain the role of DHCP and DNS within the network
4.6 Configure and verify DHCP client and relay
Domain Name System
Domain Name System (DNS) is a naming protocol for hosts and services on the Internet. It is also a client-server application that maintains and provides access to DNS records. Many Internet services, such as web browsing and email delivery, rely on DNS service.
In addition to its role of naming hosts on the Internet, DNS is also often used by organizations to support their internal applications. For example, Microsoft Active Directory is a directory service that requires DNS to store its records. In such scenarios, the internal records are not exposed to the Internet.
Domains and FQDNs
Hosts are uniquely identified by their Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN). For example, server1.sales.fastreroute.com is a fully qualified domain name of a server. The name consists of 2 parts separated by a dot:
Hostname portion, or server1
Domain portion, or sales.fastreroute.com
The domain component is hierarchical, with the parent domains specified on the right side. In the example above, domain .com is a parent domain of fastreroute.com, which in turn is a parent domain of sales.fastreroute.com.
To understand domain hierarchy, a file system can be used as an analogy, in which folders are replaced with domains and files with hosts. Domains can contain sub-domains or hostnames, in the same way as a file-system folder can contain subfolders or files.
Name Servers
Name server functionality can be implemented as an operating system component, an application, or Software-As-A-Service (SAAS). For example, BIND is one of the most popular DNS servers on the Internet and is available on Unix-like operating systems. Windows platforms have a DNS server built-in into the server operating system.
Public cloud providers offer managed DNS service, for example, AWS offers Route53, which can provide advanced features beyond traditional DNS servers. Cisco routers can be configured to act as a DNS server too. We will provide an example of how to set it up in this blog post.
A name server can act as an authoritative server or name resolver, or both at the same time. The authoritative server role focuses on storing naming information in DNS zones. The resolver role is about providing requested information after receiving a query from a client. We will discuss these roles in detail in the next two sections.
Authoritative Name Servers and Zones
An authoritative name server stores a DNS zone for a specific domain subtree and doesn’t rely on querying other name servers for entries in this zone. A domain hierarchy defines a logical structure of a namespace, while zones are actual files or databases storing the DNS data.
The very top zone in the hierarchy of public DNS is called the root zone. It contains pointers on how to find information about domains such as .com, .net, and different country codes. These domains are called Top-Level Domains (TLDs).
The root zone is serviced by 13 groups of DNS servers, which are also called root hints. Each group contains geographically distributed servers that share the same anycast IP address and allocated a letter of the alphabet as hostname, in the root-server.net domain. The location of these servers on the world map can be checked here, scroll down to see members within each cluster, and their location.
When an organization registers a domain name, for example, fastreroute.com, the parent domain (.com) delegates administrative control over fastreroute.com and all domains under it to the organization. If no further delegation is done, then the zone fastreroute.com will store all entries in the domain and all subdomains under it.
Administrators of fastreroute.com can delegate control of a subdomain sales.fastreroute.com to the sales department. A different set of DNS servers can host the zone for sales.fastreroute.com and all subdomains under it, such as us.sales.fastreroute.com.
If we continue the analogy with the file system, delegation is similar to creating a link or shortcut that will redirect users to another file server. This server, in turn, can create shortcuts to other file servers and so on.
Name Resolvers and Query Types
Name resolution is the process of a DNS client sending a query and DNS server replying to it. The most commonly used type of request is to resolve hostnames to IP addresses. Some name servers can perform only name resolution functionality and do not host any zones, i.e. not being authoritative for any domain namespaces.
There are 2 modes that name resolvers can operate in – recursive and iterative. A recursive server can perform additional queries to another server if it doesn’t have the required information locally. Recursive name resolvers can also cache answers, so the subsequent queries can be serviced using a local cache. An iterative resolver, instead of doing all the queries on the client behalf, can return an address of another name server for the client to query directly.
Record types
DNS stores information in domain zones using several types of records. SOA record contains authoritative zone information, administrative contacts, and different timers. NS record contains pointers to authoritative DNS servers.
“A” record maps a hostname to an IPv4 address. AAAA record is the IPv6 version of A record. PTR record stores reversed A record, so one can resolve a hostname by using an IP address.
CNAME record keeps hostname to hostname mapping and also often called alias record. MX record is used to specify the SMTP mail server for a domain. TXT record stores a piece of text information.
Check this article on Wikipedia with the full list of DNS record types.
Cisco Routers and Switches as a DNS Client
Cisco devices can be configured as a DNS client. The device has multiple system services such as, Smart Licensing and NTP servers, that use hostnames and need to figure out the IP addresses. Hostname and domain name is also used to create RSA keys for services, such as the SSH server.
The following configuration commands configure DNS client functionality:
hostname edgerouter1
ip name-server 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4
ip domain name fastreroute.com
In this example, the router will have FQDN of edgerouter1.fastreroute.com. It will use two Google’s name servers in the specified order and it will also append suffix fastreroute.com if only a hostname is specified in various commands.
To display name server information, validate cache and enable debugging, use the following 3 commands:
show ip dns servers
show hosts
debug ip domain
Cisco Routers and Switches as DNS Server
It is possible to configure Cisco routers to provide DNS server functionality. To enable it use the following command:
ip dns server
By default, the server will use name servers configured on the router, as shown in the earlier example, to perform query forwarding. It is possible to create conditional forwarding patterns useful when you might want to use internal DNS servers for some queries and ISP’s DNS servers for Internet access at the remote branch. The configuration guide on the Cisco website provides more information for such a configuration.
It is also possible to create static entries that can be useful for different testing scenarios:
ip host test.local.lab 1.2.3.4
In this example, the router will reply with the IP address of 1.2.3.4 to clients that are trying to resolve “test.local.lab” via the Cisco router.
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)
A host needs an IP address to communicate on the network. An address can be assigned to a device via manual configuration or dynamic assignment. Administrators manually configure IP addresses on servers and network devices that expect static IP addresses. DHCP server dynamically assigns IP addresses to workstations and client devices, as they don’t expect inbound connections and manual configuration would be time-consuming and unpractical.
DHCP Client-Server Communication
When a DHCP client starts up, it broadcasts a discover message looking for a DHCP server. As the client doesn’t have an IP address during bootstrap, all communications described below use broadcasts and can only communicate on the same broadcast domain (VLAN).
If any of the DHCP servers received a discover message from the client, they reply with an offer of IP address for the client to use. The client receives one or many replies, in which case it usually uses the first one, and sends a request back to the server confirming that it accepts offered IP address. Finally, the server sends an acknowledgment to the client to complete the address negotiation process.
This handshake uses 4 messages: DHCP Discover, DHCP Offer, DHCP Request, DHCP Ack. It can be memorized by using acronym DORA (Discover, Offer, Request, Acknowledgment).
DHCP Pools and Leases
An administrator creates a pool of IP addresses for the DHCP server to allocate individual addresses from. Addresses must be returned back to the pool after a period of time or a client must request a lease renewal.
Multiple settings, such as subnet mask, default gateway, DNS server and domain, and lease duration can be managed on a pool level. Cisco devices acting as DHCP servers use the pool configuration mode for subnets and individual IP address reservations.
DHCP lease or binding is created when a client has been allocated an IP address from a pool. The lease is provided for a specific time. The client will attempt to renew the lease at the predetermined periods prior to the lease expiration.
Printers often need to have the same IP address. Instead of configuring printers manually, an administrator can configure a DHCP server to reserve an IP address for a specific MAC address. Such a lease is called DHCP reservation.
DHCP Client Configuration on Cisco Devices
DHCP client configuration is usually done on Internet-facing interfaces.
interface GigabitEthernet0
ip address dhcp
ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 dhcp
The example above configures the GigabitEthernet0 interface to acquire its IP address dynamically via DHCP. The optional “ip route” command enables the use of the default gateway sent by the DHCP server.
DHCP Relay Configuration on Cisco Devices
As we discovered earlier, DHCP is based on broadcast communications. As broadcasts are contained within a subnet boundary, clients must be placed into the same subnet as the DHCP server or DHCP server must have multiple interfaces to be placed into every subnet. Both scenarios are not optimal and don’t scale well.
To address this DHCP relay can be configured on a switch. DHCP relay listens for DHCP messages on the interfaces where it is enabled. If a relay sees a broadcast, it processes the message and then sends it as a unicast directly to the DHCP server. Further communications flow via DHCP relay, which also encodes source IP address of the interface where the query from the client was received, so the DHCP server knows from which address pool to allocate the address.
DHCP relay or often called “ip helper”, is configured using the following commands:
interface Vlan100
ip helper-address 192.168.1.10
In this example, the DHCP broadcasts received from clients in VLAN 100 will be forwarded to the DHCP server with an IP address of 192.168.1.10.
DHCP Server Configuration on Cisco Devices
In SOHO networks, no traditional servers may be available to perform the DHCP server role. In these scenarios, a router can be configured as a DHCP server. The configuration consists of defining a DHCP pool with its settings and excluding certain IP addresses from allocation.
The configuration commands to create a network pool:
ip dhcp excluded-address 192.168.10.1 192.18.10.10
ip dhcp pool VLAN-10
network 192.168.10.0 255.255.255.0
default-router 192.168.10.1
dns-server 192.168.10.1
To create a reservation for a device, its MAC address needs to be specified:
ip dhcp pool PRINTER-01
host 192.168.10.9 255.255.255.0
client-identifier abcd.efab.cdef
default-router 192.168.10.1
dns-server 192.168.10.1
To validate assigned IP addresses and see debug messages:
show ip dhcp binding
debug ip dhcp server packets
debug ip dhcp server events
What is the difference between recursive and iterative modes of DNS resolver operation?
Resolver in recursive mode performs queries on client behalf and returns requested information, while iterative resolver will send a referral to the client, so it can perform further queries on its own.
What is the difference between A and CNAME DNS resource records?
“A” record is used to store a mapping of hostname to IP address, while CNAME stores hostname (alias) to hostname mapping.
List 4 messages used in DHCP communication between client and server?
Discover, Offer, Response and Acknowledgement (DORA)
Explain what is the purpose of a DHCP relay?
DHCP communication uses broadcast messages which are not forwarded by the routers. DHCP relay services can be provided by a router with an interface in the same network as clients. DHCP relay translates broadcast communication with the client into unicast communication with the DHCP server.
In this blog post, we will discover how a Cisco router selects the best route to use for packet forwarding. The CCNA exam includes the following topics which we will cover in detail:
3.2 Determine how a router makes a forwarding decision by default
• 3.2.a Longest match
• 3.2.b Administrative distance
• 3.2.c Routing protocol metric
Exam blueprint lists selection criteria in the order of preference that a router uses when choosing the best path among multiple available options. However, to compile the routing table the process is reversed.
Firstly, each routing protocol selects the best route using its own metric comparison procedure. If there are more than one candidate routes from different protocols, then administrative distances are compared and only one protocol installs its route into the routing table. In some cases, a routing protocol, instead of preferring a single path, can use multiple next-hops for the same network to split the load between several links.
The forwarding decision is then based only on the longest match, as the routing table is already filtered of all but the best routes. The router looks for the longest match for a destination and prefers more specific IP prefix routes over broader ones.
To describe these options in this blog post, we will follow the bottom-up approach, i.e. starting with protocol choice, then moving to inter-protocol choice, and finally performing the longest match comparison.
Sample network
Figure 1 shows a sample diagram with a router selecting the best path to forward traffic to a host with the IP address of 10.1.1.25. By the end of this post, you will be able to identify the path router A will select. In the next several sections we will discuss these selection steps one by one.
Figure 1. Determine how a router makes a forwarding decision
Routing Protocol Metric
Dynamic routing protocols calculate and use a numerical value to describe the cost of a path to a destination. This number is called a metric and it is specific to each routing protocol. Metric values of two different routing protocols are not compared with each other. All routing protocols either use different properties of the path or use different calculations.
For example, some protocols use a simple metric like the number of routers or hops that a packet needs to cross to get to the remote network. If two peers advertise routes to such a network, the one that has a smaller number of hops is chosen. Some other protocols can use bandwidth as its path cost.
Table 1 lists different routing protocols and the metric that they use.
Protocol
Metric
RIP
Number of routers in path - hop count.
OSPF, IS-IS
Cumulative value that is based on bandwidth with smaller bandwidth accumulating more cost.
EIGRP
Composite metric that is based on multiple parameters – delay, bandwidth, utilization and reliability. Only first two parameters are used. Calculated as sum of transit links delays and smallest bandwidth across the path.
BGP
Number of Autonomous Systems (or routing domains) to reach a destination can be considered a metric that is visible end to end.
Table 1. Routing Protocol Metrics
Interior Gateway Protocols (IGP) Metric
IGP metrics with the exception of RIP provide a good measurement of path performance. They are based on static link parameters, such as bandwidth and delay. Only EIGRP metric calculation formula can include dynamic link features, such as utilization and reliability, however, they are not used by default.
IGP protocols also prefer routes that were injected into the protocol internally. This mostly comprises of routes which routers have interfaces in. External routes are represented by routes injected by redistribution from another protocol or a static route. For example, OSPF selects intra-area routes, then inter-area routes, and finally external routes. This selection happens before metric comparison.
Exterior Gateway Protocols (EGP) Metric
BGP has a different objective when choosing the best path. As the protocol is used between different organizations, it was designed to include multiple attributes that can be used to influence and communicate the desired traffic flow. The BGP path selection process consists of more than 10 steps. Many of the attributes are statically configured to influence the selection process and represent an administrative view of path cost, as opposed to IGP’s calculation based on some objective evaluation of the path performance.
The routing domain controlled by a single organization in BGP is called an Autonomous System. As a route propagates from the injecting router it is being updated and includes AS numbers of all routers it has traversed. AS_PATH attribute stores this information. Member AS count in AS_PATH can be used to compare different routes. The shorter AS_PATH is preferred over a longer one. The other attributes that BGP routers exchange and can be used to affect the best path selection include LOCAL_PREF, MED, ORIGIN, and closest IGP metric to the next hop.
Example of the best route selection using routing protocol metric
In the sample topology, router A can see 2 paths to 10.1.1.0/24 in its EIGRP topology table. As shown in Figure 2, the path via D has a cost of 1024 and path via E – 2048. EIGRP process on router A chooses path via D as a candidate route. The next section will describe the process the router goes through to decide if EIGRP should be allowed to install its route.
Figure 2. Selecting a route using routing protocol metric
Administrative Distance
Administrative Distance is a tie-breaker that is used when there are two or more candidate routes of the same length but learned via different routing protocols. Only one version of these routes to the same network will be installed into the routing table.
Administrative Distance is a pre-configured numerical value of the trustworthiness of a routing information source. More preferred protocols have smaller administrative distance numbers.
Protocol
Administrative Distance
Notes
Directly connected network
0
The networks that router has interface in. Cannot be changed.
Static
1
Manually created routes. Can be increased to create a floating static routes.
EIGRP (summary route)
5
Cisco proprietary Interior Gateway Protocol. Routes of this type are visible only on the router that creates a summary in EIGRP. Layer 3 loop prevention mechanism.
eBGP
20
Standard-based Exterior Gateway Protocol. Assigned to routes that are learned from external BGP neighbors.
Cisco proprietary Interior Gateway Protocol. The routes that are redistributed into EIGRP installed with higher AD. Layer 3 loop prevention mechanism.
iBGP
200
Standard-based Exterior Gateway Protocol. Assigned to routes learned from internal BGP peers.
OMP
251
Cisco proprietary protocol used in SD-WAN between vEdges. High Administrative Distance value makes the router to prefer routes learned via service (LAN) side.
Table 2. Default Administrative Distances
Directly connected networks and static routes
As table 1 shows, directly connected networks have the lowest administrative distance. A router has an interface in each of the connected networks.
Static routes, by default, are more preferred than any dynamically learned route of the same prefix length. By changing a static route’s administrative distance to be numerically higher than dynamic routing protocol is a common way to provide backup connectivity. In this configuration, if a dynamic route is no longer available, a static route replaces it and provides a secondary path. Such a route is called a floating static route.
The default administrative distance values rank IGP protocols in the following order of preference: EIGRP, OSPF, IS-IS, and RIP. With the exception of RIP, the priority doesn’t mean that one protocol is more reliable or accurate than another.
In many networks, there is a single IGP, so having default preference for OSPF over IS-IS doesn’t make a difference. However, in some situations, such as networks merge or transition to different protocol an administrator may run several IGPs at the same time. In such networks, the default administrative distances can be adjusted to make one protocol more preferred than another. It is recommended to test the settings in a lab, as incorrect configuration can cause different issues, such as network loops and non-predictable traffic paths.
There is only a single non-obsolete Exterior Gateway Protocol – Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). If a router doesn’t run any other dynamic routing protocols, then as with IGPs, its default administrative distance value doesn’t affect the route selection process.
However, in enterprise networks, it is common to run BGP along with one of the IGPs. For example, a company can exchange routes via BGP with its Internet or WAN providers. At the same time, internally it can run OSPF or EIGRP. In such scenarios, the routes can be divided into external and internal. BGP is authoritative for the external, and IGP – for the internal routes.
Default Administrative Distance of external BGP routes ensures that a router will not start preferring a route to external networks via adjacent IGP router, which can often advertise such network back if there is more than one router performing redistribution between protocols.
Differently, IBGP peers have an administrative distance of 200, which is higher than any IGP’s route AD. This causes a router to use IGP as the source of truth for the internal destinations.
Interestingly, in some cases, internal BGP can overtake external BGP routes even if the latter has a lower administrative distance. The reason for it is that the BGP process performs its own evaluation when selecting the best path before placing the route into the routing table. For example, BGP routes received via internal peer can have a better value of Local Preference and as the result more preferred over the same route learned via external peer, which would be installed with AD of 20. As the best route is from an internal BGP peer, it will be installed into the routing table with AD of 200.
Example of the best router selection based on Administrative Distance
Following our previous example, as shown in Figure 3, after EIGRP selected path via D, we left with 3 possible paths, via B, C, and D. Both B and D want to install the same network – 10.1.1.0/24 into the routing table. Administrative distance is used to decide which one is better. As EIGRP has better administrative distance (90) than internal BGP (200), the path via B is selected. This selection happens before any packet forwarding decisions are made as part of router protocol convergence. Both routes (10.0.0.0/8 and 10.1.1.0/24) are now installed into the routing table. The next step for the router is to perform selection based on the longest match.
Figure 3. Selecting a route based on Administrative Distance
Longest Match
All unicast routing protocols lookup routes using the destination IP address of a packet. The longest match refers to the process of identifying the route to the most specific network that the packet matches.
For example, the default route or route to 0.0.0.0/0 matches every packet. Next hop of such routes is often called gateway of last resort because it is the least preferred route, which is used only if no other matching routes exist.
The most specific route is a host route with a prefix length of 32 (or subnet mask of 255.255.255.255). For example, 192.168.100.25/32 is a host route, and packets sent to that specific host will be always following this route.
The important difference of the longest match from the other two steps is that the router compares two different routes, with one being a superset of another. Both networks will appear in the routing table. Such a situation often exists when there is summarization being performed in the network, which is the process of combining multiple routes into a single one.
Example of the best route selection based on the longest match
In our example network, in Figure 4, router A needs to choose between 2 routes: statically configured 10.0.0.0/8 and dynamically learned 10.1.1.0/24. The /24 route is more specific and is a longer match.
Figure 4. Selecting the best route based on the longest match
Importance of identifying IP address range of a subnet
When evaluating a packet against multiple routes, identify the network part of the IP prefix and what is the useable range of addresses it contains. For example, let’s say you have a route to 192.168.0.0/16 and a route to 192.168.20.0/23. You need to identify which of these two routes a packet with the destination of 192.168.21.200 will match.
It may look like the packet matches only the first wider prefix – 192.168.0.0/16. However, 192.168.20.0/23 has the range of useable addresses between 192.168.20.1 and 192.168.21.254, which destination of 192.168.21.200 being part of it. Because /23 is a longer match than /16, the second route will be preferred.
Self-Test Questions
Which field of IP packet router uses for forwarding?
Destination IP address.
What is a floating static route?
By default, static routes are more preferred than any dynamic routes. Floating static route is a technique of making the route less preferred by increasing its administrative distance with the aim to use it as a backup option when the dynamic route is not reachable.
Do routers compare metrics calculated by different routing protocols?
False, only metrics of the same protocol are compared.
Can one see 2 routes with different administrative distances to exactly the same network in the routing table?
False, only routing protocol with the lowest administrative distance is allowed to install its route into the routing table.
If there are multiple routes of the different length matching a packet, which one router will use?
The route to the network that is most specific i.e. has the longest prefix length.
Consider the situation in which this article’s sample network used eBGP between router A and B. How this would affect the best path selection?
The A>B path would become the best path. In the Administrative Distance comparison step, eBGP with its default AD of 20 would win EIGRP’s AD of 90. It would then be installed into the routing table and is still more specific than 10.0.0.0/8.
New CCNA exam blueprint includes the following exam topics:
1.2 Describe characteristics of network topology architectures
1.2.a 2 tier
1.2.b 3 tier
1.2.c Spine-leaf
1.2.d WAN
1.2.e Small office/home office (SOHO)
1.2.f On-premises and cloud
We wrote a blog post about 2-tier and 3-tier campus network architecture, which is one of the topics of the older version of the CCNA exam. The content is still relevant, so we will provide only summary information here for completeness. Other topics that will be covered in this post include data center leaf-and-spine architecture, WAN topologies, small office/home office networks, and comparison between on-premises and cloud environments.
LAN Design
2-tier vs 3-tier
Campus networks design defines the following tiers or layers:
Access
Distribution
Core
Access tier provides connectivity for the end-users. The access layer requires high-port density capable to deliver Power-over-Ethernet (POE). Switches at the access layer connect to the distribution layer switches and should not be connected to each other. As access switches have direct visibility into devices that connect to them, security access checks, such as 802.1x authentication, and QoS traffic classification are usually performed at this tier.
The distribution tier is responsible for connecting access switches together. Distribution switches usually have high-speed fiber (and less often copper) ports. Traditionally, VLAN’s or subnet’s default gateway functions were provided by distribution layer switches. For this reason, different types of security enforcement, such as inter-VLAN ACLs were implemented on this layer. In modern networks, however, it is also common to see access layer switches configured as default gateways for VLANs.
Core tier connects distribution switches together when there is a requirement to have a 3rd level of the hierarchy. The main responsibility of this layer is to route traffic as fast as possible over multiple redundant paths.
Figure 1 shows a 2-tier design. This architecture comprises only of access and combined distribution-core tiers. It is also referred to as a collapsed core design. The switches on the top perform distribution tier features by providing uplink connectivity for access layer switches. The core feature, or connecting distribution switches together, is implemented by 1 link between these two switches. When the new access layer switches added to the network, it is possible to introduce additional distribution switches to accommodate the expansion.
Figure 1. 2-tier Network Architecture
As the number of distribution switches goes up, establishing full-mesh connectivity becomes difficult. Implementing a dedicated set of core devices, so each distribution switch only needs to connect to them can be a good alternative. 3-tier architecture has all 3 layers implemented, as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. 3-tier Network Architecture
Data Center Design
Physical topologies
A typical data center consists of multiple server racks connected together. Physical cabling usually follows one of two patterns:
Top-Of-Rack (TOR)
End-Of-Row (EOR)
Top-Of-Rack implies that each rack has a single or pair of switches usually installed on the top. The servers are connected to these switches, so all internal cabling stays inside the rack. Top-Of-Rack switches then connect to aggregation switches outside of the rack. End-Of-Row, on the other hand, indicates that only certain racks, for example, first and last rack in each row, have high-port-density switches installed. Servers are then connected using a cross-rack cabling system to these End-Of-Row switches.
Figure 3. Top-Of-Rack vs. End-Of-Rack
Both topologies have their pros and cons in different scenarios. For example, TOR design requires extra switches to be placed into each rack but has simplified cable management. The TOR switches may be underutilized depending on a number of servers within each rack. EOR topology requires more cables to be installed between racks as port requirements within each rack grow. Racks also should be adjacent to each other, so adding an additional rack may not be as easily accomplished as in TOR design.
Data center design requirements
Data centers host physical and virtual servers. Communication between servers within the data center network produces east-west traffic. It includes traffic between applications and databases, different replication types between servers, and file exchange.
There is a much higher demand for east-west bandwidth in a data center compared to a campus network, which usually doesn’t have much client-to-client communication.
Horizontal scalability, or ability to expand by adding new switches, is another requirement of a data center network. To accommodate an increase in a number of racks, the network must provide ways to connect new switches without affecting available bandwidth for the existing switches.
To address these requirements, the leaf-and-spine design is commonly used to build data centers. This connectivity pattern came from telecommunication circuit switching systems and called the Clos network.
Spine-leaf architecture
The leaf-and-spine topology consists of 2 layers – leaf layer and spine layer. In such topology, every device on one layer connects to every single device on another. No direct links exist between devices located on the same layer. Collectively, network devices on both layers form so-called switch fabric.
Figure 4. Leaf and Spine Architecture
Leaf switches are the access layer of the data center. The servers plug only into leaf switches. The links between leaf and spine switches are point-to-point Layer 3 links and all actively forwarding traffic.
This architecture provides predictable bandwidth between pair of any leaf switches. For example, in figure 4, each leaf switch has 4 uplinks. If each link is 100Gbps, then each leaf switch can provide 400Gbps of uplink bandwidth available to servers connected to it. With 48 10Gbps access ports on leaf switch, the oversubscription ratio is 480/400Gbps or 1.2 to 1. This ratio is preserved even if a number of leaf switches grow, so the network can scale horizontally. If more bandwidth is required, additional spine switches can be added.
Two Cisco data center solutions use leaf-and-spine topology – Cisco ACI and programmable VXLAN EVPN fabrics. Check our article on Cisco ACI foundation.
WAN
WAN or Wide Area Network provides connectivity between offices and remote branches of a company. There are 2 broad categories of WAN networks, which differ by how different sites can communicate with each other, – multi-access and point-to-point networks.
Multi-access vs Point-to-Point WAN
In the multi-access network, the Service Provider (SP) network connects WAN sites in a full-mesh scheme. Depending on the SP infrastructure, this design can provide better performance because of direct site-to-site connectivity. In Figure 5, an example of a multi-access network is shown. All three sites can reach each other directly.
Examples of multi-access networks include:
Layer 3 MPLS service
Metro Ethernet E-LAN service (L2 VPLS)
Older WAN technologies, such as Frame Relay and ATM
VPN-based WANs, such as DMVPN and SD-WAN
Figure 5. Multi-Access WAN Design
Point-to-point connections provide direct connectivity between two sites. Such services have advantages such as simplified bandwidth planning and QoS configuration. It can also provide very high bandwidth when there is dedicated fiber connectivity between sites.
It is still possible to route traffic between spokes via a central hub. For example, in Figure 6 Site B can communicate to Site C by traversing site A. This will increase the load on Site A links and can add delay.
Figure 6. Point-to-Point WAN Design
Examples of point-to-point connections include:
Metro Ethernet E-Line service (L2 MPLS-based or dedicated physical fiber or DWDM)
VPN-based site-to-site links
Many networks can combine these types of connectivity, for example, large offices can connect over dedicated fiber links to a data center, which has connectivity to the L3 MPLS network connecting smaller sites together.
Layer 2 vs Layer 3 WAN
WAN topologies can also be classified as Layer 2 or Layer 3. The difference between the two is how the service provider network is seen by the customer.
Layer 2 WAN looks like an Ethernet switch in multi-access or as a piece of wire in point-to-point setup. Some Layer 2 services allow 802.1q tagging, so multiple VLANs can be transported over the same link. Metro Ethernet E-LAN (VPLS), E-Line, and direct fiber links are all example of Layer 2 services. Figure 7 shows two variations of using a layer 2 service provider network.
Network on the top part of Figure 7 has edge routers deployed at each site. These routers create Layer 3 boundaries for devices behind them. The WAN-facing interfaces on the routers are in the same VLAN and IP subnet. The benefit of such setup is that a company can use its routing protocol of choice without relying on its support by the service provider.
Network on the bottom part of Figure 7 extends a single Layer 2 subnet to site devices using Layer 2 switches. This topology is rarely used to extend VLANs containing end-user devices due to a lack of practical use. However, it is often used to extend server VLANs when an application requires Layer 2 adjacency across different sites.
Figure 7. Layer 2 WAN Design Options
Layer 3 WAN appears like a router managed by the service provider. A site router needs to communicate to the provider network which networks it has behind it. Routing information can be either statically configured by the provider or dynamically exchanged. Service providers may not support routing protocol that is used internally by the customer, for example, EIGRP is rarely supported by Service Providers due to its proprietary nature. L3 MPLS VPN is the most commonly used Layer 3 WAN service.
Figure 8. Layer 3 WAN Design Options
Small Office/Home Office (SOHO)
SOHO networks are usually designed to meet requirements such as reducing the number of devices and minimizing the complexity of configuration while maintaining enterprise-level security. In many cases, VPN-based solutions over the Internet is the most practical way to provide access to enterprise resources.
Depending on the protocol stack used in the rest of the network, there are 3 available Cisco platforms to choose from:
Cisco IOS/IOS-XE based
Cisco SD-WAN
Meraki MX-based
All three stacks include compact devices with built-in Ethernet switch, built-in WiFi options, and a WAN interface (or two) with 4G backup. Check our article about different SD-WAN platforms.
There are two design options available with SOHO that relate to security.
Centralized Internet vs Local Internet Breakout (Split-tunneling)
Two options are different in what traffic is sent over a VPN tunnel to the corporate VPN gateway.
Centralized option forces all traffic to be sent over the tunnel. This includes Internet traffic which breaks out via the data center, which has a full set of security services available to ensure that there is the same level of security protection available to SOHO users.
With the split-tunnel option, only traffic to the company data center and offices is sent over the tunnel. Internet traffic is not tunneled and sent directly via a local Internet Service Provider. As a result, security inspection must be performed locally by the device.
On-Premises vs Cloud
Data centers traditionally hosted centralized enterprise infrastructure. It is referred to as on-premises infrastructure, which implies that companies have full control over the network, compute, storage, and software components.
As public cloud offerings gained popularity, many organizations shifted their workload out of data centers. Compared to on-premises data centers, public clouds offer very good scalability and rapid deployment with a consumption-based billing model.
In this blog post, we covered different cloud resources from the previous CCNA exam blueprint.
Self-Test Questions
What is the difference between 2-tier and 3-tier network architecture for campus networks?
Both implement functionality of access, distribution, and core layers. 2-tier has distribution and core layers combined in 1. 3-tier has all 3 layers.
Which tier or layer of campus network architecture is responsible for performing 802.1x authentication and QoS classification?
Access layer
Which tier or layer of campus network architecture is responsible for inter-connecting switches that have end-user devices connected to them?
Distribution layer
What communication type is referred to as east-west?
Traffic between servers within the data center
Which devices have interface connected to each other in leaf and spine topology?
Only leaf-to-spine. No leaf-to-leaf and spine-to-spine links exist.
Provide an example of multi-access WAN topology?
MPLS VPN, Metro Ethernet E-LAN, Frame Relay, ATM, DMVPN, and SD-WAN
What are different design options available for Internet breakout for SOHO?
Centralized and local (split-tunnel) Internet breakout
The new CCNA exam now includes topics from the discontinued CCNA Wireless exam. The current blueprint includes the topics listed below.
1.11 Describe wireless principles
1.11.a Nonoverlapping Wi-Fi channels
1.11.b SSID
1.11.c RF
1.11.d Encryption
5.9 Describe wireless security protocols (WPA, WPA2, and WPA3)
We will divide these topics into several blog posts – this one will focus on radio fundamental topics and the following posts will cover SSIDs, security protocols, and encryption. The purpose of the series of short articles is to help CCNA candidates with exam preparation.
Frequency
A radio signal is propagated in the form of a wave. One of the most important characteristics of a wave is its frequency. As figure 1 demonstrates, radio wave propagates in repeating cycles, with frequency calculated as a 1 full cycle per second. The frequency of 1 cycle per second is called 1 Hertz. The full cycle also constitutes a wave’s length. Measurement can be performed between any adjacent points of the same phase, for example, in figure 1 the orange wave’s cycle is measured between zero crossings and the blue’s one is between two crests. Lower frequencies have longer wavelengths and can travel further if the same amount of power is applied. For example, to provide some perspective of the actual size, a wave of a frequency of 1 Hertz has a length of 343m or 1125ft, 2.4GHz – 12.5cm or 4.92 inch, 5Ghz – 6cm or 2.36 inch.
Frequencies between 20 kilohertz (kHz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz) are classified as radio frequencies. FM/AM radio, television, DECT phones, and microwave ovens are all operating in the radio frequency range.
802.11 wireless network devices exchange data by transmitting and receiving radio signals in portions of 2 frequency bands – 2.4GHz and 5GHz. Many countries allow unlicensed use of subsets of these frequencies, but there are regulations restricting channel use and maximum transmit power. There are also restrictions on indoor vs outdoor use and even requirements for dynamic switching away from the specific channels when weather radars are discovered. A specific region that the device is certified to work in is called a regulatory domain.
Radio Channels
Radio Channel numbers provide a simple reference to a specific frequency within a band. For example, channel 1 of the 2.4GHz band corresponds to the center frequency of 2412MHz. It is easier to remember channel 1 than its value of 2412MHz. Channel 2 has a center frequency of 2417MHz, or plus additional 5MHz.
Each channel has a range of frequencies to the left and to the right of the center frequency. Channel 1 from our example above has a range of frequencies between 2401 to 2423MHz. The channel’s range is 22MHz, however, their center frequencies are only 5MHz apart. The reason behind this is that the standard uses 5MHz channels for numbering. Devices, on the other hand, use 22MHz or 20MHz-wide channels. We will clarify the difference between 20MHz and 22MHz channels in the following section.
Manual setting of a channel number is usually not required; Wireless LAN Controller will perform required adjustments dynamically to ensure that there are no overlaps between adjacent access points. However, it is important to know the number of available non-overlapping channels when performing wireless network design and site surveys.
DSSS vs OFDM (or 22MHz vs 20MHz)
Direct-Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) is a modulation technique that uses the whole 22-MHz-wide channel to send information. DSSS was introduced with 802.11b standard and 2.4GHz channels frequency ranges were standardized to match its requirement of 22MHz wide-channels. DSSS supports a maximum of 11Mbps.
Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) uses a different approach by splitting each 20MHz range into multiple smaller sub-channels or carriers. It was introduced with 802.11a for 5GHz and later in 802.11g for use in 2.4GHz. OFDM replaced DSSS as it was capable to provide higher bandwidth. As with DSSS, a single device can transmit at a time, as different sub-carriers in OFDM cannot be used at the same time by multiple transmitters.
Recently released 802.11ax standard or Wi-Fi 6 provides an ability to divide and share these smaller sub-channels between different devices at the same time. The updated OFDM modulation scheme in Wi-Fi 6 is called Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing Access (OFDMA).
2.4GHz Channels
The table below shows all available 2.4GHz channels. Countries in North America use only the first 11, while the majority of other countries allow the use of 2 additional channels.
Channel Number
Center Frequency (MHz)
1
2412
2
2417
3
2422
4
2427
5
2432
6
2437
7
2442
8
2447
9
2452
10
2457
11
2462
12
2467
13
2472
Table 1. 2.4GHz Channels
There are only 3 non-overlapping channels in the 2.4GHz range – 1, 6, and 11. There is also channel 14 (2484Mhz), but it can be used only in Japan with 802.11b.
5GHz
5GHz range has several subranges available, which are called Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure (U-NII) bands:
U-NII-1: 5.150-5.250GHz (4 channels)
U-NII-2: 5.250-5.350GHz (4 channels)
U-NII-2 Extended: 5.470-5.725GHz (11 channels)
U-NII-3: 5.725-5.850GHz (5 channels)
None of the standards for 5GHz don’t support DSSS with its 22MHz channels. Only OFDM and 20MHz-wide channels are used. 802.11n and later 802.11ac allowed bonding of 20MHz channels together to form 40MHz, 80MHz and even 160MHz channels to provide more bandwidth.
The table below shows a larger number of channels that are available in the 5GHz band. Compared to 2.4GHz, the channels don’t overlap, so the whole 2.4GHz range would only take 3 lines if we would remove all overlapping channels.
Numbering is still based on 5MHz increments. Channel 1 starts at 5000MHz, this explains why the first configurable channel number is 36, it corresponds to 5180MHz center frequency (5000 + 36×5).
Channel Number
Center Frequency (MHz)
Band Designation (US FCC)
36
5180
U-NII-1
40
5200
U-NII-1
44
5220
U-NII-1
48
5240
U-NII-1
52
5260
U-NII-2
56
5280
U-NII-2
60
5300
U-NII-2
64
5320
U-NII-2
100
5500
U-NII-2 Extended
104
5520
U-NII-2 Extended
108
5540
U-NII-2 Extended
112
5560
U-NII-2 Extended
116
5580
U-NII-2 Extended
120
5600
U-NII-2 Extended
124
5620
U-NII-2 Extended
128
5640
U-NII-2 Extended
132
5660
U-NII-2 Extended
136
5680
U-NII-2 Extended
140
5700
U-NII-2 Extended
149
5745
U-NII-3
153
5765
U-NII-3
157
5785
U-NII-3
161
5805
U-NII-3
165
5825
U-NII-3
Table 2. 5GHz Channels
The channel availability and power restrictions depend on regulatory domain.
An easy way to check the number of channels that an AP will support in a specific country is based on the following procedure. Navigate to Cisco’s online tool to find out what regulatory domain country is in. Then check the datasheet for the access point. Look for the “Frequency band and 20-MHz operating channels” section of the datasheet. It will list the number of channels supported in different regulatory domains.
Signal Power
Signal power is measured in watts. Radio waves can propagate further when a higher level of transmit power is applied. Amplitude describes signal strength and is a distance between a crest and a trough of the radio wave as shown in figure 1. Typical power levels in wireless networks are measured in milliwatts (1/1000 of a watt). For example, the maximum available transmit power setting for the Catalyst 9130 access point is 200mW in 2.4GHz and 400mW in 5GHz ranges.
Units of Measurement
Power levels can also be represented using a relative value in decibels compared to 1mW (dBm). This measurement is based on a logarithmic scale. Imagine that you want to compare 4 power values in milliwatts with values of 1mW, 10mW, 20mW, 100mW, and 1000mW (1 Watt) by drawing them on a bar chart. Due to the large difference between values we cannot fit 1000mW value into the chart.
Figure 2. RF Signal Power Bar Chart – Linear Scale
The logarithmic scale allows representing these values evenly by comparing how it changed instead of absolute values. A simplified way to transfer from mW to dB and vice versa is based on adding (or removing) 3dBm when the value in mW doubles (or halves). Similarly, add (or remove) 10dBm when the value in mW increases by ten (or decreases by ten).
Let’s re-map the previous values on a bar chart with a logarithmic scale. The first value of 1mW is the same as our reference value of 1mW in dBm. As there is no change in power value 1mW is translated to 0 dBm. Then there is a tenfold increase to 10mW, which means we need to add 10dBm and the final value is 10dBm. The next value of 20mW is two times larger than 10mW, so we need to add 3dBm which gives us 13dBm.
100mW is tenfold increase from 10mW (10dBm), so we add another 10dBm to get 20dBm. The final value of 1000mW is tenfold increase from 100mW (20dBm); by adding another 10dBm we will get value of 30dBm for 1000mW. The result is shown on figure 3.
Figure 3. RF Signal Power Bar Chart – Logarithmic Scale
dBm can also be negative values to represent values that are smaller than 1mW. For example, -3dBm can be calculated as half of 1mW, which equals to 0.5mW. Refer to this Wikipedia article about logarithmic calculations for more information.
EIRP
Regulations usually specify value called Effective Isotropic Radiated Power (EIRP). EIRP measures actual signal strength as it is emitted by the antenna. For example, transmit power can be low and within allowed limit, however, the antenna can amplify this signal to be higher than the legal threshold.
EIRP represents adjusted signal strength by loss in the cable between an access point and antenna, and gain provided by antenna. It is calculated using the following formula in dBm:
EIRP = transmit power – cable loss + antenna gain
Modulation Techniques
The purpose of a wireless network is to transfer data. We know that there are different parameters that characterize a radio wave. The process of changing radio waves parameters to encode the data in the radio signal is called modulation. The reverse process performed by the receiver is to extract this data back from the signal is called demodulation.
Wireless networks use 2 parameters of radio wave to encode data:
Phase
Amplitude
Phase
Radio waves follow the same repeating pattern. As shown in figure 4, a phase starts at zero-crossing (0°) and then reaches a peak (90°), then back to zero-crossing (180°) and reaching the trough (270°). Then it repeats after reaching the next zero-crossing (360° or 0°). Phase modulation is based on changing this pattern.
We will discuss 2 types of phase modulations – BPSK and QPSK. Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK) can encode a single bit – 0 or 1. As shown in the figure below, the orange wave travels using its normal pattern. No change to a pattern means 0. If the wave is then rotated by 180°, the receiver knows that value 1 is now being transmitted. In figure 4, rotation from 0° to 180° can be visually represented by inserting the third blue pattern into the placeholder. The figure shows a simplified representation of the phase shifts using a single wave cycle. The actual implementation is timer-based and spans several cycles.
Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) can carry 2 bits of information – 00, 01, 10, and 11. To do this additional two patterns from our diagram will be used to do 90° or 270° rotation.
Figure 4. Phase Modulation
Amplitude
The second parameter that can be changed to encode information is amplitude. The transmitter can increase and decrease the power to change the amplitude of the signal. Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) is a modulation scheme that combines QPSK together with amplitude modulation.
With 4 phase shifts of QPSK 2 bits can be encoded. If at the same time 4 different levels of power can be applied to signal, we will get another 2 bits. This way we have 4 bits in total or 16 possible combinations. This QAM is called 16-QAM.
By increasing the number of available phase shifts and amplitude levels, more information can be packed into the signal. For example, there are 64-QAM (8 phase shifts x 8 amplitudes), 256-QAM (16 x 16).
Self-Test Questions
What is frequency of a radio wave?
Frequency of 1 Hertz is used to describe a wave that oscillates perform one full cycle per second. Frequency of 2.4GHz means that the wave repeats its cycle 2,400,000,000 times per second.
What is DSSS and OFDM; and how are they different?
Both provide a way to encode data to signal. Direct-Sequence Spread Spectrum uses whole channels of 22MHz and was used in earlier 802.11b standard. Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing subdivides the channel of 20MHz into smaller carrier channels and is used in standards introduced after 802.11b. It also provides higher bandwidth.
How many channels in 2.4GHz band are available in North America and the rest of the world; how many of them don't overlap?
11 in North America and 13 in the rest of the world. Only 3 non-overlapping channels.
What are 4 bands available within 5GHz range; and what is the maximum number of non-overlapping channels available in each of these 4 bands?
