Job Aids

This page contains miscellaneous products to help individuals in their daily work and technical studies.

Packet Captures

Packet captures help reveal the ground truth. Use these PCAPs as references when troubleshooting complex issues.

Layer-2 and Below

Layer-2 Encapsulations Ethernet (with jumbo), PPP, PPPoE, HDLC, ATM-AAL5, and frame-relay captures.
Common Non-IP Protocols ARP, CDP, LLDP, VTP, PAgP, LACP (with Cisco Nexus 9K vPC), DTP, and UDLD captures.
Legacy Protocols AppleTalk, CLNS, DECnet, DLSw (SNA), and IPX captures.
STP Original (PVST), rapid (RPVST), and multiple spanning tree (MST) captures.
FHRP HSRP, VRRP, GLBP, IRDP, and IPv6 LAN anycast captures.
BFD Mix of single/multi hop, authentication, and echo captures.
Wireless LAN Includes many clients, QoS settings, authentication flows, roaming tests, etc.

Tunneling and VPNs

IP Tunnels GRE (with options), mGRE/DMVPN, LISP, ERSPAN, IPinIP, AMT, NOS/KA9Q, and RBSCP captures.
IPv6 Transition IPv6 in IPv4, GRE, 6to4, 6rd, and ISATAP captures.
IPsec and MACsec IPsec: AH/ESP with tunnel/transport mode, GRE, and NAT-T. MACsec: various policies.
IP-based L2VPN Many types of L2TPv3, VXLAN, STT, NVGRE, GENEVE, and OTV captures.
MPLS LDPv4/v6, pseudowires, RSVP-TE, LSPV (OAM), MPLS over IP/DMVPN, and OSPF/IS-IS TE extensions.
Segment Routing SR transmission via OSPF, IS-IS and BGP-LS. Includes SR-TE, SR-OAM, and PCEP. A bit of SRv6.

IP Routing Protocols

RIP Versions 1, 2, and ng covering IPv4 and IPv6 exchanges.
EIGRP Various EIGRP exchanges (including SIA) for IPv4 and IPv6.
OSPF Various OSPFv2 (IPv4) and OSPFv3 (IPv4/IPv6) exchanges.
IS-IS Various IS-IS L1 and L2 exchanges for IPv4 and IPv6.
BGP For IPv4/v6: unicast, multicast, and flowspec. For MPLS: L3VPN, LDP/BGP VPLS, MVPN, RTC, EVPN, and LS.
Babel Various Babel captures (diversity, timestamps, etc.) for IPv4 and IPv6.
PIM IPv4/v6 ASM, SSM, Bidir, and BSR. For IPv4: DM, Auto-RP, and PIMv1. For IPv6: Embedded RP.
OpenFlow Version 1.3 flow modifications and port statistics with the Faucet SDN controller.

Network Management and Operations

Diagnostic TCP/UDP small services (echo, chargen, daytime, etc) and IP SLA probes.
QoS All standard DSCP, Ethernet CoS, and MPLS EXP values. ECN, RSVP, and Ethernet pause/PFC frames.
NetFlow Versions 5, 9, and 10 (IPFIX) for IPv4, IPv6, and MPLS flows.
AAA RADIUS, TACACS, EAP over LAN (802.1X), and TrustSec (SXP) captures.
NAT NAT44, NAT64 stateful/stateless, and NAT66 (NPTv6) captures. NAT46 and MAP-E/T coming later.
Network Services DHCPv4/v6, DNSv4/v6, PREF64, SNMPv1/v2c/v3, RSH, WOL, RDP, VNC, CMP, syslog, Telnet, and NETBIOS captures.
HTTP Versions 1.1, 2, 3 (QUIC), decoded HTTPS, JSON-RPC, and WCCPv2 layer-2/GRE redirection captures.
RESTCONF GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, PATCH, and HEAD requests using plain HTTP.
gRPC/gNMI Configuration management and telemetry captures. Includes protobuf files for decoding.
IoT Protocols Various Internet of Things captures, such as CoAP and MQTT. More coming in the future.
Ethernet OAM CFM, E-OAM, and E-LMI, and ITU-T Y.1731 PM captures.
ICMP IPv4/v6 captures: ping, traceroute, PMTUD, various unreachables, and IPv6 ND (plus RDNSS).
IGMP/MLD IPv4 IGMP and IPv6 MLD captures for ASM/SSM groups, plus DNS and URD-based SSM mapping.
IP Extras IPv4 options and IPv6 extension headers, plus IP fragments and UDP-Lite.

Common Applications and Products

File Transfer IPv4/v6 FTP, FTPS, SFTP, SCP, and TFTP captures.
Email Protocols SMTP, POP3, and IMAP4 captures. Includes relevant mail server DNS A/MX records.
Databases MySQL (relational), Mongo (document), and Influx (time-series) captures.
Network Storage iSCSI, NFSv3 (with mount and portmap), and SMB captures.
Collaboration SIP, SCCP, H.323, MGCP, RTP, DTMF handling, and fax/modem modem captures.
Meraki Products Various Cisco Meraki product captures: MR20, MV12WE, and MX64.

Good for quick reference and saving time on the job.

Python 'collections.abc' UML Class Diagram Comprehensive visualization of these ABCs and their methods/relationships.
Python Concrete Collections UML Class Diagram Partial visualization of various collections and their methods/relationships.
Python 'numbers' UML Class Diagram Partial visualization of these ABCs, their methods/relationships, and some concrete subclasses.
Network Configuration Templates Leverage known-good, simplified templates for long-config technologies like QoS, NetFlow, and DMVPN.
DSCP and 802.1e UP mappings Results of QoS testing on a variety of mobile devices over a Cisco WLAN network.
QoS Tools Includes PHBs for RFC-4594 service classes and various traffic conditioning calculators.
IPsec Design Considerations Results of IPsec testing and use-case comparison. Feel free to suggest new use-cases to expand the table.
vSphere6 vMotion Migrations Complex vMotions of a VM in various states, manipulating power, RDM, snapshot, etc. Conclusions included.
Investment Calculator Evaluate the economic suitability of an investment (NPV, ROI, IRR, and payback period).

If you are studying for a certification (or just in general), these may help!

Comprehensive study plans to help you earn various certifications. See the video explanations here.

Requests, responses, and environments for various products and technologies. Clone the repository or view online workspace.

Networking

Data Center

Security

Collaboration

OAM and APM Products

Miscellaneous

Free scenarios to help you study for the CCDE practical exam.

LMNOP Scenario A full length, SP-focused scenario sure to frustrate you.
LMNOP Answer Key The answer key to the LMNOP scenario above. Hit me on twitter with questions.
DermaCorp Background-only scenario designed to hone your "analyze" skills.
MELA Construction Short CCDE scenario, written by Malcolm Booden.
Nacho Daddy Financial Another background-only scenario, written by Fareed Fakoor.

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