The IT Certification Megathread: Straight Outta CompTIA

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Bhodi: Dec 9, 2007; Oh, it's just a cat.; Pillbug

The most important thing to do is stop stressing about S+. 90% of the test is term memorization, like knowing different encryptions and whether they are symmetric or asymmetric. Memorize the listed protocols and their ports and be able to regurgitate that.

It's all multiple choice, and not the Microsoft kind where they trip you up - the answer is clear and obvious. It really is a straightforward test of memorization.

# ? Apr 10, 2014 16:03

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# ? Apr 26, 2024 15:55

Ghostnuke: Sep 21, 2005; Throw this in a pot, add some broth, a potato? Baby you got a stew going!

Been lurking this thread for a while. I'm just now starting on my A+, got the Sybex books. Hoping those plus Professor Messer will get me through.

# ? Apr 10, 2014 17:52

psydude: Apr 1, 2008

S+ is probably the most straightforward exam I've ever taken. Do exactly what Gibson tells you, don't overthink it, and you'll pass with like an 890. Like exactly an 890.

# ? Apr 10, 2014 18:02

Fiendish Dr. Wu: Nov 11, 2010; You done fucked up now!

psydude posted:

S+ is probably the most straightforward exam I've ever taken. Do exactly what Gibson tells you, don't overthink it, and you'll pass with like an 890. Like exactly an 890.

I will hold you to that.

I'm already making 90+'s on his chapter practice exams from chapters 1-6.

# ? Apr 10, 2014 18:12

OhDearGodNo: Jan 3, 2014

psydude posted:

S+ is probably the most straightforward exam I've ever taken. Do exactly what Gibson tells you, don't overthink it, and you'll pass with like an 890. Like exactly an 890.

Or an 836...

# ? Apr 10, 2014 20:26

YOLOsubmarine: Oct 19, 2004; When asked which Pokemon he evolved into, Kamara pauses.

"Motherfucking, what's that big dragon shit? That orange motherfucker. Charizard."

Got my CCNA DC today, if anyone is looking at going that route and has any questions. There's no book out for the DCICT exam yet, so if you're looking for pointers on what to study I can tell you what helped me.

# ? Apr 11, 2014 01:17

Fiendish Dr. Wu: Nov 11, 2010; You done fucked up now!

Subnet chat:

I think something just clicked but I want to make sure I'm right....

I understand what the /25 or /27 means and how to figure that out

I understand that there are reserved hosts for broadcasting, so this is a little generic here...

In Gibson's book he has this chart:

code:

		without		with		first
		leading		leading		two
	decimal	zeros		zeros		bits
subnet	192	11000000	11000000	11
IP	50	110010		00110010	00
IP	100	1100100		01100110	01
IP	165	10100101	10100101	10
IP	189	10111101	10111101	10

somehow this made me think, does subnetting simply divide by 2 for each bit?

As in:

code:

			bits	number	number 
			stolen	of	of
subnet	binary			hosts	subnets
/25	10000000	128(1)	128	2
/26	11000000	192(2)	64	4
/27	11100000	224(3)	32	8
/28	11110000	240(4)	16	16
/29	11111000	248(5)	8	32
/30	11111100	252(6)	4	64
/31	11111110	254(7)	2	128
/32	11111111	255(8)	1	255

In this chart, I'm using "bits stolen" but I may be using it incorrectly. Everywhere else I'm seeing it listed as 1 bit stolen for /25, 2 bits stolen for /26, etc... I put it in this chart as additive... not sure if I'm doing this correctly

I don't really know how to explain this concisely so I'm going to try my best.

Imagine the network as a pie.

Whole pie = /24
Your pie is 255 ounces (has 255 hosts).

First cut (/25):
You cut it in half, you now have 2 pieces (subnets) that are both 128 ounces (has 128 hosts).

Second cut (/26):
You cut those two in half, you now have 4 pieces (subnets) of which all 4 are 64 ounces (has 64 hosts).

Thid cut (/27):
You cut those 4 in half, you now have 8 pieces (subnets) of which all 8 are 32 ounces (has 32 hosts).

etc down to....

Seventh cut (/31):
Now your pieces are just too drat small and you can't do anything with these. Your piece is only 2 big (has 2 hosts). Do people even use this subnet?

So basically...

If you have a /25 subnet, then the dividing mark is 128. Your subnets are simply divided up into <128 and >128.

If you have a /26 subnet, then the dividing marks at 64, 128, 192, and 254. Simply put, your 4 subnets here are 1-63, 64-127, 128-191, and 192-255 (the last host is the broadcast)...

I hope I'm explaining this right. Does this make any sense or am I totally thinking of it all wrong?

Fiendish Dr. Wu fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Apr 11, 2014

# ? Apr 11, 2014 02:26

psydude: Apr 1, 2008

Yep. Think about it: you're dealing with binary numbers here, so each number is 2^n, where n represents your "bits stolen" in this case. As such, each block is equal to twice the size of the previous block (if you're descending in CIDR prefixes) or twice the size of the previous block (if you're ascending in CIDR prefixes).

# ? Apr 11, 2014 02:47

Feels Villeneuve: Oct 7, 2007; Setter is Better.

NippleFloss posted:

Got my CCNA DC today, if anyone is looking at going that route and has any questions. There's no book out for the DCICT exam yet, so if you're looking for pointers on what to study I can tell you what helped me.

Did you have a CCNA R+S beforehand? If so, how much material was repeated from that exam? (Someone told me a lot of it was basically "CCNA but with NXOS except IOS")

# ? Apr 11, 2014 03:26

CrazyLittle: Sep 11, 2001; Clapping Larry

Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:

Seventh cut (/31):
Now your pieces are just too drat small and you can't do anything with these. Your piece is only 2 big (has 2 hosts). Do people even use this subnet?

Yes, point to point ethernet links between routers.

# ? Apr 11, 2014 04:09

OhDearGodNo: Jan 3, 2014

NippleFloss posted:

Got my CCNA DC today, if anyone is looking at going that route and has any questions. There's no book out for the DCICT exam yet, so if you're looking for pointers on what to study I can tell you what helped me.

I'm thinking along the lines of getting R&S before the DC since it's more marketable, how much of R&S is covered under the DC exam?

# ? Apr 11, 2014 05:09

Fiendish Dr. Wu: Nov 11, 2010; You done fucked up now!

psydude posted:

Yep. Think about it: you're dealing with binary numbers here, so each number is 2^n, where n represents your "bits stolen" in this case. As such, each block is equal to twice the size of the previous block (if you're descending in CIDR prefixes) or twice the size of the previous block (if you're ascending in CIDR prefixes).

Is that twice / half?

CrazyLittle posted:

Yes, point to point ethernet links between routers.

I was not even thinking about that at all.

# ? Apr 11, 2014 12:57

psydude: Apr 1, 2008

Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:

Is that twice / half?

Yeah, my bad. Posting at 6am.

# ? Apr 11, 2014 13:15

Fiendish Dr. Wu: Nov 11, 2010; You done fucked up now!

psydude posted:

Yeah, my bad. Posting at 6am.

That's cool I was just trying to clarify.

It actually makes a whole lot of sense now. I'm pretty sure I could explain subnetting to my mom even.

# ? Apr 11, 2014 13:51

ZeitGeits: Jun 20, 2006; Too much time....

I apologize in advance if these questions have already been answered - I don't follow this thread usually and couldn't find answers on the first couple pages. I wanna get the RHCSA cert to a) bolster my resume and b) learn about *nix in a structured way as I prepare for the test.

Which study guides can those of you recommend who have already taken the test?
Ideally I'd like to have access to a lab environment running RHEL servers to practice hands on. Are there any companies out there selling access to such environments? Barring that, how do I get access to installation media / license keys to (legally) setup my own lab?

# ? Apr 11, 2014 15:49

Dilbert As FUCK: Sep 8, 2007; by Cowcaster; Pillbug

ZeitGeits posted:

Which study guides can those of you recommend who have already taken the test?

http://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Edition/dp/0071765654/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397227963&sr=8-1&keywords=RHCSA

That is probably one of the best study books for the cert

quote:

Ideally I'd like to have access to a lab environment running RHEL servers to practice hands on. Are there any companies out there selling access to such environments? Barring that, how do I get access to installation media / license keys to (legally) setup my own lab?

Not sure of any, but for the price of bumping your desktop upto 16Gb, and a small SSD/SSHD you should have enough to run through that book.

# ? Apr 11, 2014 15:54

Docjowles: Apr 9, 2009

Dilbert As gently caress posted:

http://www.amazon.com/RHCSA-Linux-Certification-Study-Edition/dp/0071765654/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397227963&sr=8-1&keywords=RHCSA

That is probably one of the best study books for the cert

Seconded, good book. edit: I'll add that depending on your time scale for wanting to pass the exam, you might want to wait for RHEL 7 to come out. It's in beta and expected later this year although no official date has been announced. Which of course will mean new books and exams for the new version. But I don't think it's in "any day now" territory so if you want to bang out the cert in the next few months, just go for it.

You do NOT need to buy RHEL licenses to study for the exam. CentOS is 100% free, and is literally just RHEL with all occurrences of "Red Hat" changed to "CentOS" and pointed at different RPM repositories. If you study on CentOS you will be able to pass the exam just fine without spending any money.

If your home PC is semi modern and has, say, 8GB of RAM there is no reason to buy a lab for the RHCSA/RHCE. An SSD is a nice touch because you do spend a fair amount of time doing OS installations. But you don't actually even want a bunch of physical servers because doing virtualization with KVM/libvirt is part of the RHCSA curriculum. What I've done is install VMware player on Windows and then run all of my lab VM's in that. It allows you to do nested virtualization which VirtualBox and other free tools do not.

Note: I have not sat for the exam yet, that's just what I've taken away from the study guides.

Docjowles fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Apr 11, 2014

# ? Apr 11, 2014 16:21

quicksand: Nov 21, 2002; A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.

NippleFloss posted:

Got my CCNA DC today, if anyone is looking at going that route and has any questions. There's no book out for the DCICT exam yet, so if you're looking for pointers on what to study I can tell you what helped me.

Yes please.

I need to have my CCNA DC done by the end of May and then have DCUCI done by the end of June. We are really bad at planning training. True story.

# ? Apr 11, 2014 16:54

Fiendish Dr. Wu: Nov 11, 2010; You done fucked up now!

asymmetric key question: are these "keys" basically just certificates such as ones stored on a CAC or PIV, or is it more of a cipher code?

# ? Apr 11, 2014 17:25

psydude: Apr 1, 2008

Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:

asymmetric key question: are these "keys" basically just certificates such as ones stored on a CAC or PIV, or is it more of a cipher code?

A key and a cipher are one in the same. They are included in a digital certificate along with other identifying information.

With PKI, I encrypt the message to you with your public key and only you can unlock it with your private key. Likewise, if you want to send a message to me, you encrypt it with my public key and I decrypt it with my private key. If I want to digitally sign a message, I hash it with my private key and then you check it against my public key for validity.

e: The SSL/TLS wikipedia article does a great job of illustrating how asymmetric encryption works in real life.

psydude fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Apr 11, 2014

# ? Apr 11, 2014 17:29

Yeast Confection: Oct 7, 2005

NippleFloss posted:

Got my CCNA DC today, if anyone is looking at going that route and has any questions. There's no book out for the DCICT exam yet, so if you're looking for pointers on what to study I can tell you what helped me.

I'm planning to start this up soon, we use a lot of Nexus equipment here. I saw that books were jsut released for the DCICT? Or so Amazon says.

I have CCENT. Is there any overlap in material?

# ? Apr 11, 2014 17:32

Fiendish Dr. Wu: Nov 11, 2010; You done fucked up now!

psydude posted:

A key and a cipher are one in the same. They are included in a digital certificate along with other identifying information.

With PKI, I encrypt the message to you with your public key and only you can unlock it with your private key. Likewise, if you want to send a message to me, you encrypt it with my public key and I decrypt it with my private key. If I want to digitally sign a message, I hash it with my private key and then you check it against my public key for validity.

e: The SSL/TLS wikipedia article does a great job of illustrating how asymmetric encryption works in real life.

That's awesome why was everybody making this out to be a difficult concept

So it's basically just saying that the intended receiver is the only one that can decrypt the data

edit: another thought...

So, I'm a gov't contractor for the DoD. I deal alot with encrypted files. I'm assuming that since none of these are encrypted specifically for me, that they used a symmetric key of which my certificates allow me decrypt?

Fiendish Dr. Wu fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Apr 11, 2014

# ? Apr 11, 2014 17:49

YOLOsubmarine: Oct 19, 2004; When asked which Pokemon he evolved into, Kamara pauses.

"Motherfucking, what's that big dragon shit? That orange motherfucker. Charizard."

Fag Boy Jim posted:

Did you have a CCNA R+S beforehand? If so, how much material was repeated from that exam? (Someone told me a lot of it was basically "CCNA but with NXOS except IOS")

I got my R+S about 5 years ago, and never re-upped it. However the material on the DCICN test is very very similar to the R+S CCNA. It covers a lot of the same ground but, as you said, is focused exclusively on Nexus. There is some legacy stuffy that is still on R+S that you won't get, like DTE/DCE, clock rates, older networking technologies, software updates, etc...but all of the subnetting, spanning tree, OSI and DOD model, and very basic switch and routing configuration, and ACL configuration is on there. If you've passed the R+S you should be able to pass the DCICN exam with a minimal amount of studying. The DCICT exam is almost all new material though, mostly related to Cisco's product portfolio centered around Data Center Virtualization. The Lammle book is good for the DCICN exam.

OhDearGodNo posted:

I'm thinking along the lines of getting R&S before the DC since it's more marketable, how much of R&S is covered under the DC exam?

See above. Quite a lot, just in Nexus speak.

quicksand posted:

Yes please.

I need to have my CCNA DC done by the end of May and then have DCUCI done by the end of June. We are really bad at planning training. True story.

If you've got experience with networking at the CCNA R+S level then the first test should be easy enough. I would recommend the Lammle book for that.

For the second test I used a combination of this and this. Between the two, those covered basically everything on the second test, right down to the exact types of questions you would be asked. The only thing they didn't prepare me for 100% was the product line questions like "Which of these Fabric Extenders have 4 10GBE uplink ports?", however there weren't enough of those questions to cause you to fail the test or even come close if you know the other material.

If you want some additional depth on a lot of the same topics this book covers the same material but at something closer to a CCNP level. I read it before watching the CBT nuggets and found that it was way, way more in depth that required for the CCNA material, but it was nice to have handy to reference if I still wasn't quite clear on something. One thing to be aware of is that the DCICT exam has no configuration simulators. It focuses solely on verification so all of the lab and sim questions just require you to pick out little bits of information to answer questions about the configuration. That makes it a little easier since you really only need to know about 15 show commands to get through the whole test. I only had 8 sim questions on my test and I accidentally skipped 4 of them and still passed with a 915, so I wouldn't stress out about them too much. I also didn't do any lab or simulator work (other than having deployed a 1kv before, for other purposes) for the DCICT exam and didn't have any problems with it.

Ashley Madison posted:

I'm planning to start this up soon, we use a lot of Nexus equipment here. I saw that books were jsut released for the DCICT? Or so Amazon says.

I have CCENT. Is there any overlap in material?

All of the DCICT books that I've found are still pre-orders. See above for the material that I used. And yes, there is definitely overlap between the concepts on the CCENT and DCICN. You could probably skip or skim at least half of the material.

# ? Apr 11, 2014 18:57

trunkwontopen: Apr 7, 2007; I am a CARTOON BEAR!

psydude posted:

So fair warning to any of you pursuing your CCNP right now: take the time to learn MPLS, because basically every CCNP-level job that involves doing L3 work is going to require knowledge of MPLS, VRF, and MP-BGP. And that's like the only thing that the interviewers are going to focus on for some reason.

I really think that Cisco should revise the curriculum to include it.

This is from a few pages back, but psydude speaks the truth. The multiple telecomm/networking jobs that I have had over the years involve MPLS / VRF and even a bit of VES mixed in to some degree. It's the new hotness, and chances are, you'll encounter it within your travels. But, as he said, the CNP only mentions it in passing, so off to the internet you go. Keith Barker has a few excellent MPLS videos out on YT that explains the fundamentals of MPLS.

Can't speak much of MP-BGP, as I heard that is CCIE-level poo poo, and I'm currently going through the BGP chapters.

# ? Apr 12, 2014 10:16

abigserve: Sep 13, 2009; this is a better avatar than what I had before

trunkwontopen posted:

This is from a few pages back, but psydude speaks the truth. The multiple telecomm/networking jobs that I have had over the years involve MPLS / VRF and even a bit of VES mixed in to some degree. It's the new hotness, and chances are, you'll encounter it within your travels. But, as he said, the CNP only mentions it in passing, so off to the internet you go. Keith Barker has a few excellent MPLS videos out on YT that explains the fundamentals of MPLS.

Can't speak much of MP-BGP, as I heard that is CCIE-level poo poo, and I'm currently going through the BGP chapters.

MPLS VPN's are built using MP-BGP, and I agree that it's pretty important even outside of the service provider space.

# ? Apr 13, 2014 08:08

coolskull: Nov 11, 2007

Just got my N+ a few days ago and got started on Security+. I've been working from this book, since it was purchased for me by a family member in the field. Would you guys still recommend the book in the OP over this one?

I'm a little skeptical of the All In One book. The third chapter is a breakdown of US laws dealing with "cybercrime", which doesn't appear to be in the outline for what the test requires. I want to make sure I'm getting the information I need and not being bogged down with other stuff.

# ? Apr 13, 2014 21:10

Fiendish Dr. Wu: Nov 11, 2010; You done fucked up now!

BKPR posted:

Just got my N+ a few days ago and got started on Security+. I've been working from this book, since it was purchased for me by a family member in the field. Would you guys still recommend the book in the OP over this one?

I'm a little skeptical of the All In One book. The third chapter is a breakdown of US laws dealing with "cybercrime", which doesn't appear to be in the outline for what the test requires. I want to make sure I'm getting the information I need and not being bogged down with other stuff.

Get Darrel Gibson's book.

# ? Apr 13, 2014 21:18

StealthArcher: Jan 10, 2010

At work right now, so the phone isn't great for looking. Anyone know where I can find locations to take/schedule a CCNA exam in Winnipeg? The university's Google results are all about their prep courses.

# ? Apr 13, 2014 23:02

TeMpLaR: Jan 13, 2001; "Not A Crook"

Dilbert As gently caress posted:

You can take the vSphere VCP test but VMware will not recognize the cert until the course is completed.

This is incorrect specifically using the academic program mentioned . I couldn't believe it too, but I took the course and passed the exam, got my cert. My coworker just took the exam without the course and also got his cert, because of this academic program.

# ? Apr 14, 2014 00:30

psyopmonkey: Nov 15, 2008; by Lowtax

StealthArcher posted:

At work right now, so the phone isn't great for looking. Anyone know where I can find locations to take/schedule a CCNA exam in Winnipeg? The university's Google results are all about their prep courses.

http://www.wtc.mb.ca/wp/partners/pearson-vue-testing-centre/

Pearson Vue makes it really easy and you can schedule and pay for everything online.

# ? Apr 14, 2014 02:40

Count Thrashula: Jun 1, 2003; Death is nothing compared to vindication.; Buglord

Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:

That's cool I was just trying to clarify.

It actually makes a whole lot of sense now. I'm pretty sure I could explain subnetting to my mom even.

To add a little...

/31 used to not be supported, and older books/labs will suggest using /30 for point-to-point connections (e.g. .0 for the network, .1 for host A, .2 for host B, .3 for the broadcast). But, Cisco eventually added support for /31 as point-to-point.

# ? Apr 14, 2014 19:52

Fiendish Dr. Wu: Nov 11, 2010; You done fucked up now!

QPZIL posted:

To add a little...

/31 used to not be supported, and older books/labs will suggest using /30 for point-to-point connections (e.g. .0 for the network, .1 for host A, .2 for host B, .3 for the broadcast). But, Cisco eventually added support for /31 as point-to-point.

At that point how is it done then... if .0 is always network and then .1 would be broadcast, how does that work without a host? Would the router be direct to the network?

# ? Apr 14, 2014 21:09

Fatal: Jul 29, 2004; I'm gunna kill you BITCH!!!

.0 isn't always network and .1 would just be the 2nd address (.0 being the first)

There would not be a directed broadcast for that subnet only global (255.255.255.255)

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/ip/routing-information-protocol-rip/13790-8.html#using31bit
http://packetlife.net/blog/2008/jun/18/using-31-bit-subnets-on-point-point-links/

# ? Apr 14, 2014 22:39

1000101: May 14, 2003; BIRTHDAY BIRTHDAY BIRTHDAY BIRTHDAY BIRTHDAY BIRTHDAY FRUITCAKE!

Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:

At that point how is it done then... if .0 is always network and then .1 would be broadcast, how does that work without a host? Would the router be direct to the network?

There is no broadcast address in a /31 as it's not needed (it's for point to point after all!). Just a pair of IPs you could assign to hosts.

# ? Apr 14, 2014 22:51

MrBigglesworth: Mar 26, 2005; Lover of Fuzzy Meatloaf

Woo, 7 months from graduation, no certifications, yet I landed a promo at work into a Network Engineer II position!

# ? Apr 14, 2014 23:43

Count Thrashula: Jun 1, 2003; Death is nothing compared to vindication.; Buglord

Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:

At that point how is it done then... if .0 is always network and then .1 would be broadcast, how does that work without a host? Would the router be direct to the network?

Yeah, what others said. If you only have 2 hosts total, you don't need a broadcast address. /31 is kind of an exception situation, where .0 would be host A and .1 would be host B.

# ? Apr 15, 2014 14:05