CCNA Foundations: HSRP — One Virtual Gateway, Two Routers

Today's daily lab

Stand up HSRP on two routers sharing a single user VLAN so campus hosts point to a resilient virtual default gateway. You will configure HSRP on both routers, make one router the active forwarder, and verify failover from the end hosts.

Learning objectives

• Configure HSRP on two routers that share a user LAN
• Elect and verify the Active/Standby HSRP roles with a virtual IP
• Validate host default-gateway reachability via the HSRP VIP
• Test failover and recovery by bouncing the Active router interface
• Use show commands to read HSRP state and diagnose misconfiguration

Troubleshooting focus

• If hosts cannot ping the gateway VIP, verify the HSRP group is configured on the correct router interface and that the virtual IP matches the hosts’ default gateway exactly.
• If HSRP states are Init/Speak on both routers, ensure both routers’ LAN interfaces are up/up and in the same subnet and VLAN.
• If failover doesn’t elect the expected Active router, compare HSRP priorities and confirm preemption behavior as required.
• If pings to peers work but the gateway VIP ARP fails, confirm HSRP is enabled on both routers and that no IP conflict exists with the VIP or real interface IPs.
• If HSRP flaps, look for interface errors or downtime on the switch access ports and verify only a single active path exists per router interface.