CCNA Foundations: Syslog & SNMP — Baseline Network Observability

Today's daily lab

Stand up a small enterprise-style network where routers forward device logs and SNMP notifications to a central collector. You will configure SSH management, verify reachability from end hosts, and implement Syslog + SNMP on multiple routers so the network is observable from a single collector host.

Learning objectives

• Build baseline reachability between branch LAN and an upstream router using clean point-to-point addressing and a user VLAN through an access switch.
• Configure a complete SSH management plane on IOS routers.
• Configure Syslog destinations and trap severity so devices export logs to a central collector.
• Configure SNMP community, contact/location, and a notification host (trap receiver).
• Validate reachability and configuration from endpoints and with IOS show commands; practice troubleshooting common observability misconfigurations.

Troubleshooting focus

• Syslog not received: verify 'logging host <collector>' is present and the collector IP is reachable from the router source interface.
• SNMP notifications not received: ensure 'snmp-server community <string> RO' and 'snmp-server host <collector> <community>' exist and match.
• Routing asymmetry: ensure return routing to the collector (static route on upstream to the LAN) so traps/logs can reach the server.
• Layer 2 access VLAN mismatch: confirm user and server ports are in the same access VLAN as the router-facing uplink.
• SSH failures: confirm RSA keys exist, ip domain-name is set, and VTY is login local with transport input ssh.