Hands-on CCNA and CCNP practice labs — OSPF, VLANs, ACLs, routing, NAT and more, each a real Cisco Modeling Labs scenario you build and grade against the answer key.
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Build and verify a compact, enterprise-clean multi-area OSPF network with an ABR. Configure area 0 and a non-backbone area, advertise loopbacks and LANs, enforce OSPF hygiene (passive LANs, explicit router-ids), and verify O IA inter-area routes from the endpoints.
Build a 5-node triangle OSPF topology with a branch and a data center connected by two paths: a direct link and an indirect path via a core router. Implement OSPFv2 with clean hygiene (router-ids, passive on LANs), then influence path selection by adjusting interface cost so branch-to-DC traffic prefers the core path. Verify the chosen path from the end hosts using traceroute and confirm symmetric routing by validating the reverse path.
Three IOS routers share a true broadcast multi-access segment through a Layer-2 switch. You will deploy OSPFv2, influence the DR/BDR election using interface priorities, and verify full adjacencies to the DR. An alpine client behind RTR-HQ-R3 must reach loopbacks on RTR-HQ-R1 and RTR-HQ-R2 via OSPF-learned routes. The lab emphasizes proper multi-access deployment hygiene (router-ids, passive default, interface selection) and realistic verification from the end host.
Build a two-router OSPFv2 lab, assign deterministic router-ids using loopbacks, form a clean adjacency from Down through Exchange to FULL, and verify neighbor state and router-ids. End-to-end reachability is validated from real hosts across an enterprise-clean topology.
Bring up OSPFv2 adjacency between two branch routers over a point-to-point /30, advertise each site’s user LAN and router loopback in area 0, and verify end-to-end pings succeed from the hosts. The baseline ships with addressing and SSH management ready; you will enable and tune OSPF only.
Harden Cisco IOS edge interfaces by disabling CDP/LLDP toward untrusted endpoints while keeping discovery active on trusted infrastructure links. Routers share a management LAN with a server and form a direct router-to-router adjacency for CDP/LLDP. The learner enables discovery globally, selectively suppresses it on the client-facing edge, and verifies the outcome with show commands.
Advanced Layer-2 security capstone. Neither PC on the access switch can get an address, and the help desk has already 'checked the DHCP server'. You get the symptoms and the requirements — no fault list. Work from show output to find every misconfiguration across the switch and the router, repair them, and prove both hosts recover. Several faults are layered: fixing the first one changes the symptom without ending the outage.
Harden Dynamic ARP Inspection (DAI) on an access switch by enabling additional packet validation checks: source MAC, destination MAC, and IP sanity. The uplink toward the DHCP server/gateway is trusted, access ports are untrusted. DHCP Snooping and baseline DAI are already enabled for VLAN 10; your task is to add the global DAI validation knobs and verify the change deterministically via show commands.
Harden the Layer-2 access edge by enabling Dynamic ARP Inspection (DAI) on a single access switch. DHCP Snooping is already in place and the uplink toward the DHCP server/gateway is trusted. Your job: enable DAI for VLAN 10 and trust the uplink so ARP on host-facing ports is validated against the DHCP Snooping bindings.
Layer 2 Security Hardening, Lab 9/10. You will enable automatic errdisable recovery on a campus access switch so ports shut down by Layer-2 security (Dynamic ARP Inspection, DHCP rate-limit, or storm control) can return to service automatically after a safe interval. The switch already enforces DHCP snooping with a correct trust boundary, DAI validation, and broadcast/multicast/unicast storm-control with shutdown actions. Your job: turn on errdisable auto-recovery for arp-inspection, dhcp-rate-limit, and storm-control, and set the interval to 60 seconds. Verify with show errdisable recovery.
Harden the Layer-2 access edge by deploying a unified trust boundary for DHCP Snooping and Dynamic ARP Inspection (DAI) on a single access switch. R1 is both the default gateway and DHCP server for VLAN 10. You will enable DHCP Snooping and DAI globally for VLAN 10 and set the same uplink interface as trusted for both features, leaving host-facing access ports untrusted. This lab emphasizes the dependency and synergy between DHCP Snooping and DAI for blocking rogue DHCP/ARP activity. Grade scope: SW1 config only.
Harden the Layer-2 access edge by rate-limiting DHCP messages on untrusted ports. SW1 already has DHCP snooping enabled for VLAN 10 with the uplink trusted. Your task is to apply a per-interface rate limit on the host-facing access ports to blunt DHCP starvation attacks while leaving the trusted uplink unlimited.
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