Welcome to Jeremy’s IT Lab. This is a free, complete course for the CCNA. If you like these videos, please subscribe to follow along with the series. Also, please like and leave a comment, and share the video to help spread this free series of videos. Thanks for your help. Also, remember to download this practice lab from the link in the description and try it out yourself in packet tracer. If you want more labs like these, I highly recommend picking up Boson’s NetSim for the CCNA, click the link in the video description to check it out. It’s a network simulator like packet tracer, but it’s even better, and it includes all of these guided labs to not only help you get hands-on practice configuring and troubleshooting, but also deepen your understanding of the exam topics. I used it myself when studying for my certifications, so I feel confident about recommending it to all of you. Watch until the end of this video, we’ll take a quick look at a lab from NetSim. If you want to get your own copy of NetSim, please follow the link in the video description. In this lab we’ll analyze rapid spanning tree protocol, with a little bit of configuration at the end. I hope this lab will help you test and improve your understanding of the concepts of RSTP, such as the different port roles and link types. Let’s get right into it with step 1. First we are asked which switch is the root bridge. Each switch has a priority of 32769, which is 32768 plus 1, so these numbers are all for VLAN1, we will only be dealing with one VLAN in this lab. Of course, if there are multiple VLANs, the RSTP topology would probably be different in each VLAN, because can we choose a different root bridge etc for each VLAN. So, because each switch has the same priority, we have to compare MAC addresses. SW1’s MAC address is the lowest. Both SW1’s and SW3’s MAC addresses start with 000, but the next digit in SW1’s is 5, and in SW3’s it’s C, which is equivalent to 12. So, SW1’s is the lowest, and it’s the root bridge. Now let’s examine the port role and state of each interface on SW1 and see what’s different than what we have learned so far about the root bridge. Enter privileged exec mode with ENABLE. Next, SHOW SPANNING-TREE. Okay, F0/2, F0/1, and F0/24 are designated ports in a forwarding state, and F0/3 is a backup port in a discarding state, although its written as blocking in the output of this command. I’m going to take these labels I have made and place them over the interfaces. So, what is different than what we have learned about the root bridge in the course? Well, I have repeated multiple times that all interfaces on the root bridge are designated ports, however in this case F0/3 is a backup port. So actually, the more accurate statement is that the root bridge has a designated port in each collision domain it is connected to. In modern networks, hubs aren’t really used, so we usually just say that all interfaces are designated. However if the root bridge has two interfaces in the same collision domain because they both connect to the same hub, the rule that there must be only one designated port per collision domain applies, and the other interface will be a backup port. If this was classic spanning tree, F0/3 would be a non-designated port. So, that’s step 1, although I have said many times that every interface on the root bridge is designated, in this case F0/3 isn’t because its in the same collision domain as F0/2. Step 2 asks us to determine the port role and state of each remaining switch interface, without using the CLI. First let’s place the root ports. SW2’s root port is F0/1, with a root cost of 19. How about SW3’s root port? Does this hub add any spanning tree cost to the BPDU? No, it doesn’t, so SW3’s F0/2 also has a cost of 19, making it the root port of SW3. SW4’s interfaces have the same root cost, so which neighbor has the lowest bridge ID? It’s SW3, because its MAC address is lower, so SW4’s F0/1 interface is its root port. Next up, the designated ports. SW3’s F0/1, across from SW4’s root port, is designated of course. Now, for the gigabitethernet link between SW2 and SW3, which side will be designated? They both have the same root cost, 19, but SW3 has the lower bridge ID, so its G0/1 will be the designated port. How about between SW2 and SW4? In this case, SW2 has the lower root cost, so its F0 /2 will be designated. So, SW2’s G0/1 and SW4’s F0/2 will be alternate ports, in a discarding state. These ports connected to the end hosts should all be designated ports by the way, I won’t bother labeling them. Now let’s quickly confirm on each switch. We already saw SW1, so I’ll go on SW2. ENABLE. SHOW SPANNING-TREE. F0/1 is the root, F0/2 is designated, G0/1 is alternate, and F0/23 and 24 are designated. Looks good. Next I’ll check on SW3. ENABLE. SHOW SPANNING-TREE. F0/2 is the root port, G0/1 is designated, and so is F0/1. F0/24, connected to the PC, is also designated. Just as we expected. Finally, I’ll go on SW4. ENABLE. SHOW SPANNING-TREE. F0/1 is the root port, F0/2 is alternate, and F0/24 is designated. Okay, looks like we got it all correct. Finally, let’s manually configure the appropriate RSTP link type on each interface. The one I really want to show is SW1’s F0/24, so let’s quickly go through the others, starting here on SW4 first. CONF T. Let’s configure F0/1 and 2 as point-to-point links, because they are directly connected to switches, they are operating in full duplex mode. INTERFACE RANGE F0/1 to 2. SPANNING-TREE LINK-TYPE POINT-TO-POINT. Next, I’ll configure F0/24 as an edge port by enabling portfast. INTERFACE F0/24. SPANNING-TREE PORTFAST. Now let’s check. DO SHOW SPANNING-TREE. Okay, F0/1 and 2 are point to point, which is correct. Actually, they were already point to point by default, I just wanted to practice the manual configuration. Now, what’s up with F0/24? It still has the default type of point to point. Well, this is something I didn’t explain in the lecture. Edge ports connected to an end host like this will still be point to point links if they are using full duplex. There is no hub here, therefore the link is full duplex, so this is a point to point link. However, its also an edge port. It doesn’t work in packet tracer, but if you enter the SPANNING-TREE PORTFAST command on a port on a real switch, it will display both edge AND point to point here in the type section. Point to point means it is full duplex, edge means portfast is enabled. So, it’s both an edge port and a point to point port. Okay, let’s do SW3 next. F0/1, and G0/1 should be point to point, however F0/2 is connected to a hub, it should be a shared port. Actually, let’s check before we configure it. SHOW SPANNING-TREE. As you can see, the switch automatically sets it to the correct port type. So really, the only one we HAVE to configure is F0/24, because portfast won’t be enabled by default. For the sake of time, let’s just do that. CONF T. INTERFACE F0/24. SPANNING-TREE PORTFAST. Okay, next let’s go on SW2. Let’s check first again, all ports are using full duplex, so they should all be point to point by default. SHOW SPANNING-TREE. Indeed, all ports are point to point. Again, for time, I’ll just enable portfast on F0/23 and 24. CONF T. INTERFACE RANGE F0/23 to 24. SPANNING-TREE PORTFAST. Okay, finally SW1. In this case, it has three ports connected to a hub. These should all be shared by default. Only F0/1 should be point to point. Let’s check. SHOW SPANNING-TREE. As expected, F0/2, 3, and 24 are shared. So, F0/24 is connected to a hub, but there are end hosts connected to the hub. Should this be an edge port? The answer is yes, the hub basically doesn’t exist in terms of spanning tree, it’s different than if it were connected to a switch here. So, F0/24 is an edge port, AND a shared port, just like I explained with the edge point to point links connected to end hosts on the other switches. Let’s configure it. CONF T. INTERFACE F0/24. SPANNING-TREE PORFAST. And let’s check. DO SHOW SPANNING-TREE. Okay, so just like before, in packet tracer it doesn’t display here, but on a real switch it will display both edge and shared here in the type column for F0/24. Point to point and shared distinguish between full and half duplex, but either can be an edge port as well. Okay, that’s all for this lab, I hoped this helped you get familiar with some concepts of RSTP. Next, let’s take a look at a lab in Boson NetSim. Okay, for today's Boson NetSim lab preview we're once again doing a lab from NetSim for CCNP ENCOR. I said this before, but that's because spanning tree configuration isn't actually in the CCNA exam topics list so Boson doesn't include it in NetSim for CCNA. But I just want to show you one of the spanning tree labs they have from NetSim for ENCOR. So we'll do spanning tree 1. I've already loaded the lab so click on 'lab instructions'. Here is the topology. So, there is one router and three switches and two PCs. Here's a list of the commands you need to know to complete the lab. IP addresses on the device, and the lab tasks themselves. So, this lab demonstrates something I really like about Boson NetSim. Although this is a lab focused on spanning tree, the title is spanning tree 1, you don't only configure spanning tree. Task 1 is configure VLANs, so you'll be configuring trunk ports, creating VLANs, adding interfaces to VLANs as access ports. Task 2 is configure the router, so configure the interface with dot1q encapsulation for VLAN 3, verify connectivity, and then finally task 3 is 'observe spanning tree'. So I think this is great because you not only get to practice the new things you're studying, but also review things you've already studied in the past, which is very important of course. So let's just do task 1. This isn't actually about spanning tree, but let's review some VLAN configuration. So, verify that the current IP configurations on PC1 and PC2 match the IP configurations listed in the IP addresses table. Here is the table, PC1 and PC2. They are in the same subnet, they should have the same default gateway. 192.168.100.1. PC1 is .101, PC2 is .102. Let's check. So, to get to the CLI of these PCs, click on them here and click console, console. Alright, so I have PC1 and PC2. Let's check PC1 first. How do you check the IP address on a PC, or a Windows PC at least? That is ipconfig. Okay, IP address .101 looks good, /24 mask, and the default gateway is .1, okay. PC1 is good. PC2, ipconfig. .102, /24, default gateway is .1. Okay, so both PC1 and PC2 have the correct configuration. Task 2, verify the connectivity by pinging from PC1 to PC2. The ping should succeed. Okay, let's try. PING 192.168.100.102. Okay, looks good, the ping goes through. Okay, so step 3, configure Switch1 with the appropriate host name. Okay, so I'll open up the CLI of Switch1. ENABLE. CONF T. HOSTNAME Switch1. There we go, the host name has changed. Next, configure FastEthernet ports 0/1, 2, and 3 as trunk ports and create VLAN 3. Okay, Switch1 is here. Okay, so all three of these are trunk ports, or we will make them trunk ports. And we have to manually create VLAN 3 because we're not actually assigning any access ports to VLAN 3. It won't be manually, or sorry not manually, it won't be automatically created for us. So we have to do it ourselves. So first let's make those trunk ports. INTERFACE RANGE F0/1 - 3. Now I don't know if on this switch model I have to configure the trunk encapsulation, dot1q or ISL. Let's just try to set it to a trunk first. Okay, we don't, so this switch only supports dot1q trunk encapsulation, which is actually common on most switches these days. Okay, next, right, create VLAN 3. VLAN 3. EXIT. And let's check that it was created. DO SHOW VLAN BRIEF. And it was, there is VLAN 3. Okay, what's next? Configure Switch2 with the appropriate host name, create VLAN 3, add FastEthernet port 4 to VLAN 3. And then FastEthernet ports 1 and 2, we must configure them as trunk ports, okay. So, FastEthernet4, VLAN 3. So, I'm going to just assign FastEthernet4 to VLAN 3, and then VLAN3 should be automatically created for us. SWITCHPORT ACCESS VLAN 3. Was it? DO SHOW...Oh, I am on Switch1 at the moment, that's the problem. So, we do not need this configuration, I'll just 'no' that, cancel that. So let's go on to the CLI of Switch2 and let's try that again. CONF T. Ah right, first the host name. HOSTNAME Switch2. Ah, no space. Switch2. INTERFACE FASTETHERNET0/4. SWITCHPORT ACCESS VLAN 3. Was VLAN 3 created? Yes it was. Okay, so VLAN 3 was created and FastEthernet0/4 is now in VLAN 3. Okay, next let's make these two interfaces trunk ports. INTERFACE RANGE f0/1 - 2. SWITCHPORT MODE TRUNK, okay. So I'm guessing the next step is Switch3. Let's see. Okay, configure Switch3 with the appropriate host name, VLAN 3, add FastEthernet0/4 to VLAN 3. And configure FastEthernet0/1 and 0/3 as trunk ports. And then try another ping from PC1 to PC2, okay. So first I will assign this interface to VLAN 3. Let's open the CLI of Switch3. ENABLE. CONF T. INTERFACE F0/4. SWITCHPORT ACCESS VLAN 3. Let's check that it was created. DO SHOW VLAN BRIEF. And it was, okay. Next, so this time it's not FastEthernet0/1 and 0/2, it's 0/1 and 0/3. So I have to enter the INTERFACE RANGE command a little differently. INTERFACE RANGE f0/1 comma f0/3. Now I'm in. If I did like I did before, 0/1 to 0/3, that would include FastEthernet0/2, which we don't have to configure now. Okay, SWITCHPORT MODE TRUNK. Okay, so now all of these interfaces between the routers (*switches!), they are all trunks, these are trunk links. The interface going to the router is a trunk also, and both of these PCs are now in VLAN 3. So, the ping should go through. Let's try once again. And it works, okay. So that's task 1. As we saw before, task 2 you would configure the router and then task 3 you would observe what's going on with spanning tree. So, when you have completed the lab, I haven't but we'll end the lab anyway, you can check your work using the grading function. So that's this button here. Click on it and it evaluates how you did on the lab. So, as you can see I missed one or more commands in the lab, that's because we didn't finish it. However, notice Switch1 has a checkmark, so we did all of the configuration on Switch1 correctly. These three interfaces are trunks, and VLAN 3 was created. If you ever have any trouble during the lab you can check the lab solutions down here, gives you sample outputs, shows you all the commands you need to do, and gives you some detailed explanations like this. So I really think Boson's NetSim is a great resource when studying for your CCNA. If you want to get a copy, please follow the link in the video description. I highly recommend it. I used it for my certifications and it really is a great tool. Thank you for watching. Please subscribe to the channel, like the video, leave a comment, and share the video with anyone else studying for the CCNA. If you want to leave a tip, check the links in the description. I'm also a Brave verified publisher and accept BAT, or Basic Attention Token, tips via the Brave browser. That's all for now.