GUIDES MEET PRACTICE
Clear networking guides and 68 CCNA browser labs. Learn the concepts, practice IOS-style commands, and check your work as you go.
One lab free. No account, installation, or hardware needed.
A browser simulation of selected IOS behavior. It does not run an IOS image.
EXPLORE THE LIBRARY
Models, addresses, and the basics that connect everything.
↗ 02Switching & VLANsBuild and troubleshoot Layer 2 networks.
↗ 03RoutingUnderstand forwarding decisions and paths.
↗ 04Security & accessExplore controls, authentication, and firewalls.
↗ 05WirelessFrom WLAN fundamentals to controller operations.
↗ 06Linux & toolsDiagnose and verify from the command line.
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A free PingLabz account unlocks the Linux, ASA, BGP, and OSPF PDFs. Choose the guide you need and keep it close while you practice.
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Pro unlocks 60 build labs, six troubleshooting labs, and the campus Mega Lab. Follow guided exercises, try IOS-style commands, and check your configuration as you go.
SELECTED READING
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In Cisco SD-WAN a VPN is a VRF, not a tunnel. VPN 0 is transport, VPN 512 is management and the rest carry users. In my home lab I also found a management port in the wrong VPN, leaking into OMP.
A TLOC is a next hop with a label saying which pipe: system IP, color and encapsulation. Here is how TLOCs turn into IPsec tunnels in my home lab, and why one keyword cut four possible tunnels to two.
OMP is how Cisco SD-WAN edges learn each other's routes. Think BGP with a route reflector, where every next hop is a TLOC. I traced a new prefix from one edge to the other in my home lab.
Cisco SD-WAN splits the job into control, data and management planes. I captured 1,000 pings in my home lab to prove it: user traffic went edge to edge over IPsec, and the Controller saw none of it.
What Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager, Controller, Validator and WAN Edge each do, which plane each works in, the DTLS ports they use and how a new router joins. Every output comes from a 20.18.2.1 overlay built in my home lab.
Cisco SD-WAN, explained from scratch: what it is, how Manager, Controller, Validator and WAN Edge routers fit together, and a full map of the PingLabz series on Catalyst SD-WAN 20.18 and IOS XE 17.18.
vManage is now SD-WAN Manager, vSmart is SD-WAN Controller, vBond is SD-WAN Validator. Here's the full name map, when it changed, and where Cisco still shows the old names.
What is SD-WAN? Start with a 40-branch MPLS network backhauling SaaS traffic through the data center, then see how SD-WAN uses every link and runs the WAN from one place.
The hub for the PingLabz Cisco ISE 3.5 lab series: nine hands-on posts covering setup, 802.1X and MAB failures, Live Logs codes, TACACS+ device admin for IOS XE and ASA, policy sets and CoA.
The hub for the PingLabz observability tools series: LibreNMS against Zabbix on the same devices, Netdisco for topology and MAC/ARP search, and Suricata and Zeek watching the management network.
The hub for the PingLabz config tools series: Oxidized backups to Git, Batfish offline validation, NetBox as the Ansible source of truth, and one real IOS XE change taken through all of them.
The hub for the PingLabz flow visibility series: five hands-on posts that take NetFlow v9 from Cisco IOS XE into Akvorado, GoFlow2 and pmacct, and use it to find top talkers and scans.