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CCNA certification prep: IP services

What percentage of the exam focuses on IP services?

In the blueprint of the CCNA exam, the “IP services” section covers only 10% of the exam topics. Together with the “Automation and Programmability” section, they represent the smallest sections of the exam.

What topics are covered in this section of the exam?

At a very high level, the topics covered in this section are related to some non-critical features that can be enabled on networking devices, such as Network Address Translation (NAT), Network Time Protocol (NTP), Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP), Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), syslog and Quality of Service (QoS). While these features are not critical (the network can work without them), they do enhance network operation by allowing network monitoring and traffic prioritization.

High-level overview of IP services topics

The upcoming paragraphs of this guide will go a little deeper on what one is expected to know for the IP connectivity section.

How to configure and verify NAT

One good chunk of the IP services section is about NAT. NAT, in conjunction with private addressing (covered by RFC1918) and Classless Interdomain Routing (CIDR), delayed the public IPv4 space depletion.

RFC1918 describes these private IPv4 address spaces:

  • Class A: 10.0.0.0 – 10.255.255.255
  • Class B: 172.16.0.0 – 172.31.255.255
  • Class C: 192.168.0.0 – 192.168.255.255

NAT works by using a valid public IP address to represent the private IP address to the internet.

Although there are multiple types of NAT, the CCNA exam covers only the static NAT, which allows the usage of private IP addresses inside the company and still be able to communicate with hosts from the internet.

Key NAT terms:

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Infosec Resources authored by Paris Arau. Read the original post at: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/infosecResources/~3/DSe0lZmf4_A/