Linksys/D-Link Routers And Your Cisco CCNA Lab

In preparation of our CCNA exam, we want to make sure we cover the
various concepts that we could see on our Cisco CCNA exam. So to assist
you, below we will discuss Setting Up Linksys/D-Link Routers and your
Cisco CCNA Lab.

Linksys/D-Link Routers and your Cisco Lab

We get many CCNA students who ask us how to incorporate their
Linksys/D-Link or similar Cable/DSL wireless router into their newly
purchased Cisco CCNA lab. Although this can be done, it is not something
we suggest.

I will touch on a few reasons we don't really recommend this setup, but
I am sure if we really sat down and thought about it we could come up
with more.

1)Depending on the model of the home Linksys/D-Link Cable/DSL router
that you are talking about, many of them don't support the protocols you
will be setting up in your Cisco CCNA home lab. Some of the newer ones
will support RIP. But rarely will you see any of these home type routers
support any of the advanced protocols such as OSPF, EIGRP and such. A
few of them are now also supporting the ability to enter static routes,
which is nice.and they are improving with each generation but they still
are not what you want to base your Cisco CCNA studies on.

2)Most of them come out of the box setup as DHCP servers. Unless you
start playing around with those settings, this will conflict with some
of the DHCP and other labs you should be doing in your CCNA lab. This
generally leads to breaking your home network and then you have your
spouse, parents, kits, etc complaining because you took down their
Internet connection. The more they complain, the more you stress out and
keep figure out the solution as everyone is yelling at you. Just don't
do it!

3)Besides the ability to not support all the protocols a real Cisco
router will.the Linksys/D-Link Cable/DSL routers will not be able to
work seamlessly with many of the advanced security features you will
find in a Cisco Router during your CCNA lab studies.

So what we suggest for the new Cisco CCNA student is to keep their home
Linksys/D-Link Cable/DSL network separate from their Cisco CCNA lab
network. Why besides the items listed above? Well another thing we tend
to find is you are learning in the new CCNA lab network. You are going
to break things and spend countless hours trying to figure out what you
did wrong, how to fix it and what you broke. Many times you will never
figure it out and just start over from scratch. Also one thing you will
discover with Cisco routing is an issue with one Cisco router will
propagate to other routers. For example, when an interface goes down on
a router, the route is removed systematically from the route tables of
all the routers. Thus routes are recalculated and you will be sent a
different way to get to the destination. So long story short, we suggest
in the beginning learning stages, keep your home network and CCNA lab
network completely separate.

Integrating your home and CCNA networks sounds like a great idea until
you totally mess it up, have no idea what you are doing or how to fix it
while your spouse, kids, parents, whomever are yelling at you because
they can't get to their myspace account..or worse yet, now you can't get
your home network back working to the point where you can get to some of
your favorite websites or email accounts. So just be patient and
progress at a slow steady pace with your CCNA studies. Before you know
it you will actually understand how to integrate the two networks from
knowledge you gained through your studies and not because someone gave
you an example to type in and follow. You will actually be able to sit
down and figure it our for yourself. This is a true measure of your
comprehension of the Cisco CCNA exam concepts and will provide you with
a real life situation where you can test your Cisco CCNA expertise!

I hope you found this article to be of use and it helps you prepare for
your Cisco CCNA certification. Achieving your CCNA certification is much
more than just memorizing Cisco exam material. It is having the real
world knowledge to configure your Cisco equipment and be able to
methodically troubleshoot Cisco issues. So I encourage you to continue
in your studies for your CCNA exam certification.


Go to CiscoKits for your free Cisco Certification training. Cisco CCNA, CCNP, and CCIE training along with many options for Cisco home lab certification kits!