Specific Searches for Your #CCNA Lab in Feature Navigator
If you did your #CCNA home lab homework from last week’s post, you probably learned a lot… including the fact that you can get frustrated using Cisco Feature Navigator (www.cisco.com/go/fn). Searching with that tool requires some decent skills at interpreting the phrases Cisco uses to describe IOS features, or at least interpreting the available help. Today’s post walks through a bit of the interpretation that’s needed when building your own CCNA lab.
Earlier posts in this series:
- CCENT and CCNA Lab Gear
- CCENT and CCNA Lab Topologies
- IOS Version 15 for a Cisco Home Lab – or Not
- Narrowing Your Router Search Based on IOS Version
- CCNA Home Lab Homework: Cisco Feature Navigator
What to Look for in Feature Navigator for the ICND1 Exam (CCENT)
To use Cisco feature navigator when searching for your lab gear, you need to find specific answers to many questions. Today’s post looks at two types of questions:
What IOS features do I need for the exam I want to pass?
What phrases does Cisco Feature Navigator use for those features?
I ask myself that same question when building some of those lab web pages at Certskills.com. For those pages, I don’t research for obvious features that should be in every IOS. Instead, I focus on features that I know may or may not be in certain versions, or in certain feature sets. In other words, the features that affect your decision to not buy one router, or to buy another.
Table 1 answers both of the above questions for the ICND1 100-101 exam. That is, the table lists several IOS features that Cisco happens to include within the scope of ICND1 100-101, specifically the features for which I wondered whether they would be supported in all IOS versions and in all IOS feature sets. I’m using to search to build a new version of the Router IOS features page for CCNA at Certskills.com.
Table 1: CCENT Router IOS Features and FN Phrases
Wendell’s Shorthand | Feature Navigator Phrase |
ACL line numbers | ACL Sequence numbering |
DHCPv4 client | DHCP client |
DHCPv4 server | DHCP server |
ROAS | IEEE 802.1Q VLAN Trunking |
IPv4 Named ACLs | IP Named Access Control List |
Static ip routes | ip routing* (introduced in 10.0) |
IPv6 Global Unicast Addressing | IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6) |
IPv6 DHCP Relay Agent | IPv6 Access Services: DHCPv6 Relay Agent |
IPv6 Neighbor Discovery | IPv6 Neighbor Discovery |
OSPFv3 (for IPv6) | IPv6 Routing: OSPF for IPv6 (OSPFv3) |
IPv6 Static Routes | IPv6 Routing: Static Routing |
IPv6 SLAAC | IPv6 Stateless Auto-configuration |
NAT | NAT – Network Address Translation |
OSPFv2 (for IPv4) | OSPF |
SSH | Secure Shell SSH Version 1 Integrated Client Secure Shell SSH Version 1 Server Support |
What can you do with this? If you’re thinking of purchasing a router, find out the IOS version and feature set, and start searching for these features at www.cisco.com/go/fn. The table shows the literal phrases that should speed your search.
Planning to Go for CCNA Routing and Switching? More Features!
To be honest, if you plan to get your CCENT and stop with your Cisco certifications, or at least stop there with your routing and switching certifications, then you may be better off with a simulator, like Pearson’s CCENT network simulator. (The download version, updated for the new 100-101 exam, is out now; full disclosure – I get paid a little when you buy one!) But this series assumes you want a lab with real gear, so continuing that effort…
Many people who are thinking about building a home lab have a goal in routing and switching of at least CCNA Routing and Switching, and possibly beyond, and for you, you need an IOS with more features. Table 2 lists the additional router IOS features that I happened to think may or may not be in all IOS versions and all feature sets, so they’re worthy of checking out when shopping for gear. The table also lists the Cisco Feature Navigator phrases to look for as well.
Table 2: CCNA Routing and Switch: Router IOS Features and FN Phrases
Wendell’s Shorthand | Feature Navigator Phrase |
HSRP | HSRP – Hot Standby Router Protocol |
GLBP | Gateway Load Balancing Protocol (GLBP) |
GRE Tunnels | Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) |
OSPFv2 (for IPv4) | OSPF |
EIGRP (for IPv4) | Enhanced IGRP (EIGRP) |
PPP | PPP |
Frame Relay | Frame Relay |
Frame Relay Switching | Frame Relay Switching |
EIGRPv6 | IPv6 Routing – EIGRP Support |
OSPFv3 | IPv6 Routing: OSPF for… |
SNMP | SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) |
SNMPv2c | SNMPv2C |
SNMPv3 | SNMPv3 (SNMP Version 3) |
NetFlow | NetFlow |
Want a Good Place to Play?
I’m close on finishing up my research on these exact two tables for many router models, across several IOS versions and feature sets. I’m out next week – Interop New York – but hope to have a minute to post my completed tables in 2 weeks or so. The publisher has this habit of wanting me to actually deliver chapters as well, and that keeps getting in the way… ;-0
Anyway, one sweet spot appears to be 1721’s and 2611/2612 XMs, at 12.4T. Feature navigator worked well, with few oddities, in my searches at 12.4(6)T and 12.4(9)T. (Note that 12.4(6)T is advertised as the first IOS release with support for EIGRP for IPv6.) So, if you want to play in feature navigator some more, try these combinations, with different feature sets, and see what you can find!
I really cannot thank you enough for this blog. I am new to Cisco and your blog has given me an idea what should I look for when buying the kit. Saves me from buying something which will be not of much use.