Ping and Traceroute: Cert Guide PT Labs for ICND1 Chapter 23
Sometimes experienced network engineers just assume new engineers instantly know how all the fundamental tools work – but everyone needs time to think about and practice with the tools to get comfortable and proficient. This chapter in the CCNA books gives you a change to work through the details on some of the most common tools in the networker’s toolkit: ping and traceroute. Today’s post helps you practice the examples found in the ICND1 100-105 Cert Guide Chapter 23, and the new CCNA 200-301 Volume 1 Chapter 18, using Packet Tracer.
Advice before You Begin
The big idea is pretty simple: Repeat the Examples in the Official Cert Guide as part of your lab practice for CCNA.
To get your head around what kind of content is here in the blog for these labs, read both of these posts or at least the second post:
After reading those posts, you have the context, so onward to the details!
What’s in This Post
Intro to the Book Chapter: A brief description of the topics in that chapter of the book.
Chapter Examples and .PKT File Reference: A section that lists the examples in the chapter, the .pkt files supplied, and reminders/notes about cases in which we don’t supply all three files for any one example.
Tips and Exceptions: When we build the files, we come across items that we think might confuse you when trying the examples with PT. We write those notes in this section!
Intro to the Book Chapter
This chapter works through some basics. At this point in the book, you should have learned how IP addressing works as well as IP routing. So, how do you determine if they work or not? Ping and traceroute. This chapter uses a series of examples of these commands in cases that show when routing works and when it does not work. Unlike most chapters in the book, you will not have to configure anything for most of the examples in this chapter – just open the initial PT file and try the same ping and traceroute commands shown in the book.
Chapter Examples and .PKT File Reference
Download this ZIP file to get all the .pkt files for this chapter:
This table tells you what files to expect in the ZIP, and which examples happen to use interface IDs that can be exactly replicated in PT:
| Example | Topology File | Initial Config | Ending Config | Exact Match of Interface IDs? |
| 23-1 | Yes | Yes | None | Yes |
| 23-2 | Use 23-1 | Use 23-1 | None | Yes |
| 23-3 | Use 23-1 | Use 23-1 | None | Yes |
| 23-4 | Use 23-1 | Use 23-1 | None | Yes |
| 23-5 | Use 23-1 | Use 23-1 | None | Yes |
| 23-6 | Use 23-1 | Use 23-1 | None | Yes |
| 23-7 | Yes | Yes | None | Yes |
| 23-8 | Use 23-7 | Yes | None | Yes |
Reminders: Purpose of Each Type of .PKT File
Topology File: The file contains all devices and cables in the associated figure along with any implied extra devices. The purpose: you never had to add a device or cable. It also contains a few configuration commands that do not affect the example, but help you navigate, for instance, it sets hostnames, passwords (always “cisco”), and interface descriptions.
Initial Config: The file contains everything in the Topology file, plus all configuration listed or implied by the words and figures leading up to the example. That is, it attempts to match the state of the network just before the first line of the example.
Ending Config: The file adds the configuration listed in the example to the Initial Config file – nothing more, nothing less.
Table Lists “None” or Other Strange Terms?
Some examples have all three types of PKT files, however, some Examples have no PT files, and some have a mix of fewer than three files. Here’s a reminder of why. You can check this earlier post for more background if you care to know more.
Initial Config as “None”: If the table says “yes” for the Topology and Ending config, but not the Initial config, then the Topology file has all configuration needed at the beginning of the example.
Ending Config as “None”: The Ending config will be shown as “None” when the example as printed in the book does not have any configuration commands.
All Three Files as “None”: We do not supply .pkt files for that example.
Use x-y: Use Example x-y’s ending config file because the example continues earlier example x-y.
Tips and Exceptions
This section lists our comments about using PT to do the examples. When we built the files, when we saw any behavior that we thought might make it more difficult to perform the example, we noted that fact so we could list it here, in case it might help you with the examples.
All Examples
Jut as a reminder, we include “ending” PT files for examples that add configuration, with the ending PT including the configuration commands in the example. None of the examples in this chapter have configuration commands, so none of the examples need ending config files.
Example 23-1
In PT, to issue a ping command on a Host, choose “Command Prompt” from the user interface.
Example 23-2
The book directs you as if the user of a PC would Telnet to R1. You can indeed do that from PT, from the PC’s command prompt, with the command telnet 172.16.1.1. Alternately, you can connect to router R1’s console as normal and issue the ping command from there.
Example 23-4
PT hosts use the tracert command (like Windows hosts), rather than the traceroute command (taken from a Mac) shown in the example. Just use the tracert ip-address in PT when doing the lab.
Example 23-5
Note that real gear includes some lines that you would probably ignore if doing the lab on real gear, but you can do this example in PT and learn the important points.
