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Cleaning Up Boot Partition

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It seems like every single week I have to update my Ubuntu 12.04 Server edition. I configured it to do automatic updates now. Though, I still have to do it manually most of the time. At one point, my boot partition ran out of space and all updates kept failing. I didn’t know at the time why it was failing so I ignored for a few weeks. When I finally paid attention to the issue. I found out that my boot partition was almost full. Apparently, my Linux had warned me every time I logged in to the server since it was on the message of the day page but I normally do not pay to it so it was ignored.

How Did It Get So Big

Well, apparently, Ubuntu holds on to the old kernel when you do sudo apt-get dist-upgrade so whenever it gets updated, it decides to keep the old ones on the boot partition. I didn’t know it at the time so I was really surprised that the boot partition got to a point that I couldn’t update my Ubuntu box. Below is the /etc/motd output that I get whenever I SSH’d to the box. When I was getting an error message that I didn’t have space, I was really confused because if you look at the usage of section of the MOTD it said 43.2% of 6.62GB. But, what I didn’t know at the time was that value was only for the root partition and not for the boot.

login as: networkjutsu
networkjutsu@192.168.1.222's password:
Welcome to Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS (GNU/Linux 3.2.0-52-generic x86_64)
 * Documentation:  https://help.ubuntu.com/
  System information as of Mon Aug 19 19:33:43 PDT 2013
  System load:  0.68              Processes:           76
  Usage of /:   43.2% of 6.62GB   Users logged in:     1
  Memory usage: 32%               IP address for eth0: 192.168.1.222
  Swap usage:   0%
 The warning will show up here if I am not mistaken talking about /boot partition.
  Graph this data and manage this system at https://landscape.canonical.com/
Last login: Mon Aug 19 19:33:15 2013

Checking Hard Disk Space?

To check hard disk space on Ubuntu Linux, type df -ah on the CLI. Below is the output of my Ubuntu box.

networkjutsu@ubuntu:~$ df -ah
Filesystem               Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/ubuntu-root  6.7G  2.9G  3.5G  46% /
proc                        0     0     0    - /proc
sysfs                       0     0     0    - /sys
none                        0     0     0    - /sys/fs/fuse/connections
none                        0     0     0    - /sys/kernel/debug
none                        0     0     0    - /sys/kernel/security
udev                      79M  4.0K   79M   1% /dev
devpts                      0     0     0    - /dev/pts
tmpfs                     36M  244K   35M   1% /run
none                     5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
none                      88M     0   88M   0% /run/shm
/dev/sda1                228M  140M   76M  65% /boot

As you can see above, this particular box has used up 65% of the boot partition. This needs to be cleaned up or I’ll eventually run into the same issue as mentioned earlier.

Boot Partition Contents

At the time, I was curious what are taking up my boot partition so I issued ls -l command and found a similar output as shown below.

networkjutsu@ubuntu:~$ ls -hl /boot
total 136M
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 773K Apr 10  2012 abi-3.2.0-23-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 775K Nov 15  2012 abi-3.2.0-34-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 775K Jan  8  2013 abi-3.2.0-36-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 775K Jan 24  2013 abi-3.2.0-37-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 777K Jun 18 11:20 abi-3.2.0-49-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 777K Jul 26 10:08 abi-3.2.0-52-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 137K Apr 10  2012 config-3.2.0-23-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 138K Nov 15  2012 config-3.2.0-34-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 138K Jan  8  2013 config-3.2.0-36-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 138K Jan 24  2013 config-3.2.0-37-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 138K Jun 18 11:20 config-3.2.0-49-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 138K Jul 26 10:08 config-3.2.0-52-generic
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 5.0K Aug 19 19:31 grub
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  15M Dec 15  2012 initrd.img-3.2.0-23-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  15M Dec 15  2012 initrd.img-3.2.0-34-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  15M Feb  7  2013 initrd.img-3.2.0-36-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  15M Feb  7  2013 initrd.img-3.2.0-37-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  15M Jul 19 20:33 initrd.img-3.2.0-49-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  15M Aug 19 19:32 initrd.img-3.2.0-52-generic
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  12K Dec 15  2012 lost+found
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 173K Nov 27  2011 memtest86+.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 175K Nov 27  2011 memtest86+_multiboot.bin
-rw------- 1 root root 2.8M Apr 10  2012 System.map-3.2.0-23-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 2.8M Nov 15  2012 System.map-3.2.0-34-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 2.8M Jan  8  2013 System.map-3.2.0-36-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 2.8M Jan 24  2013 System.map-3.2.0-37-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 2.8M Jun 18 11:20 System.map-3.2.0-49-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 2.8M Jul 26 10:08 System.map-3.2.0-52-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 4.8M Apr 10  2012 vmlinuz-3.2.0-23-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 4.8M Nov 15  2012 vmlinuz-3.2.0-34-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 4.8M Jan  8  2013 vmlinuz-3.2.0-36-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 4.8M Jan 24  2013 vmlinuz-3.2.0-37-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 4.8M Jun 18 11:20 vmlinuz-3.2.0-49-generic
-rw------- 1 root root 4.8M Jul 26 10:08 vmlinuz-3.2.0-52-generic

As shown, there are a lot of older kernel version (vmlinuz) still on the boot partition. In theory, rm command should work but it’s not as clean as running the dpkg command.

Cleaning It Up

As already mentioned, the quickest and probably the best way to clean this up is to issue the command shown below. There are a lot of ways to do this but I prefer this command since it’s only one line of command. When I first had to clean up the boot partition, I actually used several commands to clean it up. This one is just one line of command and you’re good to go. I’ve included the whole output just to show a similar screen that you’ll see.

networkjutsu@ubuntu:~$ dpkg -l 'linux-*' | sed '/^ii/!d;/'"$(uname -r | sed "s/\(.*\)-\([^0-9]\+\)/\1/")"'/d;s/^[^ ]* [^ ]* \([^ ]*\).*/\1/;/[0-9]/!d' | xargs sudo apt-get -y purge 

[sudo]
password for networkjutsu: 
Reading package lists… 
Done 
Building dependency tree Reading state information… 
Done 
The following packages will be REMOVED:   
linux-headers-3.2.0-23* 
linux-headers-3.2.0-23-generic* 
linux-headers-3.2.0-34* 
linux-headers-3.2.0-34-generic* 
linux-headers-3.2.0-36* 
linux-headers-3.2.0-36-generic* 
linux-headers-3.2.0-37*   
linux-headers-3.2.0-37-generic* 
linux-headers-3.2.0-49* 
linux-headers-3.2.0-49-generic* 
linux-image-3.2.0-23-generic* 
linux-image-3.2.0-34-generic* 
linux-image-3.2.0-36-generic*   
linux-image-3.2.0-37-generic* 
linux-image-3.2.0-49-generic* 
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 15 to remove and 0 not upgraded. After this operation, 1,084 MB disk space will be freed. (Reading database … 180798 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing linux-headers-3.2.0-23-generic … 
Removing linux-headers-3.2.0-23 … 
Removing linux-headers-3.2.0-34-generic … 
Removing linux-headers-3.2.0-34 … 
Removing linux-headers-3.2.0-36-generic … 
Removing linux-headers-3.2.0-36 … 
Removing linux-headers-3.2.0-37-generic … 
Removing linux-headers-3.2.0-37 … 
Removing linux-headers-3.2.0-49-generic … 
Removing linux-headers-3.2.0-49 … 
Removing linux-image-3.2.0-23-generic … 
Examining /etc/kernel/postrm.d . run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/initramfs-tools 3.2.0-23-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-23-generic update-initramfs: 
Deleting /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-23-generic run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/zz-update-grub 3.2.0-23-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-23-generic Generating grub.cfg … 
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-52-generic 
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-52-generic 
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-49-generic 
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-49-generic 
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-37-generic 
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-37-generic 
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-36-generic 
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-36-generic 
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-34-generic 
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-34-generic 
Found memtest86+ image: /memtest86+.bin done 
Purging configuration files for linux-image-3.2.0-23-generic … 
Examining /etc/kernel/postrm.d . run-parts: 
executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/initramfs-tools 3.2.0-23-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-23-generic run-parts: 
executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/zz-update-grub 3.2.0-23-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-23-generic 
Removing linux-image-3.2.0-34-generic … 
Examining /etc/kernel/postrm.d . run-parts: 
executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/initramfs-tools 3.2.0-34-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-34-generic update-initramfs: 
Deleting /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-34-generic run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/zz-update-grub 3.2.0-34-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-34-generic 
Generating grub.cfg … 
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-52-generic 
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-52-generic 
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-49-generic 
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-49-generic 
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-37-generic 
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-37-generic 
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-36-generic 
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-36-generic 
Found memtest86+ image: /memtest86+.bin done 
Purging configuration files for linux-image-3.2.0-34-generic … 
Examining /etc/kernel/postrm.d . run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/initramfs-tools 3.2.0-34-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-34-generic run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/zz-update-grub 3.2.0-34-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-34-generic 
Removing linux-image-3.2.0-36-generic … 
Examining /etc/kernel/postrm.d . run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/initramfs-tools 3.2.0-36-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-36-generic update-initramfs: 
Deleting /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-36-generic run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/zz-update-grub 3.2.0-36-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-36-generic 
Generating grub.cfg … 
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-52-generic 
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-52-generic 
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-49-generic 
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-49-generic 
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-37-generic 
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-37-generic 
Found memtest86+ image: /memtest86+.bin done 
Purging configuration files for linux-image-3.2.0-36-generic … 
Examining /etc/kernel/postrm.d . run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/initramfs-tools 3.2.0-36-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-36-generic run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/zz-update-grub 3.2.0-36-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-36-generic 
Removing linux-image-3.2.0-37-generic … 
Examining /etc/kernel/postrm.d . run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/initramfs-tools 3.2.0-37-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-37-generic update-initramfs: 
Deleting /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-37-generic run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/zz-update-grub 3.2.0-37-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-37-generic Generating grub.cfg … 
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-52-generic Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-52-generic 
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-49-generic Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-49-generic 
Found memtest86+ image: /memtest86+.bin done Purging configuration files for linux-image-3.2.0-37-generic … 
Examining /etc/kernel/postrm.d . run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/initramfs-tools 3.2.0-37-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-37-generic run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/zz-update-grub 3.2.0-37-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-37-generic Removing linux-image-3.2.0-49-generic … 
Examining /etc/kernel/postrm.d . run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/initramfs-tools 3.2.0-49-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-49-generic update-initramfs: 
Deleting /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-49-generic run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/zz-update-grub 3.2.0-49-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-49-generic 
Generating grub.cfg … 
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-52-generic 
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-52-generic 
Found memtest86+ image: /memtest86+.bin done 
The link /vmlinuz.old is a damaged link 
Removing symbolic link vmlinuz.old  you may need to re-run your boot loader[grub] The link /initrd.img.old is a damaged link 
Removing symbolic link initrd.img.old  you may need to re-run your boot loader[grub] 
Purging configuration files for linux-image-3.2.0-49-generic … 
Examining /etc/kernel/postrm.d . run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/initramfs-tools 3.2.0-49-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-49-generic run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/zz-update-grub 3.2.0-49-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-49-generic

Verification

To verify that the command worked, issue both commands. Though, the first command will be fine.

networkjutsu@ubuntu:~$ df -ah
Filesystem               Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/ubuntu-root  6.7G  1.7G  4.7G  27% /
proc                        0     0     0    - /proc
sysfs                       0     0     0    - /sys
none                        0     0     0    - /sys/fs/fuse/connections
none                        0     0     0    - /sys/kernel/debug
none                        0     0     0    - /sys/kernel/security
udev                      79M   12K   79M   1% /dev
devpts                      0     0     0    - /dev/pts
tmpfs                     36M  244K   35M   1% /run
none                     5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
none                      88M     0   88M   0% /run/shm
/dev/sda1                228M   27M  189M  13% /boot
networkjutsu@ubuntu:~$ ls -al /boot
total 23544
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root     2048 Aug 19 20:18 .
drwxr-xr-x 23 root root     4096 Aug 19 20:18 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   795365 Jul 26 10:08 abi-3.2.0-52-generic
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   140629 Jul 26 10:08 config-3.2.0-52-generic
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root     5120 Aug 19 20:18 grub
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 14819736 Aug 19 19:32 initrd.img-3.2.0-52-generic
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root    12288 Dec 15  2012 lost+found
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   176764 Nov 27  2011 memtest86+.bin
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   178944 Nov 27  2011 memtest86+_multiboot.bin
-rw-------  1 root root  2893555 Jul 26 10:08 System.map-3.2.0-52-generic
-rw-------  1 root root  4978224 Jul 26 10:08 vmlinuz-3.2.0-52-generic

Thoughts

I am actually surprised that Ubuntu chose to keep the older kernel when doing an update. I wish in the future release that they will include the uninstall of the older kernel so I won’t have to do this every time I am running out of boot partition space. Yes, I can redo the partition but it will eventually fill up anyway so it’s a wasted effort in my opinion.

Reference

Ubuntu Forum

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Nested ESXi 5.1 – Virtual ESXi In A Physical ESXi Host

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Yes, it’s another blog post about how to create a nested ESXi 5.1 for lab purposes. The reason why I decided to write one was because of my frustration with the guides out there that I tried to follow but didn’t work. Well, technically, it did work but what I wanted to do was to enable 64-bit guest OS inside the virtual ESXi host. I already had several template VMs that I can just clone from my physical ESXi to virtual ESXi host, so in theory, it should be a lot faster than building a 32-bit based VM. Well, guess what? It didn’t happen. I spent quite some time to get it to work the way I envisioned it since the guides that I followed missed the extra step. If I left it alone with 32-bit, then I would’ve probably saved time! But, it really bugged me because my ESXi host has a CPU that allows me to have 64-bit guest OS inside a virtual ESXi host, so I had to find a solution to make it work.

My ESXi host has been neglected so I was running the original ESXi 5.0 image since I built it. Yesterday, I decided to get it updated and build my virtual ESXi lab for the purpose of Nexus 1000V and probably for VCP studies. I have until the second week of December to use the exam voucher that I received from my VMware Academy course that I took last year for the VCP5-DCV exam. If you’re interested in updating your ESXi 5.0 to 5.1, please follow this guide. Now, that guide doesn’t update to 5.1 U1 so you may want to use this instead.

CPU Requirement

To virtualize ESXi, you should have the right CPU or nested virtualization will not be possible. Below are the CPU requirement:

  • Intel VT-x or AMD-V for nested 32-bit VMs
  • Intel EPT or AMD RVI for nested 64-bit VMs

Preparing Physical ESXi Host

Before creating the our vESXi, we need to edit a config file on our physical ESXi, which is the /etc/vmware/config file. There are two ways that I found on how to do this and are shown below. One way is to use echo command to append it to the config file, which is shown in the left side of the image, and the other way is to use the good old VI editor, shown on the left side. I actually prefer the latter.

config file

Note: This is assuming you’ve enabled SSH services of your ESXi host. Mine has been configured that way since I use vmkfstools command to clone VMs.

If you do not know how to enable SSH service, please use the steps below. Otherwise, please skip and go to the next step.

  • Go to configuration tab.
configuration tab
  • Click the Security Profile link and a new view is presented. Click Properties link
    security profile
  • Once Services Properties shows up, click the SSH and click Options. A new window will appear labeled SSH (TSM-SSH) Options. Click Start button. This will temporarily enable SSH until the next reboot. If you prefer to enable it completely, please feel free to tick the Start and Stop with host option and click the OK button.
    SSH

Creating Virtual ESXi 5.1 (vESXi) Host

  • Create a standard VM just like you’re used to.
  • Once you’re in the Guest Operating System section, choose Linux as the Guest OS and Other 2.4.x Linux (64-bit) as the Version. Once everything is done, do not power on the VM yet.
    Guest OS Version 1
  • Before powering up the VM, there are more settings that needs to be edited. Go to edit the VM properties and check the following: CPU needs to have a minimum of two virtual sockets or cores, at least 2GB of RAM, and of course do not forget about the ISO image on the virtual optical drive.
  • Once you’re done with the Hardware tab of the Virtual Machine Properties, go to Options tab and choose General Options settings. Change the Guest Operating System to Other and Version to VMware ESXi 5.x (experimental). If you do not see this, make sure the RAM is at least 1.x GB. Though, I recommend using 2GB of RAM since I’ve encountered issues when I changed it to 1.5 GB of RAM when booting up, YMMV.
    VM properties
  • The vESXi host is now ready to be powered on for the first time. Follow the installation process. Don’t worry if you see a warning about HARDWARE_VIRTUALIZATION. Just finish the installation and we’ll fix it later. This is the one that is missing in a lot of the guides out there so that 64-bit OS will work. It may have worked for their lab but mine didn’t work at all using their guide.
  • Once vESXi is up and running. Configure the network settings to static or use DHCP reservation. Up to you what you want to do but I like mine static since it reduces broadcast in my network. I also like to add the IP address on my computer’s host file since I do not have internal DNS server at home yet.

Hardware Virtualization Warning

As mentioned earlier, ignore the Hardware Virtualization warning since I was able to figure out on how to fix it. Follow the step in the preparing physical ESXi host section but this time, connect to your vESXi and make the change. Again, this is assuming you’ve enabled the SSH service.

UPDATE: This step is no longer needed. The preparing physical ESXi host section will do the job. Apparently, I was confused on how I fixed the issue. At first, I was using vhv.allow = “TRUE” so that’s the reason why it wasn’t working then made a lot of changes and not tracking what I’ve done.

Modifying vSphere Standard Switch

I do not really know why this is needed but I wasn’t able to start my 64-bit OS without modifying the switch settings. To modify the standard switch, please follow the steps below.

  • Go to Configuration tab. Click Networking on the left pane of the screen under Hardware. Find the vSwitch that corresponds to your Virtual Machine connection type. In my case, I have three NICs so that’s why there are two NICs on the screenshot. Once the correct vSwitch has been found, click Properties.
    vSphere standard switch
  • The vSwitch Properties window will appear. Click the LAN and click Edit. LAN Properties window will appear. Go to the Security tab and tick the Promiscuous Mode box. By default, this is set to Reject so change it to Accept. Once selected, click OK. Close all the windows and you’re done.
    LAN properties

Cloning An Existing VM

This step is optional. I’ve only included this for my notes and probably help other people on how to clone VMs on ESXi.

  • Create a new folder on your shared storage.
  • Issue the vmkfstools -i command as shown below.
    vmkfstools
  • Create the custom VM on the vESXi host and make sure to use the existing disk pointing to the newly created VMDK file.

Thoughts

This is a really great feature that VMware included on their hypervisor. Not a whole lot of people or organizations out there has the luxury of building a lab that consists of physical hardware. That said, having virtual ESXi lab allows individual and/or organization to study VMware related certifications or test before deploying to their production environment. I wish Cisco followed their suit a long time ago but much anticipated release of VIRL (Virtual Internet Routing Lab) then I can’t complain. Though, we’re still missing a lot of information about the VIRL. I know that people are saying there will be free and paid version. I wonder what will be the limitation of the free version. Hopefully, the free version will be able to create a CCIE topology so once the version 5 comes out then individuals who are studying for the lab won’t need to buy new gears and IOS 15 licenses to access all the technologies.

Reference

VirtuallyGhetto

Want to get certified?

VCP5-DCV Official Certification Guide
Mastering VMware vSphere 5
Mastering VMware vSphere 5.5
Mastering VMware vSphere 6

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SolarWinds Certified Professional

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SCP


It’s been a while since I’ve posted any blog post and today I’ve decided to make some time to post at least one that is not technical. Writing a technical blog post is time consuming since you have to make sure that what you put out there is correct, so even though I think I know what to say it doesn’t mean it’s correct so research is very important. The research alone can take few hours to verify what I need to say is true. That said, I don’t really have much time to dedicate to write a new blog post as much as I want to. I’d also be lying if I don’t include that laziness trumps over the need or want to post a blog.

Anyway, enough with all that since the whole point of this blog post is about the certification. I found out about this certification on a technical forum. At first, I was like I don’t need to take that since I never really liked network management all that much. I find it very boring and not interesting to work on everyday. Heck, even in college when I had to take one class about network management, I didn’t really pay attention that much. Luckily, I passed that class! On all three employers that I’ve been a part of the network team, only one employer that required me to do something about network management. I was always the user of the network management tools so it wasn’t my responsibility to work on it. Those two employers have a team that manage the network management tools. My previous employer didn’t have that since it’s very small compared to my current and former employer.

If I found it boring and not interesting to work on everyday then why did I take the certification? Well, mostly, I was just curious what the exam would be like and it’s free (for now). I didn’t even prepare for this online exam. I just signed up one day and the next day I was given all the instructions on how to take the exam. Once I received all the necessary information to take the exam, I was already clicking through the website and filling out what needs to be filled out and started answering exams questions. Since this is an online exam, that can be taken anywhere with no camera or proctor looking at you, then it is technically an open book. I could’ve opened one tab and “google” every questions but what’s the fun of that if you’re trying to assess what you don’t know? To me, I was just really curious of the exam and what I still do not know about network management.

Exam

The exam contains between 70-80 questions, at least mine did, and you have 90 minutes (if my memory serves me right) to complete it. If you need more information about the certification then please click here. The site will contain links for the prep guide, videos that you can watch to prepare for the exam, types of questions that will appear in the exam, and other information about the certification and exam. This certification has been out for quite sometime now, I think. I think the beta started back in 2009 so it’s pretty old but not a very popular certification compared to Cisco, Microsoft, or VMware.

Sample questions:

Network Management Fundamentals

A network engineer has been asked to monitor an ObjectIdentifier(OID) using a custom poller. The custom poller does not seem to be working, so the engineer takes a packet capture from the router in question. To best filter the capture data and determine if the router is sending information about that OID, what would the engineer filter on?

(A) destination IP address of the network management system (NMS) and port162
(B) destination IP address of the router and port 161
(C) destination IP address of the network management system (NMS) and port161
(D) destination IP address of the router and port162

Network Management Planning

A managed service provider(MSP)is planning to deploy a network management system (NMS)to monitor multiple customer networks. The MSP must choose between a centralized or distributed management architecture. What are the two most important factors to consider? (Choose two.)

(A) available bandwidth between the MSP and customers
(B) total number of devices to be managed
(C) choice of SNMP version for polling
(D) overlapping IP address space between customers
(E) choice of SSL versusVPN tunnel for communication

Network Management Operations

Which type of Syslog message indicates the lowest severity level?

(A) alerts
(B) critical
(C) debugging
(D) errors
(E) informational
(F) notifications

Network Fault & Performance Troubleshooting

Your network management system (NMS) indicates that a device is down. As a troubleshooting step you attempt to telnet to the device, and you are able to successfully connect. However, pinging the device fails. What should you do next to troubleshoot this
situation?

(A) verify layer 2 connectivity to the device
(B) verify that the “down” device can ping the NMS
(C) verify that the ICMP service on the NMS is functioning
(D) verify the SNMP community string for the device

SolarWinds NPM Administration

You need to create an account that can see only a subset of the nodes being monitored by SolarWinds NPM. What would you add to the
account to make this possible?

(A) account views
(B) account limitations
(C) account permissions
(D) view permissions

Score

So, what’s your score, you might ask. Well, I didn’t really do a good job but as one might say, a pass is a pass. A lot of people on the forum were getting 80+% score but I barely passed the exam on the first try – you have can have up to three attempts to pass the exam. I missed 23 questions which gave me a score of 70.1% and the passing is 70%. To give you some idea of what my background with SolarWinds, I deployed and used NCM, NPM, and IPAM at my previous employer. I’ve used all of them for less than a year and when I took the exam it has been almost a year since I’ve touched it so that also contributed to my bad score. I’ve never used SolarWinds ever before but to be honest it’s a pretty intuitive once you get the hang of it – the administration side that is. When I was deploying it, I had to use the Admin Guide a lot since I had no idea of how to even install and configure it. I’ve created weekly or monthly reports, custom views, and user accounts with different privileges, etc. I’ve never worked with NetFlow ever before and there were other NPM questions there that I’ve never really played with so those were also what contributed to my bad score. I am sure what I think I answered correctly were probably incorrect as well.

Thoughts

The exam itself is not that bad. According to Thwack members, it’s more challenging compared to the previous version of the exam. I’d take their word for it since I’ve never seen the previous version. If you know things about network management and especially SolarWinds NPM, then this should be a cake walk for you. For people who aren’t familiar with NPM and network management then I suggest you to read the prep guide and watch their videos. To be honest, I do not even know how long the videos are since I’ve never seen it. I didn’t really bother to read and/or watch the prep guide and videos.

The certification page does a good job in trying to convince you that it has real value in the IT world but it is yet to be proven. Since you can take the exam anywhere you want, then the value of the certification becomes questionable. If they change it to a proctor based type exam then it adds somewhat of a value to the certification. However, moving it to a proctor based type exam may mean that it won’t be free. If one needs to pay to take the exam then I am very skeptical that they’ll be able to attract more than 2000 people to take it. When I got my certification, my number is 2450. A month prior to that who took and passed the exam received 2405. Not bad of a number but I think the reason for the surge is because of the forum members taking the exam and of course it’s free so you have nothing to lose. Adding cost to the exam will definitely make this certification not very popular in the IT crowd who aren’t really interested in network management or do not work with SolarWinds products in a day to day basis.

Disclosure

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New CCNA Exam Announced

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Cisco Learning Networking might have inadvertently updated their site today because if I click the 200-101 ICND2 exam link then it will direct you to a page that says “It appears you’re not allowed to view what you requested. You might contact your administrator if you think this is a mistake”, as shown here. If you change the last character to 3 then it will show you “Not found. The item does not exist. It may have been deleted.” Since I was playing the link, I also tried changing it to ICND1_v2 and gave me the same error message as the ICND2_v2. All that being said, it sure looks like I was right with my prediction that CCENT/CCNA exam will change.

Majority of the exam content will remain the same so it’s really not big of a deal if the change takes effect before the year ends. Just make sure that you take it before the exam changes so the time that you’ve invested with the current exam topics won’t go to waste. By no means that I am suggesting that you hurry up and take the exam without thoroughly understanding the topics. Take your time to understand the exam topics because CCENT/CCNA are really great Cisco networking fundamentals.

Good luck with your CCENT/CCNA studies!

Use CCNA Routing and Switching 200-120 Official Cert Guide Library to pass your CCNA R&S exam!

UPDATE:
Cisco has finally announced the new CCNA Routing & Switching exam. CCNA is dead, hello CCNA Routing and Switching!

You might like to read

New CCNA 5.0 Curriculum

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New CCNA 5.0 Curriculum

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Apparently, this news is pretty old since it was announced back in June 2012. However, not a whole lot of people are aware of this upcoming changes to the CCNA curriculum. The new CCNA 5.0 curriculum will still continue to focus on routing and switching technologies which aligns with the CCENT and CCNA certifications. The expected phase release of the new curriculum will start in June 2013 and is expected to be available to all academy by the end of 2013.

What are the changes?

The CCNA 5.0 curriculum introduces exciting new features and functionality including the following:
  • Integration of IPv6 and IPv4 in the design, configuration, and management of routed and switched networks
  • Utilization of Cisco IOS 15.X commands to configure and manage network devices
  • Advanced technology topic updates including voice, wireless, security, and data center
  • Improved psychometric analysis of final exam items
  • Enhanced rich assessment feedback earlier in the learning process
  • Mobility support enabling access to course text and graphics on mobile platforms, including Apple iOS, Google Android, and Windows 8 devices
  • Cisco NetSpace capabilities fully leveraged to improve communications, collaboration, and user experience for students and instructors

Thoughts

With this update to the curriculum, I believe it is safe to assume to that Cisco will also announce the retirement of the current CCENT and CCNA exams. That said, if you have been putting off taking the exam then you better start ramping up or else you’ll be studying for the new curriculum if you don’t make the deadline. Usually, Cisco is pretty good of giving you three to six months before retiring the current exam(s) so you should still have some time.

If Cisco decide to announce the changes to the CCENT and CCNA exams by the end of 2013, then that would mean that CCNP and CCIE will also change after a year or two. I did a quick search of certification release dates and it looks like when Cisco changed the CCNA it was the latter part of 2007. Then, Cisco announced the release of CCIE v4.0 in the second quarter of 2009. The following year, they announced the CCNP v6.0 changes. That said, if Cisco follows the same schedule then CCIE v5.0 will be probably announced by first or second quarter of 2014 and one of the changes for sure is the IOS 15.X. With that said, my lab will need to be refreshed or need to be sold. Any takers?

Update:
Exam has been announced! Study now using CCNA Routing and Switching 200-120 Official Cert Guide Library!

Reference

New CCNA Curriculum Coming Soon

Disclosure

NetworkJutsu.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.