ECP-206 Ericsson Certified Associate - IP Networking Questions and Answers

The protocol that would be used to bundle multiple Ethernet ports into a virtual link with an aggregated bandwidth is LACP, which stands for Link Aggregation Control Protocol. LACP is a protocol that allows two or more devices to negotiate the formation of a link aggregation group (LAG), also known as an EtherChannel or a port channel. A LAG combines multiple physical links into one logical link that provides increased bandwidth, load balancing, and redundancy. LACP is defined in IEEE 802.3ad and 802.1AX standards12.

References: Link Aggregation Control Protocol - Wikipedia, What is “link aggregation” and how does it benefit your network? | PC Gamer

Within an IGP area, routers advertise information about themselves and relay information delivered by neighbors. This is how link-state routing protocols such as OSPF and IS-IS work. They flood information about the network topology to all routers in the same area or domain. That information is then used to build a complete network connectivity map and to calculate the shortest path to destinations. Routers do not summarize or discard information within an area, unless they are configured to do so by some filtering mechanism. References: Ericsson IP Networking - Routing Protocols, IP Routing: ISIS Configuration Guide - IS-IS Overview and Basic Configuration

Two roles of the DHCP protocol in a network are:

• It is used by hosts to obtain the IP address and other parameters from the DHCP server. DHCP stands for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, which is a protocol that provides automatic and centralized management of IP addresses and other network configuration parameters for devices connected to a network. A host that needs an IP address can send a request to a DHCP server, which will assign an available IP address from a pool and lease it to the host for a certain period of time34.
• It is used to inform hosts about the default gateway. The default gateway is the IP address of the router that connects the host to other networks. The default gateway is one of the parameters that can be delivered by the DHCP server to the host, along with other parameters such as subnet mask, DNS server, domain name, etc. The host can use the default gateway to send packets to destinations outside of its local network34.

References: What Is DHCP? (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) - Lifewire, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol - Wikipedia

The statement that accurately defines an Autonomous System (AS) is that an AS is a set of routers under a single administration, using an interior gateway protocol and common metrics to route packets within the AS. An AS is a logical grouping of networks that share a common routing policy and operate under a single administrative authority. An AS can be a single network or a collection of networks that are interconnected by routers. An AS uses an interior gateway protocol (IGP), such as OSPF or IS-IS, to exchange routing information within the AS. An IGP uses common metrics, such as hop count or bandwidth, to determine the best path to each destination within the AS. An AS also has a unique number assigned by IANA, called an AS number (ASN), which identifies the AS in interdomain routing .

References: [Autonomous system (Internet) - Wikipedia], [What Is an Autonomous System? - Cisco]

 IPv6 link-local addresses are designed to be used in three situations: for neighbor discovery, for local IP communication on the IPv6 capable routers, and for addressing on a single link for purposes such as auto-address configuration. Neighbor discovery is a protocol that allows IPv6 nodes to discover each other and learn their link-layer addresses on a local network. Neighbor discovery uses link-local addresses to send and receive messages such as router advertisements, router solicitations, neighbor advertisements, and neighbor solicitations34. Local IP communication on the IPv6 capable routers refers to the ability of routers to exchange routing information or management traffic using their link-local addresses as source and destination addresses. This reduces the need for global unicast addresses on router interfaces that are not reachable from outside the local network35. Addressing on a single link for purposes such as auto-address configuration refers to the use of link-local addresses to enable IPv6 nodes to obtain an address without manual configuration or a DHCP server. Link-local addresses can be automatically derived from the interface identifier in the modified EUI-64 format or randomly generated. Link-local addresses can also be used to test the connectivity of a link before obtaining a global unicast address36.

References: Understand the IPv6 Link-Local Address - Cisco, Link Local Address - GeeksforGeeks, IPv6 Address Types | Link-Local, Global Unicast, etc.⋆ IPCisco, MPLS Label Distribution Protocol Commands - Cisco

Priority queuing (PQ) is a queuing method that establishes four interface output queues that serve different priority levels: high, medium, normal, and low. Traffic in the highest priority queue will experience the least amount of jitter and delay compared to traffic in the other queues, because PQ always services the higher-priority queues first. However, this can also cause traffic in lower priority queues to be starved of bandwidth, especially if the highest priority queue is oversubscribed. Traffic in the highest priority queue is not only reserved for voice traffic, but can also include network control and routing traffic. Traffic in all queues are not always guaranteed a minimum bandwidth, because PQ does not provide any bandwidth reservation mechanism. References: Quality of Service (QoS) Queues and Queuing Explained, Chapter: Configuring Priority Queueing - Cisco

The maximum number of unique VLAN IDs available is 4096. A VLAN ID is a 12-bit identifier that can range from 0 to 4095. However, VLAN ID 0 is reserved for tagging the priority of frames and VLAN ID 4095 is reserved for implementation use, so only VLAN IDs from 1 to 4094 are available for user configuration78. VLAN IDs are used to identify different broadcast domains or subnets on a Layer 2 network. VLAN IDs are carried in the IEEE 802.1Q tag in the Ethernet frame header.

References: What is a virtual LAN (VLAN) and how does it work with my managed switch? - NETGEAR Support, Virtual LANs (VLANs) - Cisco

The function of LSR from an LDP perspective is to distribute labels of FEC to its LDP peers. LSR stands for Label Switching Router, which is a router that forwards packets based on labels rather than IP addresses in an MPLS network. LDP stands for Label Distribution Protocol, which is a protocol that distributes labels for MPLS forwarding along the shortest path calculated by an IGP. FEC stands for Forwarding Equivalence Class, which is a group of packets that are forwarded in the same manner by an LSR. An LSR uses LDP to advertise the label mappings for each FEC to its LDP peers, which are other LSRs that have established an LDP session with it12.

References: Ldp | Microsoft Learn, Label Distribution Protocol - Wikipedia

Regarding the BGP decision algorithm, two statements that are correct are:

• A higher local-preference attribute will be favored over a lower local-preference attribute. The local-preference attribute is used by BGP routers within an AS to indicate their preference for an exit point from the AS. A higher value means a more preferred path. The local-preference attribute is exchanged only between iBGP peers and does not leave the AS boundary89.
• A path cannot be considered if the next-hop is inaccessible. The next-hop attribute is used by BGP routers to determine where to forward packets for a given destination prefix. The next-hop attribute is usually set to the IP address of the eBGP neighbor that advertises the prefix. If there is no IGP route to reach the next-hop address, the path is marked as invalid and ignored by BGP1011.

The other two statements are incorrect because:

• The most important criteria is not the administrative distance, but rather the weight attribute. The administrative distance is used by routers to choose between routes from different routing protocols, not within BGP. The weight attribute is a Cisco-specific attribute that is used by BGP routers to prefer one path over another within the same router. The weight attribute is local to the router and not advertised to any peers1213.
• A lower local-preference attribute will not be favored over a higher local-preference attribute, as explained above.

References: BGP Best Path Selection Algorithm - Cisco, Understanding BGP Local Preference Attribute - NetworkLessons.com, BGP Next Hop Attribute Explained - NetworkLessons.com, BGP Next Hop Processing - Cisco Press, BGP Weight Attribute Explained - NetworkLessons.com, Understanding BGP Weight Attribute - Cisco Community

iBGP works by exchanging routing information between two or more routers within an AS. Each router sends its own routing table to its neighbors, which contains information about the networks it knows and how they can be reached from that router. By default, iBGP neighbors only share BGP routes learned from eBGP neighbors, which are routers in different ASes. This is because iBGP assumes that all routers within an AS have consistent internal routing information provided by an IGP, such as OSPF or IS-IS. Therefore, iBGP neighbors do not need to share IP address information of loopbackinterfaces or directly connected interfaces, unless explicitly configured to do so by using commands such as neighbor update-source or network.

References: iBGP Ultimate Guide | How iBGP Is Different From eBGP, Ericsson IP Networking - Routing Protocols

The device that will fragment IPv6 packets is the source host. Fragmentation is a process of dividing a large packet into smaller pieces that can fit the maximum transmission unit (MTU) of the network link. In IPv4, fragmentation can be performed by either the source host or any intermediate router along the path. However, in IPv6, fragmentation is only allowed at the source host, and routers are not allowed to fragment packets. This reduces the processing overhead and complexity at routers and avoids potential fragmentation attacks. If a router receives an IPv6 packet that is too large for the next-hop link, it will drop the packet and send an ICMPv6 Packet Too Big message back to the source host56.

References: IPv6 address - Wikipedia, IPv6 Fragmentation - Cisco

Penultimate hop popping (PHP) is a function performed by certain routers in an MPLS enabled network. It refers to the process whereby the outermost label of an MPLS tagged packet is removed by a label switch router (LSR) before the packet is passed to an adjacent label edge router (LER). The purpose of PHP is to reduce the load on the LER, as it saves one cycle of label lookup. The LER can forward the packet based on its IP header or another label in the stack, without having to process the outer label. PHPfunctionality is achieved by the LER advertising a label with a value of 3 to its neighbors. This label is defined as "implicit-null" and informs the neighboring LSRs to perform PHP12.

References: Penultimate hop popping - Wikipedia, MPLS Penultimate hop popping - NetworkLessons.com

The router function that advertises external routes in OSPF is ASBR, which stands for Autonomous System Boundary Router. An ASBR is a router that connects an OSPF domain to another routing domain, such as another OSPF domain or a different routing protocol domain. An ASBR can redistribute routes from other routing domains into OSPF as external routes, which are carried in type 5 or type 7 LSAs. External routes have two types: E1 and E2. E1 routes include the cost from the ASBR to the destination, while E2 routes only include the cost advertised by the ASBR34.

References: OSPF External Routes ⋆ IpCisco, OSPF External Route selection algorithm - Cisco Community

The action that will influence BGP route selection within your AS is changing the default value of the local preference attribute. The local preference attribute is used to indicate the preference of a path among multiple paths learned from different external BGP neighbors or autonomous systems (ASes). The higher the local preference value, the more preferred the path is within your AS, and vice versa. The default value of local preference is 100, but you can change it using route maps or other configuration methods on your BGP routers. References: Ericsson IP Networking - Routing Protocols, BGP Attributes and Path Selection, BGP Local Preference Attribute: Controlling Traffic Like a Pro

To differentiate traffic types for the purpose of prioritization in their Ethernet LAN and IP/MPLS backbone, an operator can use the following three fields:

• Traffic Class (TC): This is a 3-bit field in the MPLS label that can be used to indicate the priority or class of service (CoS) of the packet. The TC field can be mapped to the DSCP field in the IP header or the PCP field in the Ethernet header. The TC field can be used by MPLS routers to apply different per-hop behaviors (PHBs) such as queuing, scheduling, and dropping policies to different traffic classes12.
• DSCP: This is a 6-bit field in the IP header that can be used to mark packets according to the differentiated services (DiffServ) model. The DSCP field can indicate the per-hop behavior (PHB) that the packet should receive at each router along its path. The DSCP field can be mapped to the TC field in the MPLS label or the PCP field in the Ethernet header. The DSCP field can be used by IP routers to provide QoS for different traffic types34.
• PCP: This is a 3-bit field in the Ethernet header that can be used to mark packets according to the IEEE 802.1Q standard. The PCP field can indicate the priority or class of service (CoS) of the packet on an Ethernet LAN. The PCP field can be mapped to the TC field in the MPLS label or the DSCP field in the IP header. The PCP field can be used by Ethernet switches to provide QoS for different traffic types56.

References: MPLS Traffic Engineering - DiffServ-Aware Traffic Engineering, MPLS Traffic Engineering - DiffServ-Aware Traffic Engineering Configuration Guide, Differentiated services - Wikipedia, DSCP and Precedence Values - Cisco, 802.1Q VLAN IDs and Ethernet Interface Types - Juniper Networks, Introduction to Virtual LANs (VLANs) and Tagging - Ubiquiti Support and Help Center