San Francisco on the Cheap

If you?ve ever visited San Francisco, you know it can be a very expensive city. Hotel costs, restaurant tabs, valet fees and cab fares can add up quite quickly. But, if you know where the values are, that trip to San Francisco can actually fit into your budget quite nicely.

First, let?s start with lodging. Yes, it?s nice to stay at the Grand Hyatt on Union Square or the Mark Hopkins. But, let?s face it, they?re expensive. For budget considerations, I suggest you consider Lombard Street. No, not the crooked part of Lombard Street, but the section of Lombard Street which runs through the Cow Hollow and Marina districts in the northern part of San Francisco, near the Golden Gate Bridge.

You can find a nice room on Lombard Street for just under $100 a night, which is a far cry from the hotels on Union Square. But, what kind of room will your $100 get you? Of course, you?re not going to get the luxury of a fancy hotel, but you?re not paying for luxury. You?re paying to enjoy San Francisco. Your $100 will buy you a comfortable, clean room. Also, you will generally receive free parking. If you drive to San Francisco or rent a car in San Francisco, free parking is a big deal. The luxury hotels usually charge for parking, as well as a in & out fees when you retrieve your car for a day trip or night out.

Lombard Street is also a great location. Just north of Lombard Street is Chestnut Street, with a movie theater, shops and wonderful food. To the south a few blocks you?ll find Union Street, with upscale shops and, again, wonderful food. Lombard Street is also a good location for bus service to all parts of San Francisco, eliminating the need for expensive taxi rides.

You have numerous choices for lodging along Lombard Street. I?ve stayed at the Cow Hollow Motor Inn (415-921-5800) and find it to be good, inexpensive choice, with free parking, with a nice, inexpensive Italian restaurant located just north on Steiner Street (Ristorante Parma). One caveat I have about Cow Hollow, which can probably be applied to any of the motels on Lombard Street, is that you will probably want to request an inside room off the main streets, as they can get quite loud. Another motel you might consider would be La Luna Inn (415-346-4664), a recently renovated inn with some luxuries you wouldn?t expect from a budget motel, such as pillow-top mattresses, flat screen TVs, wireless internet access and complimentary muffins, breads, coffee, tea and juices served every morning. All that for just under $100 per night for a single king or queen bed.

Restaurants can also add up to the cost of a vacation. San Francisco has a large amount of wonderful restaurants at inexpensive prices. Of course, you have to know which ones they are. Those would usually be the ones the locals frequent, so if you want to avoid over-priced restaurants, you?d stay away from restaurants in tourist traps like Fisherman?s Wharf and go for neighborhood restaurants, such as those found in Cow Hollow and the Marina District, 24th Street in Noe Valley, or Potrero Hill. One very inexpensive restaurant I?d recommend in Potrero Hill is San Francisco Bar B Que, 1328 18th St., a wonderful little Thai BBQ restaurant that serves great food at cheap prices. If there?s a wait, just put your name on the list and bop into Bloom?s Saloon a couple doors down for a drink and great views of the downtown skyline.

As for inexpensive things to do in San Francisco, check out the free walking tours offered by San Francisco City Guides, a non-profit organization of more than 200 trained volunteers who lead free walking tours in San Francisco. Their website at sfcityguides.org lists all the many different walking tours of such sites as Chinatown, Golden Gate Bridge, Coit Tower, and even ghost walks of supposedly haunted locations.

San Francisco is truly a great city to visit. It?s even better when you know you can visit and experience all the city has to offer without breaking the bank.

Shari Hearn is a writer and creator of Top Vacation Spots, where you can learn more about things to do in San Francisco.

 

How to: Cisco 2600 Router's Password Recovery

As you might already know, the configuration register value is the key player in password recovery. This is due to the fact that the configuration register value controls the boot sequence. The part that matters in the configuration register here is the sixth bit. When this bit is off, the router look into the NVRAM for the configuration. If the bit is on, the router neglects the contents of NVRAM and acts as if there is no (startup-config). So, to get things going when you have forgotten the password, or a previous administrator does not give you the password due to lack of documentation, you can bypass this problem.

Go through the following steps carefully:

1. Interrupt the router booting operation. This is done by pressing (Ctrl+Break) key simultaneously as soon as you turn on the router. This step will get you to the ROM monitor mode (rommon).

You will have the following:

System Bootstrap, Version 11.3(2)XA4, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)

Copyright (c) 1999 by cisco Systems, Inc.

TAC:Home:SW:IOS:Specials for info

PC = 0xfff0a530, Vector = 0x500, SP = 0x680127b0

C2600 platform with 32768 Kbytes of main memory

PC = 0xfff0a530, Vector = 0x500, SP = 0x80004374 monitor:

command "boot" aborted due to user interrupt

rommon 1 >

The (rommon 1 >) prompt is for the ROM monitor mode.

2. Now you should change the value of the configuration register in order to make the router neglect the contents of the NVRAM in the next boot up. This is achieved using the following command:

rommon 1 > confreg 0x2142

This command will change the sixth bit (originally the configuration register is 0x2102) to one. By doing so, the router will act as new in the next boot.

3. Perform a restart to the router using the following command:

rommon 1 > reset

4. The router now will restart and ask you if you want to use the setup mode and of course you will say no. Now, in order not to loose the configuration that you already have in the router, you should go to the USER privileged mode and perform:

Router#copy start run

This will get you back your old configuration but with one exception, you already are in the privileged mode without having to know the password..!!!!

Now you put a new password or passwords if you may:

Router(config)#enable secret blabla

And you can also put new console and telnet passwords if you like.

5. To get things going back to normal, change the value of the configuration register to its original form (0x2102) using the following global configuration command:

Router(config)#config-register 0x2102

6. Now you should save the configuration including the new passwords that you know:

Router#copy run start

7. Now reload and you are good to go:

Router#reload

What we have done in these steps is that we by passed the original configuration that has the unknown password, and then we got to the privileged mode without the need to know the password. And then we loaded the old configuration so we don?t loose it and imposed a new password and saved things back to the NVRAM. And then we got back to the original boot sequence. A piece of cake, isn?t it??

Cisco CCNP Certification Training Tutorial: The New ONT 642-845 Exam

The Cisco CCNP certification is changing at the end of 2006, with the BSCI and BCMSN exams being updated and the BCRAN and CIT exams being dropped. One of the two new exams is the 642-845 Optimizing Converged Cisco Networks (ONT) test, and the name of the exam doesn't give many hints as to the material covered!

According to Cisco's exam blueprint, the major topics on this new exam will be Voice over IP (VoIP) and Quality of Service (QoS). This exam change is an excellent move on Cisco's part, since VoIP is one of the fastest-growing network technologies today, and implementing VoIP demands the ability to implement QoS!

Among the QoS topics on the exam will be NBAR, ToS, IP Precedence, DSCP, traffic policing, and traffic shaping. Some of these topics may be familiar to you if you studied for the BCRAN exam, but I feel it's a safe bet that there will be much more detail on the ONT exam as compared to the BCRAN exam. Wireless LANs (WLANs) are also on the Cisco exam blueprint for ONT, and again I'd expect a lot more detail on that topic than you would have seen on the BCRAN exam.

Cisco's obviously raising the bar for the new CCNP exams, and that's a good thing for both you and for Cisco. The CCNP will be harder to get in 2007, but it will also become more valuable - and when you invest time and money into a certification, you want the vendor to protect your investment. Besides, to work with Cisco networks today and in the future, you'll need to learn VoIP and Qos, so you might as well get the certification while you're at it!

Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage, home of over 100 free certification exam tutorials, including CCNA certification training articles. His exclusive CCNA study guide is also available!

Visit his blog and sign up for Cisco Certification Central, a daily newsletter packed with CCNA, Network+, Security+, A+, and CCNP certification exam practice questions! A free 7-part course, ?How To Pass The CCNA?, is also available, and you can attend an in-person or online Cisco CCNA training boot camp with The Bryant Advantage!

 

Cisco CCNA Certification Training Tutorial: PPP Multilink And ISDN BRI

Earning your CCNA certification means you have to notice details about Cisco routers that others might miss, and that's true in the exam room and on the job. In today's tutorial, we'll take a look at multilink PPP - a topic that seems simple enough, but has details that trip up some CCNA certification candidates.

ISDN BRI (Basic Rate Interface) has two B-channels that both carry data, and they each have a capacity of 64 KBPS. Interestingly enough, they don't share the load by default - the first channel has to be at capacity before the second channel starts taking some of the load. It's more efficient to have the channels share the load before then, and we can do just that by configuring PPP multilink. (Note that it's called PPP multilink for a reason. We can't configure it if the BRI interface is running at the default of HDLC.)

Configuring PPP multilink is simple enough. PPP must be running on the interface to begin with, and then you simply configure the interface with the "PPP multilink" command.

R1(config)#int bri0

R1(config-if)#encapsulation ppp

R1(config-if)#ppp multilink

Here's where knowing the details comes in handy. An additional command, "dialer load-threshold", is needed to define the capacity level of the first b-channel that will bring up the second b-channel. For example, let's say we want the second channel to come up when the first channel hits 50% of its capacity. It's easy to think that we would put "50" at the end of the dialer load-threshold command, but that's wrong! Look at what IOS Help tells us about this command.

R1(config-if)#dialer load-threshold ?

<1-255> Load threshold to place another call

This value is based on 255, not 100. To bring the second channel up as described earlier, we need to enter a value that is 50% of 255:

R1(config-if)#dialer load-threshold 127

The dialer load-threshold command has other options not shown here. The interface can be configured to consider only incoming or outgoing traffic for this command, or both.

This is just one of the many details you must master in order to earn your CCNA certification. Take it from me - it's worth it. Keep studying!

Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage, home of over 100 free certification exam tutorials, including CCNA certification training articles. His exclusive CCNA study guide is also available!

Visit his blog and sign up for Cisco Certification Central, a daily newsletter packed with CCNA, Network+, Security+, A+, and CCNP certification exam practice questions! A free 7-part course, ?How To Pass The CCNA?, is also available, and you can attend an in-person or online Cisco CCNA training boot camp with The Bryant Advantage!

San Francisco 49ers Preseason

In less than a couple weeks the San Francisco 49ers will be playing their first game of the season at Arizona but their defense is still unstable regarding aspects as scheme and personnel.

49ers coach Mike Nolan said during a conference call last Sunday that he is still distressed by the lack of a pass rush and shoddy tackling that have been palpable in consecutive exhibition losses. This includes the preseason game against the Dallas Cowboys were they defeated the San Francisco 49ers 17-7 at the Texas Stadium on Saturday night.

San Francisco's coach said that the tackling problems were especially evident in the linebacking corps and he would do whatever was necessary to solidify the unit.

The "Niners" opened with a 4-3 scheme against Dallas having football rookie Melvin Oliver lining up at defensive end replacing Brandon Moore the injured left outside linebacker, who missed the game because of a knee strain. However Moore will be moved back inside and resume competing for playing time with linebackers Jeff Ulbrich and Derek Smith.

According to Nolan, it isn't clear either if Tony Parrish will recover his starting job as strong safety after coming back from a leg fracture that left him out of the last seven games played in 2005.

Seven players were waived by the San Francisco 49ers last Sunday with the intention of trimming their roster to 75 players. This list includes: rookie tight end Onye Ibekwe, tackle Jerry DeLoach, linebacker Renauld Williams, cornerback Gabe Franklin, kickers Andrew Jacas and Luis Berlanga and wide receiver C.J. Brewer.

The 49ers must reduce the roster to the season-opening limit of 53 by Saturday.

Julie Smith is one of the most recognized copy writers on Sports Betting and currently writes for Instant Action Sports. Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety on your site, make sure to leave all links in place and do not modify any of the content.

Cisco CCNA / CCNP / BCMSN Exam Review: Trunking And Trunking Protocols

To earn your CCNA or CCNP certification, you've got to understand the basics of trunking. This isn't just a CCNA topic - you must have an advanced understanding of trunking and etherchannels to pass the BCMSN exam and earn your CCNP as well. Before we address those advanced topics, though, you need to master the fundamentals!

A trunk allows inter-VLAN traffic to flow between directly connected switches. By default, a trunk port is a member of all VLANs, so traffic for any and all VLANs can travel across this trunk. That includes broadcast traffic!

The default mode of a switch port does differ between models, so always check your documentation. On Cisco 2950 switches, every single port is in dynamic desirable mode by default, meaning that every port is actively attempting to trunk. On these switches, the only action needed from us is to physically connect them with a crossover cable. In just a few seconds, the port light turns green and the trunk is up and running. The command show interface trunk will verify trunking.

How does the receiving switch know what VLAN the frame belongs to? The frames are tagged by the transmitting switch with a VLAN ID, reflecting the number of the VLAN whose member ports should receive this frame. When the frame arrives at the remote switch, that switch will examine this ID and then forward the frame appropriately.

There are two major trunking protocols you must understand and compare successfully, those being ISL and IEEE 802.1Q. Let's take a look at the details of ISL first.

ISL is a Cisco-proprietary trunking protocol, making it unsuitable for a multivendor environment. That's one drawback, but there are others. ISL will place both a header and trailer onto the frame, encapsulating it. This increases the overhead on the trunk line.

You know that the default VLAN is also known as the "native VLAN", and another drawback to ISL is that ISL does not use the concept of the native VLAN. This means that every single frame transmitted across the trunk will be encapsulated.

The 26-byte header that is added to the frame by ISL contains the VLAN ID; the 4-byte trailer contains a Cyclical Redundancy Check (CRC) value. The CRC is a frame validity scheme that checks the frame's integrity.

In turn, this encapsulation leads to another potential issue. ISL encapsulation adds 30 bytes total to the size of the frame, potentially making them too large for the switch to handle. (The maximum size for an Ethernet frame is 1518 bytes.)

IEEE 802.1q differs substantially from ISL. In contrast to ISL, dot1q does not encapsulate frames. A 4-byte header is added to the frame, resulting in less overhead than ISL. If the frame is destined for hosts residing in the native VLAN, that header isn't added. Since the header is only 4 bytes in size, and isn't even placed on every frame, using dot1q lessens the chance of oversized frames. When the remote port receives an untagged frame, the switch knows that these untagged frames are destined for the native VLAN.

Knowing the details is the difference between passing and failing your CCNA and CCNP exams. Keep studying, get some hands-on practice, and you're on your way to Cisco certification success!

Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage , home of free CCNA and CCNP tutorials! Pass the CCNA exam with Chris Bryant!

Cisco CCNA/CCNP Home Lab Tutorial: Cabling Your Access Server

A Cisco home lab is an invaluable study tool when you're preparing for CCNA and CCNP exam success. Once you've gotten a couple of routers and switches, you'll quickly get tired of moving that blue console cable every time you want to configure a different device. The solution to this problem is purchasing and configuring an access server (AS).

For those of you new to access servers, note that these are not white boxes running Microsoft operating systems. These are Cisco routers that allow you to connect to all the routers and switches in your home lab without moving a cable. You can physically or logically connect to the access server and work with all your devices from there.

When you're pricing access servers, please remember that you do NOT need an expensive AS. Right now on ebay there are access servers costing up to $5000 - this is NOT what you want to buy. What you're looking for is something like a 2509 or 2511, which is going to run you anywhere from $100 - $200. It's money well spent, because once you get an AS, you'll really wonder how you ever did without it.

The only additional hardware you need is the cable that will physically connect your AS to the other routers and switches in your home lab. The cable you need is called an octal cable, so named because one end of this cable is actually eight ends, all terminated with a numbered RJ-45 connector.

The large end of the cable is going to be connected to the AS itself. The cable will connect to a port on the AS that will have "async 1-8" directly above the physical port. It is this port that makes an AS different from other Cisco routers.

Once you've got your AS and this cable, you're ready to configure your AS. Connect the cable to the AS as described above, and then you will connect one of the RJ-45 connectors to the console port of each one of your routers and switches. Make sure to note the number that's on the cable itself right below the connector, because that's very important. In the next part of this home lab tutorial, I'll tell you exactly how to configure your access server for best results, along with a few troubleshooting tips.
Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage (http://www.thebryantadvantage.com), home of free CCNA and CCNP tutorials! For my FREE "How To Pass The CCNA" or "CCNP" ebook, visit the website and download your copies. Pass your CCNA exam with The Bryant Advantage!

Cisco CCNP / BCMSN Exam Tutorial: Dynamic Trunking Protocol (DTP)

When you're studying to pass the BCMSN exam on the way to earning your CCNP certification, you're going to add to your CCNA knowledgebase every step of the way. Nowhere is that more than configuring a trunk between two switches.

You know that IEEE 802.1Q ("dot1q") and ISL are your two choices of trunking protocols, and you know the main differences between the two. What you might not have known is that there's a third trunking protocol that's running between your Cisco switches, and while it's a transparent process to many, you had better know about it for your BCMSN and other CCNP exams!

The Cisco-proprietary Dynamic Trunking Protocol (DTP) actively attempts to negotiate a trunk link with the remote switch. This sounds great, but there is a cost in overhead - DTP frames are transmitted every 30 seconds. If you decide to configure a port as a non-negotiable trunk port, there's no need for the port to send DTP frames.

DTP can be turned off at the interface level with the switchport nonegotiate command, but as you see below, you cannot turn DTP off until the port is no longer in dynamic desirable trunking mode. (Dynamic desirable is the default mode for most Cisco switch ports.)

SW2(config)#int fast 0/8

SW2(config-if)#switchport nonegotiate

Command rejected: Conflict between 'nonegotiate' and 'dynamic' status.

SW2(config-if)#switchport mode ?

access Set trunking mode to ACCESS unconditionally

dynamic Set trunking mode to dynamically negotiate access or trunk mode

trunk Set trunking mode to TRUNK unconditionally

SW2(config-if)#switchport mode trunk

SW2(config-if)#switchport nonegotiate

When you're working with Cisco switches in a home lab or rack rental environment, run IOS Help regularly to see what options are available for the commands you're practicing with. Cisco switch ports have quite a few options, and the best way to find them is with one simple symbol - the question mark!

Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage , home of free CCNA and CCNP tutorials! Pass the BCMSN exam with Chris Bryant!

Cisco CCNA / CCNP Home Lab Tutorial: Configuring An Access Server

As your CCNA / CCNP home lab expands, an access server such as the Cisco 2509 or 2511 is one of the best investments you can make. In this article, we'll look at the basic configuration for an access server and discuss how to connect to the other routers and switches in your pod through the AS.

Here's part of a configuration from one of my access servers:

ip host FRS 2006 100.1.1.1

ip host SW2 2005 100.1.1.1

ip host SW1 2004 100.1.1.1

ip host R2 2002 100.1.1.1

ip host R1 2001 100.1.1.1

ip host R3 2003 100.1.1.1

interface Loopback0

ip address 100.1.1.1 255.255.255.255

no ip directed-broadcast

This is an IP Host table, and this is what makes the entire AS setup work. Your PC will connect to the access server, and the access server is in turn physically connected to your other routers and switches via an octal cable. One end of the octal cable splices off into eight separate cables, each terminated with an Rj-45 connector. That connector will be placed into the console port of one of your home lab devices. In this configuration, I have connector 1 connected to the console port of R1, connector 2 to R2, connector 3 to R3, connector 4 to Sw1, and so forth. (The connectors are physically numbered as well.)

The IP Host table entries here are linked to the loopback address shown. The loopback can be any address, but it must match the address in the IP Host table. This allows you to create reverse telnet sessions to the routers and switches.

To open the reverse telnet sessions upon opening a connection to the AS, type the entire name of the device and press the enter key twice. A connection to that device will now be visible, as shown here:

Access_Server#r1

Trying R1 (100.1.1.1, 2001)... Open

R1#

To get back to the access server, use the key combination followed by pressing the "x" key. Keep doing this until you've opened a connection to every router and switch in your pod.

Once you've opened the lines, you will not use the full device name to connect to the home lab devices. You should press only the number corresponding to the reverse telnet session you opened. For instance, in this configuration I opened telnet session 1 to R1, session 2 to R2, and session 3 to R3. Once I opened those sessions, I just use those numbers to reconnect to the devices, as shown here:

Access_server#1

[Resuming connection 1 to r1 ... ]

R1#

Access_server#2

[Resuming connection 2 to r2 ... ]

R2#

Access_server#3

[Resuming connection 3 to r3 ... ]

R3#

If you type the full hostname again after initially opening the connection, you will see this message:

Access_server#r1

Trying R1 (100.1.1.1, 2001)...

% Connection refused by remote host

The connection is refused because you already have an open connection to that router.

There's one more important part of an access server config your CCNA / CCNP home lab will need:

line 1 8

no exec

transport input all

The line numbers may differ according to your access server, but "no exec" is very important here. This will stop rogue EXEC sessions from refusing connections that it shouldn't be refusing. Without this command, you'll commonly see "connection refused by remote host" when you shouldn't be. That message is the most common error you'll see on an access server, and it's there because you already have an open connection or you left "no exec" out of your configuration. "No exec" isn't mandatory, but it will help you keep your sanity!

Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage (http://www.thebryantadvantage.com), home of free CCNA and CCNP tutorials! For my FREE "How To Pass The CCNA" or "CCNP" ebook, visit the website and download your copies. Pass your CCNA exam with The Bryant Advantage!

Cisco CCNA Certification: The (Many) Different Kinds Of Switching

When you're studying for your CCNA exam, whether you're taking the Intro-ICND path or the single-exam path, you're quickly introduced to the fact that switching occurs at Layer 2 of the OSI model. No problem there, but then other terms involving switching are thrown in, and some of them can be more than a little confusing. What is "cell switching"? What is "circuit switching"? Most confusing of all, how can you have "packet switching"? Packets are found at Layer 3, but switching occurs at Layer 2. How can packets be switched?

Relax! As you'll see in this article, the terms aren't that hard to keep straight. Packet switching, for example, describes a protocol that divides a message into packets before they're sent. The packets are then sent individually, and may take different paths to the same destination. Once the packets arrive at the final destination, they are reassembled.

Frame switching follows the same process, but at a different layer of the OSI model. When the protocol runs at Layer 2 rather than Layer 3, the process is referred to as frame switching.

Cell switching also does much the same thing, but as the name implies, the device in use is a cell switch. Cell-switched packets are fixed in length. ATM is a popular cell-switching technology.

The process of circuit switching is just a bit different, in that the process of setting up the circuit itself is part of the process. The channel is set up between two parties, data is transmitted, and the channel is then torn down. The circuit-switching technology most familiar to CCNA candidates is ISDN.

Don't let these terms confuse you. The four different terms are describing much the same process. The main difference is that they are occurring at different levels of the OSI model, and using a different transport method to get the data where it needs to go.

Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage (http://www.thebryantadvantage.com), home of free CCNA and CCNP tutorials! For my FREE "How To Pass The CCNA" or "CCNP" ebook, visit the website and download your copies!

Cisco CCNP Certification: BGP Attribute Category Tutorial

You have to master the details on BGP to pass the BSCI exam and to earn your CCNP, but BGP is an entirely new world from the protocols you studied to earn your CCNA. BGP paths contain attributes, while no protocol you studied for the CCNA carried. BGP Attributes are used to choose the best path when multiple loop-free paths exist, as well as give you other specific information about the paths. This additional information includes the autonomous systems that are along the path to a given destination, what the next-hop IP address is, and much more.

Before we examine the specific attributes, we need to understand the categories used to differentiate BGP attributes. Some attributes are required, some aren't; some attributes will be carried between routers, where others will not.

The first category is the well-known mandatory attribute. As you'd expect, these attributes are required and will be understood by all BGP speakers. Mandatory attributes include the origin code, AS_Path, and next-hop.

Well-known discretionary attributes don't have to be present, but if they are , all BGP speakers will understand their meaning. BGP attributes that fall into this category are the MED, local preference, and atomic aggregate.

Optional transitive attributes may not be fully understood by all BGP speakers, but the attributes are sent between routers as paths are exchanged. The aggregator and community attributes fall into this category.

Finally, we have the optional nontransitive attribute. If a BGP speaker does not understand this attribute, the speaker will not forward the attribute. The Originator ID and Cluster ID are optional nontransitive attributes.

There's one important BGP attribute that was left out of this list; indeed, if you're working in an all-Cisco environment, it may be the most important attribute of all. The weight attribute is Cisco-proprietary, so if you're working in a multivendor environment, this attribute is of limited value. However, the weight attribute is the first attribute considered when BGP is deciding between valid, loop-free paths, so it's an attribute we have to keep in mind. The weight attribute doesn't really fit in any of the four BGP classes we talked about earlier in the article.

If you don't know what these attributes do yet, that's okay. We'll examine each of these attributes in more detail in the next part of this free BGP tutorial. Keep studying!

Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage (http://www.thebryantadvantage.com ), home of free CCNA and CCNP tutorials, and The Ultimate CCNA and CCNP Study Packages. For a copy of his FREE "How To Pass The CCNA" or "CCNP" ebook, visit the website and download your copies!