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Cisco Interview questions...

I recently applied to a company, and before I even walked into the interview, they had me take a "personality test". One I got there, they made me take an "IQ test". And then before I met with the hiring manager, they made me take a "Network Engineer Exam.".. they told me I had a half hour to complete this. This is NOT a company I would want to work for... but I copied the questions on the Engineer exam. Tell me how many of these you could answer....I'm a CCNP, and found a lot of them difficult! HOW WOULD YOU ALL HAVE ANSWERED THESE QUESTIONS?!?!?

1) Observe the following static route:

ip route 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 Gig1/1

  • What is an advantage of referencing interface Gig1/1 instead of a next-hop?
  • What is a disadvantage

2) What is a “floating static” route?

3) What is a route-map? Name three configurations that might reference a route-map.

4) Observe the follow access-list:

                ip access-list extended OUTSIDE_ACL
                 deny any 10.0.0.0 0.0.0.255

                This ACL is applied inbound to an interface. Will inbound traffic destined to 192.168.0.1 be
                 allowed or denied?

5) An inbound extended ACL named ALLOW_IN exists on your company Border Router. It is applied to the “outside” interface with the “access-group ALLOW_IN in” command. A junior admin accidentally deletes ACL_ALLOW_IN from the running-config. Is inbound traffic permitted or denied on the outside interface? Why?

6) Your company wants to configure an Internet Border Router with the following policy: Any traffic leaving the internal network destined to the internet is permitted. Traffic sourced from the public internet addresses is to be controlled with and extended ACL applied inbound and to the outside (internet facing) interface. An internal user wants to be able to browse a website at 100.1.1.1 port 80 from his PC with source IP 90.1.1.1.

Does the ACL need to be modified to permit the connection to 100.1.1.1? If so, write an ACL statement that would facilitate the connection.

7) What is a jumbo packet? How would you enable jumbo packet support on a Cisco device? Since configuration steps very between devices/models, choose any device and explain.

8)Write the CLI statements for configuring an industry-standard trunk link between two Cisco switches.

9) Write the CLI statements for configuring an etherchannel between two Cisco 3560 switches. Use two connections between ports G0/1 and G0/2 on each switch respectively. The etherchannel should be configured to disable negotiation between switches.

10) What is ACS and how is it used?

11) You have two Cisco routers with OSPF running on a single link between them. The subnet for the link is 10.1.1.0/30 How would you configure the interfaces to bypass the DR election and immediately form an adjacency during start-up?

12) What is netflow and how is it used?

13) What Cisco feature is available on medium to upper level platform routers (6500, 7200, ASR series…) that allows you to view current traffic through the router at the CLI?

14) An OSPF area is configured as “totally stubby” What will “show ip route ospf” reveal at the CLI?

15) In your personal professional experience, have you worked with a company that had a public BGP number? What was the number(s)?

16) You are troubleshooting a connectivity issue from a PC within your network to a public site. The PC is using a custom application that forms a TCP connection to port 5555.

                a) What common CLI tool can you use to test the connection from the PC?
                 b) You find that the connection is not forming. What very common application could you use to
                     analyze the connection attempts?

                 c) You suspect that the problem is not network related and is probably due to an issue at the far
                     end. The remote party confirms they are receiving your traffic. What indication seen with
                      this tool could support your claim?

17) Your company has the registered C-class range 50.50.50.0. From your border router you will form a BGP peering relationship to an IP 1.1.1.1/30 remote AS 1111. Your BGP peer has IP 1.1.1.2.30 and your AS id 5555. You have two internal interfaces on your border router as well. The IP for one of these interfaces is 50.50.50.1/25and the other is 50.50.50.129/25. Write all necessary CLI commands to advertise your class-C range to AS 1111.

18) A router learns the following routes to destination 10.0.0.1:
VIA OSPF: 10.0.0.0/26 next-hop 172.16.1.1           VIA EIGRP: 10.0.0.0/24 net-hop 172.20.1.1
VIA STATIC: 10.0.0.0 next-hop 192.168.1.1            VIA RIP:1.0.0.0/28 next-hop 192.168.50.1

19) Please draw a layer 1 network diagram

20) Please draw a layer 2 network diagram

21) Please draw a layer 3 network diagram

4 Replies 4

Peter Paluch
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

David,

I believe this test can be accomplished in 30 minutes and most questions are within CCNP scope (the questions 7, 10, 12, 13, 15 can be considered outside the CCNP scope). I would personally have problems responding to the questions 10 and 13 as I have not worked extensively with ACS, and I do not entirely remember the name of the "wireshark-alike" tool on the high-level boxes.

That being said, I do not believe that the test would need to be completed in 30 minutes. It may be by design that it is extensive, and perhaps they wanted to see how you react to such a set of question, how you choose among them, how you can find your way out. Sure, brilliant networking minds would have that test ready in less than 30 minutes. The others would have finished this or that part which may be indicative of their strong and weak areas.

Best regards,

Peer

Jon Marshall
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

David

This is always the problem when asked specific questions. For example i could come up with 20 questions which to me seem relatively straightforward but then they would because i came up with them 

There are a number of questions there i would struggle with but then i suspect both Peter and myself and you could come up with another 20 questions which they may struggle with regardless of their experience.  I would certainly struggle with question 18 as there doesn't seem to be actually a question there !

It is difficult to say whether it is a fair set of questions without seeing the job spec ie. there are a number of BGP questions and OSPF question but no EIGRP. This would hopefully suggest that their network is using the above protoocols but if you happen to have been working with an EIGRP network then you may well have forgotten some OSPF details. Personally i am not a fan of specific config questions because there are always docs to reference and no one has every config detail in their head.

But i would not feel bad if you found a fair few of them hard. The questions do cover a range of subjects and as Peter says it may well be designed to show a particular candidates strengths and weaknesses.

Jon

Leo Laohoo
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

1) Observe the following static route:

ip route 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 Gig1/1

What is an advantage of referencing interface Gig1/1 instead of a next-hop?

What is a disadvantage

This is a CCNP question?  Doesn't sound like a common-sense question.  This sounds like a consience question a network administrator would ask themselves if they are doing the right thing or not.

7) What is a jumbo packet? How would you enable jumbo packet support on a Cisco device? Since configuration steps very between devices/models, choose any device and explain.

Made by Boeing (called the 747) and Airbus Industrie (A380) and is designed to carry oversized number of cargoes from one point to the other.

This question is very "crazy".  The candidate is asked to know ALL Cisco products with a Cisco Sales Engineer for switching.

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