Crash Course In Proxy Server Voodoo

skulldugger

I was offered a weekend job which won't be starting for a few months by a friend which would suit me perfectly but he's looking for me to have a good knowledge of proxies specifically those run using Mycroft software/hardware and unfortunately the CCNA on first look seems to be lacking in this regards.

Could anyone recommend a way that I could get up to speed on maintaining proxies in an office with maybe 100 computers? Books, simulators etc.

I'm taking a year out to travel, study some comms/general computer certificates and familiarize myself with perl among other languages before starting a degree in September. At the moment I'm up early every morning studying my CCNA and revising a bit of maths which I've heard will be of major advantage to me when I start in university. I'd also like to fit the CCNP into the year if possible.

What comms/administration courses would you recommend that could be completed in a year apart from the CCNA and CCNP. There is a strong possibility I will end up as a programmer but won’t take away from the fact that I am very much interested in networking and administrating.

Regarding the lab in progress I have at home three Cisco 2620 routers and three Cisco Catalyst 2924s some are missing WICs and I’m pretty sure they need a different IOS on them. There is another device I'm missing which will simulate a specific network type but I'd have to check the curriculum. On that note could anyone recommend an Irish company that would fit the modules needed and install the IOS that best suits their configuration for a reasonable price? Perhaps it would be cheaper if I bought the modules needed from eBay, got a copy of the IOS myself and then approached the company. That said I wouldn’t know the first thing about which IOS would be for my particular setup even though a friend of mine has a disc full of them. Dare I ask if I could install these modules and install and configure the devices myself? Bare in mind I am only now on my first semester of the CCNA and looking theough the curriculum I haven't found any instructions on how to service these devices.

For the CCNP I am prepared to use eBay to upgrade the CCNA lab to that of a CCNP lab when the time comes.

Ruaidhri

Hi Skulldugger,

You're really asking three main questions if I understand correctly:
1) How do I learn about proxies
2) How do I advance my Cisco knowledge
3) How do I choose and IOS version to fit my routers / modules

I'm going to attempt to answer some of these for you
1) This really depends on what proxy you're talking about, what kind of data you're proxying and what protocols. I'm going to assume you're talking about squid for webpages and HTTP(S). The best thing to do is first get familiar with the protocols (HTTP/HTTPS, hint: wireshark), and then the setup of this piece of software. Smaller business environments mainly use proxies to control access to content.

2) Docs, docs docs! We can start with the univercd. It's actually very good, but takes time getting used to.

3) I would recommend starting with the Feature Navigator. Here you'll get the version of IOS you need for your routers/switches and modules. I think it's probably best to stick to a base-ip IOS image for now
You'll need a cco account to get access to IOS downloads, but it might be that the serial numbers of your devices are still valid (sh inventory). You might get (legit!) access to IOS images this way.

Anyway, hope this helps you somewhat!
/Ruairi