[Full-disclosure] Cisco Certifications

[Michael Holstein]

> Are there any specific items of hardware I should look out for? I 
> checked ebay for "CCNA" in the hardware section and found one or two, 
> but they seem a tad over priced.

Stay away from anyone on eBay that puts the Cisco cert initials in the 
auction title .. they are always overpriced.

Starting out, get yourself a bunch of 2500 series gear with extra flash 
and ram so you can load bigger images. Get ones that have various 
interfaces so you can play with how to do those, and get serial null 
cables to simulate frame interfaces.

You can setup a pretty complex "network" with a half dozen 25xx and not 
spend more than a few hundred bucks.

search eBay for the specific model numbers -- not CCNA, etc. -- and 
*always* bid at the last second (like sync your clock, and click 
"confirm" on your bid with 7 seconds remaining). That little trick is 
called "sniping", and it pisses some people off, but it works and it's 
not a violation of ebay's TOS.

~Mike.