Free Ericsson ECP-206 Practice Exam with Questions & Answers

Two statements that are true regarding the LSP are:

• The LSP refers to a sequence of routers that forward the MPLS packet based on labels. An LSP is a Label Switched Path, which is a path through an MPLS network that is established by signaling protocols such as LDP or RSVP-TE. An LSP consists of a sequence of routers (called Label Switching Routers or LSRs) that forward packets based on labels rather than IP addresses. Labels are short fixed-length identifiers that are attached to packets at the ingress router and removed at the egress router. Labels can be swapped or popped at intermediate routers according to their label forwarding tables78.
• The LSP refers to a sequence of routers that add, remove, or change label values along the path. As mentioned above, an LSP consists of a sequence of routers that forward packets based on labels. Along the path, different routers may perform different operations on the labels depending on their role and configuration. The ingress router adds one or more labels to the packet before sending it into the MPLS network. The egress router removes all labels from the packet before sending it out of the MPLS network. The intermediate routers may swap one label with another label according to their label forwarding tables. This process is called label switching78.

References: MPLS Fundamentals: 3 - MPLS Packet Forwarding, Multiprotocol Label Switching - Wikipedia

There are 8 different priorities available to use in a VLAN header. A VLAN header is a 4-byte field that is inserted into an Ethernet frame to indicate the VLAN membership and priority of the frame. The VLAN header consists of two subfields: the tag protocol identifier (TPID) and the tag control information (TCI). The TCI subfield contains three subfields: the priority code point (PCP), the drop eligible indicator (DEI), and the VLAN identifier (VID). The PCP subfield is a 3-bit field that specifies the priority level of the frame, ranging from 0 (lowest) to 7 (highest). The PCP values can be used to implement quality of service (QoS) mechanisms on bridges and switches12.

References: HTML rt Tag - W3Schools, VLAN 0 Priority Tagging Support - Cisco

An LDP implicit null label causes penultimate hop popping by a downstream router. LDP is a protocol that distributes labels for MPLS forwarding along the shortest path calculated by an IGP. An implicit null label is a special label value of 3 that indicates that the downstream router does not need a label to forward the packet to its destination. When an upstream router receives an implicit null label from a downstream router, it removes (or pops) the label from the packet before sending it to the downstream router. This process is called penultimate hop popping (PHP) and it reduces the load on the downstream router, which can forward the packet based on its IP header or another label in the stack59.

References: MPLS Label Distribution Protocol Commands - Cisco, Solved: Implicit null and Explicit null - Cisco Community

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

In OSPFv2, the route characteristic that is used to determine the best path is the cost. The cost is a metric that represents the link bandwidth, delay, reliability, or other factors. The cost is inversely proportional to the bandwidth, meaning that a higher bandwidth link has a lower cost. The cost of a route is calculated by adding the costs of all links along the path. OSPFv2 uses the following formula to calculate the cost of an interface:

Cost = Reference bandwidth / Interface bandwidth in bps

The reference bandwidth is a constant value that can be configured by the network administrator. By default, it is 100 Mbps. The interface bandwidth is the actual bandwidth of the interface in bits per second. For example, if an interface has a bandwidth of 10 Mbps, its cost would be 100 Mbps / 10 Mbps = 101415.

OSPFv2 does not use jitter, packet loss, or delay as route characteristics to determine the best path. Jitter is the variation in latency or delay between packets. Packet loss is the percentage of packets that are dropped or corrupted during transmission. Delay is the time it takes for a packet to travel from source to destination. These characteristics are not part of the OSPFv2 protocol and are not advertised in OSPFv2 LSAs1617.

References: OSPF Metric cost Calculation Formula Explained - ComputerNetworkingNotes, OSPF Cost – OSPF Routing Protocol Metric Explained - Study-CCNA, Open Shortest Path First - Wikipedia, OSPF Metric = Cost - Cisco

Peers recognize each other’s ability to use MP-BGP extensions by advertising the ability using the capabilities field during the session establishment. MP-BGP is an extension to BGP that allows BGP to carry routing information for multiple network layer protocols, such as IPv6, VPNv4, multicast, etc. To support MP-BGP, peers need to exchange their capabilities during the session establishment phase, which consists of three steps: open, keepalive, and update. In the open message, peers can include an optional parameter called capabilities, which indicates what kind of address families and subsequent address families they can support. If both peers agree on a common set of capabilities, they can proceed to exchange routing information for those address families using update messages56.

References: Use of MP-BGP Extensions for IPv6 Interdomain Routing, MP-EBGP Configuration Example - Cisco

According to RFC1918, there are three network blocks reserved as private networks that are not allocated to any specific organization and are not routable on the public Internet. These are:

• 10.0.0.0/8 (10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255)
• 172.16.0.0/12 (172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255)
• 192.168.0.0/16 (192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255)

Out of these, only option B (10.254.1.0/24) falls within one of the private network blocks (10.0.0.0/8). Option A (172.16.1.0/9) is not valid because it exceeds the /12 prefix length of the private network block (172.16.0.0/12). Option C (193.168.1.0/24) is not valid because it does not belong to any of the private network blocks, and is actually assigned to RIPE NCC as a public network block . Option D (172.15.1.0/24) is also not valid because it does not belong to any of the private network blocks, and is actually assigned to ARIN as a public network block . References: RFC 1918: Address Allocation for Private Internets, Private network - Wikipedia, [RIPE NCC IPv4 Address Space Chart], [ARIN WHOIS Database Search]

An Ethernet switch will forward the frame to all ports when the destination address is FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF. This is because this address is the broadcast MAC address, which means that the frame is intended for all devices on the same LAN segment. The switch does not need to look up its MAC address table to find a matching entry for this address, but simply floods the frame out of all ports except the one where it received the frame. This way, the frame reaches every device on the LAN segment, regardless of their MAC addresses. References: Ethernet - Wireshark, Broadcast MAC Address - omnisecu.com

 A reason for using VLANs in an IP network is to isolate hosts within the same IP subnet. VLANs (Virtual LANs) are logical grouping of devices in the same broadcast domain. VLANs are usually configured on switches by placing some interfaces into one broadcast domain and some interfaces into another. Each VLAN acts as a subgroup of the switch ports in an Ethernet LAN. VLANs allow network administrators to group hosts together even if the hosts are not directly connected to the same network switch. By using VLANs, hosts within the same IP subnet can be separated into different broadcast domains, which enhances security, reduces network congestion, and simplifies network management78.

References: 8 Different Types of VLANs in TCP/IP Networks, What is a VLAN? - Study-CCNA

IPsec provides two main features: protecting packets from modification and hiding the content of packets from observation. IPsec protects packets from modification by using cryptographic algorithms to generate and verify message authentication codes (MACs) or digital signatures for each packet. These mechanisms ensure that the packets have not been tampered with or altered in transit by unauthorized parties. IPsec hides the content of packets from observation by using encryption algorithms to scramble the payload of each packet. This prevents eavesdroppers or interceptors from reading or analyzing the data carried by the packets12.

References: What is IPsec? | How IPsec VPNs work | Cloudflare, IPsec - Wikipedia