Hands-on Cisco IOS XE lab walkthroughs. Each lab ships with a real CML topology, configs you can paste, and verified show output. Articles tagged Labs cover the full CCNA 200-301 blueprint across Network Fundamentals, Network Access, IP Connectivity, IP Services, and Security Fundamentals.
The Zone-Based Firewall is the stateful firewall inside Cisco IOS XE. This anchor guide covers zones, zone-pairs, the class-map and policy-map model, and the default-drop trap that locks engineers out of their own routers.
Cisco removed Clientless SSL VPN (WebVPN) from the ASA in 9.17. Real 9.24 CLI proof, and the Secure Client remote-access VPN that replaced it.
Enable ASDM on a Cisco ASA 9.24, hit the image-not-set gotcha, and get the honest 2026 verdict on the Java GUI versus the CLI.
Endpoint versus pass-through on the Cisco ASA: inspect ipsec-pass-thru, NAT-T on UDP 4500, and the classic Phase 1 up, Phase 2 down failure.
Map IKEv1 to IKEv2 on the Cisco ASA command by command, then cut a live site-to-site tunnel over without an outage.
A real LAN-to-LAN IKEv2 tunnel from a Cisco ASA to an IOS XE peer, verified with show vpn-sessiondb from a live CML capture.
EtherType ACLs let a transparent-mode Cisco ASA filter non-IP frames a routed firewall never sees. Learn what bridges through a Layer 2 firewall by default and how to control it.
Typing firewall transparent wipes the ASA's entire running configuration instantly. This walkthrough covers switching modes safely from the console with a saved config, then building a working transparent-mode firewall on the ASAv.
Connections that die crossing the ASA with no ACL deny are usually TCP normalization. You see the real tcp-map and accelerated-security-path drop counters from an ASAv 9.24 that turn this silent killer into something visible.
Build a custom Layer 7 HTTP inspection policy on the ASA that blocks a specific URL by regex, then prove it with a real before-and-after test: one URL loads instantly, the other hangs until timeout. Captured on an ASAv 9.24 in CML.
L3 and L4 filtering is half a firewall. This post shows the ASA's application inspection engines in action on a real ASAv 9.24 in CML, including the default inspection policy and live per-interface counters.
MPF is the engine under nearly every advanced ASA feature. Build class-maps, policy-maps, and service-policies from scratch on a real ASAv 9.24 in CML, with live counters climbing as a Linux client hits a published web server.