ECP-206 Ericsson Certified Associate - IP Networking Questions and Answers

 IPv6 link-local addresses are designed to be used in three situations: for neighbor discovery, for local IP communication on the IPv6 capable routers, and for addressing on a single link for purposes such as auto-address configuration. Neighbor discovery is a protocol that allows IPv6 nodes to discover each other and learn their link-layer addresses on a local network. Neighbor discovery uses link-local addresses to send and receive messages such as router advertisements, router solicitations, neighbor advertisements, and neighbor solicitations34. Local IP communication on the IPv6 capable routers refers to the ability of routers to exchange routing information or management traffic using their link-local addresses as source and destination addresses. This reduces the need for global unicast addresses on router interfaces that are not reachable from outside the local network35. Addressing on a single link for purposes such as auto-address configuration refers to the use of link-local addresses to enable IPv6 nodes to obtain an address without manual configuration or a DHCP server. Link-local addresses can be automatically derived from the interface identifier in the modified EUI-64 format or randomly generated. Link-local addresses can also be used to test the connectivity of a link before obtaining a global unicast address36.

References: Understand the IPv6 Link-Local Address - Cisco, Link Local Address - GeeksforGeeks, IPv6 Address Types | Link-Local, Global Unicast, etc.⋆ IPCisco, MPLS Label Distribution Protocol Commands - Cisco

The statement about IPv6 that is correct is that broadcast has been replaced with multicast. IPv6 is the most recent version of Internet Protocol (IP), which provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the Internet. IPv6 has several improvements over IPv4, such as a larger address space, simplified header format, enhanced security, and better support for mobility and QoS.One of the changes in IPv6 is that it does not support broadcast, which is a method of sending a packet to all nodes on a network segment. Instead, IPv6 uses multicast, which is a method of sending a packet to a group of nodes that have joined a multicast address34.

References: IPv6 - Wikipedia, What Is IPv6? - Cisco

P routers forward packets based on the LSP label. The LSP label is the label that corresponds to the label-switched path (LSP) that is established between two PE routers in an MPLS network. The LSP label is also called the outer label or the transport label, because it is used to transport packets across the MPLS core network. P routers are also called LSRs (label switch routers) or transit routers, because they switch packets based on their labels or remove the labels. P routers do not need to look at the IP header or any other information in the packet, except for the top label in the label stack. P routers perform one of three possible operations on labels: swap, pop, or PHP (penultimate hop popping). In a swap operation, the label is swapped with a new label, and the packet is forwarded along the path associated with the new label. In a pop operation, the label is removed from the packet, and the packet is forwarded based on its IP header or another label in the stack. In a PHP operation, the label is removed from the packet at the last P router before reaching the egress PE router, and the packet is forwarded without any label to the egress PE router.

The LSP label is different from other types of labels that may be used in MPLS networks, such as VPN labels or service labels. These labels are used to identify different VPNs or services that run over MPLS networks, such as Layer 2 VPNs, Layer 3 VPNs, traffic engineering, or QoS. These labels are also called inner labels or payload labels, because they are related to the payload of the packet. These labels are not used by P routers for forwarding decisions, but only by PE routers for delivering packets to their destinations.

Therefore, the answer is C.

References: Ericsson IP Networking - Routing Protocols, MPLS Fundamentals: Forwarding Labeled Packets - Cisco Press, MPLS Labels and Devices - NetworkLessons.com, Multiprotocol Label Switching - Wikipedia, VPN Packet Forwarding > MPLS/VPN Architecture Overview | Cisco Press, Basic concepts - Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Route summarization is a technique that reduces the number of routes that a router advertises to its neighbors by creating a single summary route that covers multiple subnets or networks. Route summarization has several benefits, such as:

• It reduces the size of a routing table, which saves memory and CPU resources on the router. A smaller routing table also improves the lookup efficiency and convergence time of the routing protocol.
• It reduces signaling, which means that less bandwidth is consumed by routing updates and less processing is required by neighboring routers. This also enhances the stability and scalability of the network, as fewer routing changes are propagated.
• It improves route aggregation, which means that more specific routes are replaced by a less specific route that can be advertised to other autonomous systems or routing domains. This simplifies the inter-domain routing and hides the internal topology details.

Route summarization does not necessarily summarize the routing table entries into a default route, although a default route can be considered a special case of route summarization where all destinations are covered by one route. Route summarization also does not improve the best route calculation, as it may introduce suboptimal routing or black holes if not done properly. References: Introduction to Route Summarization - NetworkLessons.com, Route Summarization > Example for Understanding Route Summarization - Cisco Press

The CLI command to obtain the software version in Ericsson Router 6000 products is show version. This command displays information about the software release, the hardware model, the serial number, the uptime, and the boot image of the router. References: [ERICSSON SMARTEDGE 600 HARDWARE MANUAL Pdf Download | ManualsLib], Ericsson Router 6000 Series - Ericsson

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

 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

The correct order of DiffServ priority (highest to lowest) for the DiffServ classes: Default Forwarding (DF), Network Control (NC), Assured Forwarding (AF), and Expedited Forwarding (EF) is EF, NC, AF, DF. DiffServ is a QoS model that classifies and prioritizes traffic into different service classes based on the DSCP field in the IP header. The DSCP field is a 6-bit field that can encode up to 64 different per-hop behaviors (PHBs). The DiffServ classes are predefined groups of PHBs that have similar characteristics and requirements. The four main DiffServ classes are:

• EF: This class provides the highest priority and lowest delay for real-time applications such as voice and video. The DSCP value for EF is 101110 or 46 in decimal12.
• NC: This class provides the second highest priority and low delay for network control traffic such as routing protocols and network management. The DSCP value for NC is 110000 or 48 in decimal12.
• AF: This class provides four levels of assured forwarding with different drop probabilities for each level. AF is suitable for applications that require guaranteed bandwidth and delivery assurance, such as web browsing and email. The DSCP values for AF range from 001010 to 011110 or 10 to 46 in decimal12.
• DF: This class provides the lowest priority and best-effort service for applications that can tolerate packet loss and delay, such as file transfer and backup. The DSCP value for DF is 000000 or 0 in decimal12.

References: Differentiated Services - Wikipedia, DSCP - Differentiated Services Code Point - Mpirical

A network operator who wants to make sure voice data is prioritized should assign it to Ethernet traffic class 6. Ethernet traffic class is a term used to refer to the priority code point (PCP) field in the VLAN header of an Ethernet frame. The PCP field is a 3-bit field that can encode up to eight different priority levels, ranging from 0 (lowest) to 7 (highest). The PCP values can be mapped to different types of traffic according to their QoS requirements. The recommended mapping is as follows :

• PCP 0: Best effort (default)
• PCP 1: Background
• PCP 2: Spare
• PCP 3: Excellent effort
• PCP 4: Controlled load
• PCP 5: Video
• PCP 6: Voice
• PCP 7: Network control

Voice data is a type of real-time traffic that requires the highest priority and lowest delay in the network. Therefore, it should be assigned to PCP 6, which corresponds to Ethernet traffic class 6 .

References: [IEEE 802.1Q - Wikipedia], [What is “link aggregation” and how does it benefit your network? | PC Gamer]

A label-edged router (LER) is a PE router. A PE router is a provider edge router, which is a router that connects an MPLS network to a customer network. A LER is a term used in MPLS to describe a router that resides at the ingress and egress points of an MPLS network, handling both labelled and unlabelled packets. A LER performs label operations such as adding, removing, or swapping labels on packets entering or leaving the MPLS network34.

References: What is Label Edge Router (LER)? - Definition from Techopedia, LER - Label Edge Router - Mpirical

For IP destinations not found in the IS-IS Level 1 database, the Level 1 router must forward packets to the nearest Level 1-Level 2 router with the attach bit set. The attach bit is a flag in the IS-IS Level 1 LSP that indicates that the router is also a Level 2 router and can reach destinations outside the Level 1 area. The Level 1 router will install a default route pointing to the nearest Level 1-Level 2 router with the attach bit set. This way, the Level 1 router can forward packets to other areas without having to maintain a full Level 2 database. References: Ericsson IP Networking - Routing Protocols, Configure Attach Bit Set - Cisco

The protocol that would be used to bundle multiple Ethernet ports into a virtual link with an aggregated bandwidth is LACP, which stands for Link Aggregation Control Protocol. LACP is a protocol that allows two or more devices to negotiate the formation of a link aggregation group (LAG), also known as an EtherChannel or a port channel. A LAG combines multiple physical links into one logical link that provides increased bandwidth, load balancing, and redundancy. LACP is defined in IEEE 802.3ad and 802.1AX standards12.

References: Link Aggregation Control Protocol - Wikipedia, What is “link aggregation” and how does it benefit your network? | PC Gamer

Priority queuing (PQ) is a queuing method that establishes four interface output queues that serve different priority levels: high, medium, normal, and low. Traffic in the highest priority queue will experience the least amount of jitter and delay compared to traffic in the other queues, because PQ always services the higher-priority queues first. However, this can also cause traffic in lower priority queues to be starved of bandwidth, especially if the highest priority queue is oversubscribed. Traffic in the highest priority queue is not only reserved for voice traffic, but can also include network control and routing traffic. Traffic in all queues are not always guaranteed a minimum bandwidth, because PQ does not provide any bandwidth reservation mechanism. References: Quality of Service (QoS) Queues and Queuing Explained, Chapter: Configuring Priority Queueing - 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

Two statements that are correct for LDP are:

• LSRs send UDP hello messages for neighbor discovery. LDP is a protocol that distributes labels for MPLS forwarding along the shortest path calculated by an IGP. LDP uses two types of messages: discovery messages and session messages. Discovery messages are used to discover and maintain adjacency with other LSRs that support LDP. Discovery messages are sent as UDP datagrams to the well-known multicast address 224.0.0.2 (all routers on this subnet) on port 64634.
• LSRs use TCP to negotiate LDP session parameters. Session messages are used to establish, maintain, and terminate LDP sessions between LSRs. Session messages are also used to exchange label mappings, notification messages, and keepalive messages. Session messages are sent as TCP segments to port 64634.

References: Ldp | Microsoft Learn, Label Distribution Protocol - Wikipedia