CCNA Prep Resources

[VulgarDisplay]

Long story short. I got completely shafted by the Net Academy at the local Junior College. They didn't want to hire the instructor full time and have to pay him benefits so they cancelled all the remaining classes for the semester.

Now I'm up the creek without a paddle, and looking to take matters into my own hands. I was one 8 week course away from being ready to do a 30 day study and take the CCNA. The last class was all WAN access and probably some TShoot/ACL's thrown in. I've got the official cert library en route from amazon, and a couple of good websites that offer some additional content.

What are some good free websites that you have used to prepare for the CCNA? I would really like ones that have some packet tracers to play with if there are any.

My teacher told me about 9tut.com. Any other good ones out there?

 

[drebo]

ine.com has free CCNA videos right now. Also, freeccnaworkbook.com has plenty of free CCNA labs.

 

[Spineshank]

I agree with INE. The CCNA R&S videos are streaming for free. I have watched most of them myself.

 

[noobsrevenge]

you are familiar with gns3 right ?

 

[VulgarDisplay]

you are familiar with gns3 right ?

Yes, but I have packet tracer already. Not sure if I need both.

 

[Rickyyy369]

Did you make sure the cert library books were for the new exams? The last day to take 640-822 & 640-816 exams was September 30th. The new exams are 100-101 for ICND1/CCENT and 200-101 for ICND2, and 200-120 for the composite CCNA exam. Make sure the books you ordered are with the new content and not the old ones.

 

[noobsrevenge]

I would only use packet tracer for switching.

In gns3 you can load real cisco IOS .bin files, and do a lot more than what you can do in packet tracer, there is a lot more functionality in gns3 for routing.

 

[Oldgamer]

Man I am glad I clicked on this today. I am in a CCNA (routing switching class) at a local community college. Everything is done online through the Cisco Net Academy site. The instructor really sucks, and half our class is failing practically. The exams are not working properly through the Cisco site, packet tracer activities do not start, diagrams don't show up. We have practically no real LAB time and everything is disorganized in our class for any LABs we do do. I am barely getting by, and there is so damned much information I feel like we don't have enough of it broken down to digest.

I was looking for some free online stuff or additional books to help me out too. Thanks OP for posting, and thanks to all who are offering some advice and help here. I just want to pass this class, and then start preparing myself for taking the CCNA test.

 

[serpretetsky]

i obtained the CCNA with the official cisco press book (warning my edition was FILLED with errors, which I think actually forced me to study harder...)

and mostly the packet tracer software. I used a little bit of GNS3 just to play around with it, but I feel it was mostly overkill for the CCNA. Once in a while there would be a feature missing from packet tracer which I would cross check with GNS3, but otherwise all my work was done in packettracer.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Man I am glad I clicked on this today. I am in a CCNA (routing switching class) at a local community college. Everything is done online through the Cisco Net Academy site. The instructor really sucks, and half our class is failing practically. The exams are not working properly through the Cisco site, packet tracer activities do not start, diagrams don't show up. We have practically no real LAB time and everything is disorganized in our class for any LABs we do do. I am barely getting by, and there is so damned much information I feel like we don't have enough of it broken down to digest.

I was looking for some free online stuff or additional books to help me out too. Thanks OP for posting, and thanks to all who are offering some advice and help here. I just want to pass this class, and then start preparing myself for taking the CCNA test.

If you ever have any questions feel free to ask. I feel that I have a pretty good grasp on what's going on. As far as the instructor goes I don't think mine have been particularly good, but my own dedication to learning things is the real difference. I read ahead before classes and do labs multiple times.