Chapter 1. Shooting Trouble

This chapter serves as the basis for the troubleshooting exercises throughout this book. In addition to a solid understanding of specific technologies, effective troubleshooting requires that you follow consistent procedures that are based on industry standards and reliable methods. The Open System Interconnection (OSI) model and the TCP/IP suite can help you methodically divide and conquer a problem or learn a new internetworking topic (by taking a layer-by-layer approach, for instance). This chapter presents an introduction to troubleshooting; a review of standards, protocols, and industry models; and practical troubleshooting, including baselining and documentation techniques. These standards, models, and techniques are covered in this chapter so that you can refer to them as you work through the specific troubleshooting tasks in this book. This chapter includes a Trouble Ticket designed to give you practical experience in solving real-world issues using Cisco's troubleshooting approach.

This chapter covers the following topics:

• Do You Shoot Trouble or Does Trouble Shoot You?

• Standards and Protocols

• Models and Methods

• Practical Troubleshooting