CMNO Lab Guide - 11 22 2017 PDF
CMNO Lab Guide - 11 22 2017 PDF
CMNO Lab Guide - 11 22 2017 PDF
Training Manual
Certified Meraki Network Operator Certification Program
Table of Contents
Important: These are high priority, critical bits of instructions that you must read carefully and pay close
attention to performing correctly or they could have an adverse effect on your lab station.
Note: These are typically warnings that usually serve as reminders as they are sometimes easily
overlooked or missed.
Hint: These are useful pieces of advice that could help point you in the right direction or help draw your
attention to hard-to-find or confusing configurations.
Information: These serve as additional footnotes and reference materials sourced from the official Meraki
documentation portal (located at: https://documentation.meraki.com) for various topics or technologies.
Important: The e-mail address must be the same as the one you provided on the CMNO Lab Sign-in form
that you just completed recently.
Note: If you’ve previously already created a Cisco Spark account using this e-mail address, click on the link
near the bottom that says “Already activated your account? Click here”
3. The service should direct you to creating a password that meets the minimum
complexity. Once finished, click Create Account. Upon account creation, you will be
presented with 2 options of logging into Spark. You may download the Cisco Spark
desktop client or continue with using the web browser-based version of the client.
2. You should notice that there is a notification for a new team invitation for the CMNO
training group waiting for you. Click on the training room to begin chatting with the other
CMNO participants and the instructor.
3. To chat directly with the lab instructor, click on the + icon near the top to open up the
search field. Type in the instructor’s name and begin a direct 1:1 instant message session
with them.
2. Once logged in, you should see a notification for a new team invitation for the CMNO
training group waiting for you. Click on the training room to begin chatting with the other
CMNO participants and the instructor.
3. To chat directly with the lab instructor, click on the + icon near the top to open up the
search field. Type in the instructor’s name and begin a direct 1:1 instant message session
with them.
Note: If you are not able to access the student lab manual by clicking on the link in the e-mail, it is likely
due to a possible security policy on your computer that is blocking a URL re-direct. The alternate method is
to access the student lab manual (a PDF file) is through the direct URL located below:
CMNO Lab Guide: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5M7a9ghT4HdbldDX2RwWkItSU0/view
Hint: The Cisco Meraki Dashboard is compatible with the most recent version of Firefox, Internet Explorer,
and Chrome web browsers. However, the most recommended browser is Chrome as it provides the best
and most consistent user interface experience. It should also be noted that MV security camera streaming
is not supported on Windows 7 + Internet Explorer 11.
A similar but slightly different instruction may tell you to add your lab station number – again
referenced as “n” – to an existing value. This should be treated as a simple add (+)
operation, as illustrated in the following example:
Important: It would be incorrect if a concatenation were to be used, such as 10.0.107.0/24 for Lab Station 7
or 10.0.1018.0/24 for Lab Station 18 – these are incorrect and possibly invalid IP addressing values.
This type of replacement applies not just to subnets but also to IP addressing and VLAN
instructions in the lab guide. Here are some more examples:
2. By default, the MX’s name will appear as its MAC address - look for and click on the
pencil icon which will allow you to change/edit the name. Proceed to rename the MX’s
name as “MX [n]” where n is your station number.
4. You will now proceed to set up the MX with various VLANs to be utilized by a variety of
different traffic types. Navigate to Configure > Addressing & VLANs and proceed to
enable VLANs and add the following local VLANs as per the information in the table
below:
Important: Do not remove or change VLAN 1 (native/untagged VLAN) which is configured by default.
Hint: Navigate to the DHCP page for your security appliance and scroll down to the Corp VLAN to look for
“Reserved IP ranges” where you can then make the above requested address reservations.
2. Take advantage of the MX’s ability to traffic shape by enforcing a per-client bandwidth
limit of 5 Mbps.
3. Add a new traffic shaping rule for Netflix and also Pandora - choose a limit of 1 Mbps
down, 500 Kbps up on this rule with a “Low” priority.
4. Create another traffic shaping rule for all VoIP & video conferencing traffic – ignore
network bandwidth restrictions for this rule and ensure the applications are treated as
“High” priority.
5. Turn on (enable) content filtering for your MX by adding “Adult and Pornography” as a
website category that will be blocked.
Additional Reading: To learn more about traffic classification, shaping, and prioritization, reference the
following knowledge base document:
https://documentation.meraki.com/MX-Z/Firewall_and_Traffic_Shaping/Traffic_Shaping_Settings
2. Proceed by enabling VPN for only the Corp and Voice networks/subnets. Look for the
column “Use VPN” and select yes/no from the menu to enable/disable desired subnets.
3. Verify connectivity by pinging the data center core switch (10.0.250.1) from your MX and
observe the latency from your site to the data center.
Hint: From your MX’s appliance status page, click on the Tools tab to find the ping tool.
Hint: If you don’t see site-to-site peers listed, try clicking the “View old version” link on the right hand side
and you can then verify connectivity to other branches.
2. By default, the MS’s name will appear as its MAC address - look for and click on the
pencil icon which will allow you to change/edit the name. Proceed to rename the MS’s
3. In this deployment, switch ports 15-18 will be designated specifically for voice (VoIP)
traffic. Navigate to the Switch ports page and proceed to implement the following
settings:
Tags: VoIP
PoE: Enabled
Type: Access
VLAN: 1
Voice VLAN: 30
4. Identify the port that already has a MC74 phone connected. Double check to confirm that
it has been properly configured for VoIP (in other words, verify that this port was one of
the ports within the range that you just finished setting up in the previous step).
Hint: On the switch ports page, if you add the column for “CDP/LLDP” you will be able to see the various
devices that the network has identified through the discovery protocol packets. This is one of the several
ways to identify various devices and where they are currently plugged into your wired infrastructure.
5. In a similar fashion, identify the port that your MV21 security camera is connected to.
Configure this port with the following settings:
PoE: Enabled
Type: Access
VLAN: 50
Important: Now that these ports have been configured with proper VLAN designations, we need to ensure
that the devices (both the phone and camera) pull a new IP address on their respective, correct VLANs. We
will force this action by performing a power cycle through the actions in the next step.
6. While on the Monitor > Switch ports page, check the boxes next to the ports for your
MC74 phone and MV21 camera. Click the Edit button at the top of the table to open up
the various configurations options and proceed to disable the ports – look for the field
named “Enabled” and select “disabled” from the drop-down menu. Click “Update 2
ports” to process this action and the ports should then shut down.
2. Apply the “VoIP Power Saving” port schedule to the VoIP switch ports (15-18) from the
Monitor > Switch port page.
Hint: For faster and more efficient bulk configuring, simply search do a search for the “VoIP” tag you
created earlier and it should return just those 4 ports. Check the boxes next to these 4 ports and click
“Edit” to configure them all simultaneously.
2. By default, the MR’s name will appear as its MAC address - look for and click on the
pencil icon which will allow you to change/edit the name. Proceed to rename the MR’s
name as “MR [n]” where n is your station number.
3. Navigate to Configure > SSIDs and proceed to enable as well as rename two SSIDs.
Rename the first SSID as “Corporate” and the other as “Guest” – be sure to save your
changes before leaving the page.
Hint: You should rename/repurpose the default SSID (usually named “LabX – Wireless WiFi”) as one of the
4. To configure settings for these SSIDs, go Configure > Access control where you must
first make sure that the “Corporate” SSID has been selected from the SSID drop-down
menu at the top. This SSID need to have the following settings:
Association Requirements: PreShared Key with WPA2, password: Meraki123
Client IP Assignment: Bridge mode
VLAN tagging: enabled, VLAN ID: 10
5. Switch to the “Guest” SSID by using the drop-down menu at the top, and give this SSID
the following settings:
Splash page: Click-through
Client IP Assignment: Bridge mode
VLAN tagging: enabled, VLAN ID: 100
6. Because we are using a click-through splash page for our guest wireless network, we
will want to have them re-authenticate every 30 minutes. Navigate to Configure > Splash
page and change the frequency to every half hour.
7. Finally, we want to ensure that our wireless guest users have no way of accessing any of
the internal local network resources while also restricting their usage. Go to Configure >
Firewall & traffic shaping and make the following configurations on the “Guest” SSID:
Edit the default Layer 3 firewall by adjusting the policy to deny access to the Local
LAN for all wireless clients that might try to access the LAN
Add three Layer 7 firewall rules to block P2P, File sharing, and Gaming services
Limit the per-client bandwidth to 1 Mbps
Additional Reading: To learn more about layer 3 routing capabilities on Meraki switches, reference the
following knowledge base document:
https://documentation.meraki.com/MS/Layer_3_Switching/MS_Layer_3_Switching_Overview
3. Go back to your switch and go to Monitor > Switch ports in order to configure port 24 of
your switch to be an access port in VLAN [ 600 + n ].
Hint: Go to your MS switch and look at port 24 specifically – you should see the switch with green/healthy
status and not amber (usually an indicator that is has been blocked).
Hint: You can find the Router ID by going to your switch and looking for it on the L3 Routing tab.
C. Verify that OSPF is functioning and that you can see the data center switch that should
be listed as 10.0.250.1
D. Using the Ping tool (from the Tools tab of your switch) start a ping to the data center
switch (10.0.250.1) from the Legacy Source interface (10.0. [ 150 + n ] .1) – this should be a
series of successful pings
E. Proceed by disabling port 24 and waiting 30-60 seconds. Attempt the same ping again
as the previous verification – this should also be a successful ping
Hint: The topology diagrams seen below should help you understand the logical data flow of what is taking
place when port 24 (the “MPLS” connection) has been disabled.
2. Add both “SF Data Center – DC 1” AND “NY Data Center – DC 2” as hubs but make sure
that you prioritize the NY location as the primary hub.
Hint: You can drag and drop to rearrange your hubs, with the one at the top having higher priority and
acting as the primary.
3. Make sure a full tunnel VPN is established by checking the default route boxes for both
data center hubs.
Hint: Navigate to the Tools tab of your MX security appliance and using the ping tool.)
2. Since we have two uplinks, we will also want to take advantage of those connections by
enabling load balancing on our MX appliance – turn on this feature.
3. Our networking team has mandated that all guest internet traffic should traverse our ISP
connection on WAN 2. Configure this as a flow preference.
Hint: Any traffic (protocol) with a source IP address of 10.0. [100 + n ] .0/24 – our guest subnet – outbound
to any destination should prefer WAN 2 as the uplink.
4. Create a custom performance class named “Acceptable Delay” with a setting of 200 ms
maximum latency.
5. Under VPN traffic, configure a rule to utilize the custom performance class from the
previous step. Any traffic destined to 8.8.8.8/32 should prefer WAN 2 unless
performance is worse than “Acceptable Delay.”
Hint: Make sure you change the protocol to “Any” as well as have this rule apply to “Any” source, source
port, and destination port.
6. Similarly, a second rule should enforce that any traffic from the “Corp” subnet (10.0. [ 10 +
n ] .0/24) should load balance on uplinks that meet “Acceptable Delay.”
7. Finally, a third rule should enforce that any traffic from the “Voice” (10.0. [ 30 + n ] .0/24)
subnet should use the best uplink for VoIP.
C. In the same section/table, look for the “Uplink decision” column and click one of the links
(should be either WAN 1 or WAN 2) and observe the average latency and MOS score
between your branch and the Data Center.
2. The nature of our VoIP deployment does not involve communications over the PSTN so
there is no need to acquire DID phone numbers. We will proceed by utilizing and
assigning only 4-digit extensions. This process starts on the Monitor > Phones page,
where you should be able to locate your MC74 device. Click on the phone’s MAC
address and then click on the pencil icon which will allow you to change/edit the name.
Name your phone “MC [n]” where n is your station number.
3. To assign the directory contact to this MC74 device, click on the pencil icon for the
“Contact” field and use the drop-down menu to select your own contact that was created
a couple of steps ago.
4. Finally, click on the pencil icon next to the “Public number” field to assign a 4-digit
extension to this device. The extension should be [ 1000 + n ]. This last step completes
the initial phone setup and provisioning process.
Hint: You should be leaving the Public Number field empty, as we do not have any DIDs purchased to be
made available to allocate in this lab.
2. Use/assign the following extension for this conference room bridge: [ 3000 + n ].
3. Enforce a security pin code of “1234” to make the room more private.
3. There are some pre-recorded audio files that need to be uploaded into Dashboard to be
used in our IVR menu. From your web browser, navigate the following location and
download/save the two .m4a audio files to your local machine: http://cs.co/cmno-ivr-files
Hint: If you are having issues downloading or uploading the audio files, try switching to a different web
browser - Google Chrome is the recommended browser of choice for the best Meraki Dashboard
experience.
4. Use “Greeting.m4a” as the Main greeting for your menu. We will skip the short greeting
and other configurable sound options.
5. Your IVR menu will be active 24/7 every day so there is no need to create a custom
schedule. Proceed by creating two menu options with the following:
Menu option 1 should play the recording “Hours.m4a” if selected
Menu option 2 should transfer the caller to the “Finance Phone Bridge” conference
Note: Remember to save your IVR menu once all fields and options have been configured.
2. Switch to the “Network” tab and verify that the camera has an IP address from the proper
subnet (VLAN 50), it is in good health status, and the firmware & configuration are up to
date. On this tab will also be the Ping tool – use it to ensure the device is active and
responding.
3. Move to the “Settings” tab and allow the low-latency stream to load. Feel free to adjust
the various fields under the feed such as the optical zoom, focus, and aperture until you
are satisfied.
4. Take note that there are three additional sub-tabs under settings: Zoom and Focus,
Quality and Retention, and Night Mode. Our deployment requires a higher video quality
recording, so be sure to use the Enhanced (765 kbps at 15fps) quality option.
2. Rename this layout tab (the default title is “New layout”) and call it “My Wall”.
3. Select your camera stream that appears down below and drag-and-drop the frame so it
Note: Remember to click “Save layouts” near the upper-right corner of the Dashboard window when you
are finished to save this video wall.
Important: If you do not have an iOS/Apple mobile device such as an iPhone or iPad, or if your iOS/Apple
device is already enrolled in a different EMM/MDM solution, you may skip Exercise 6.1 and proceed
directly to Exercise 6.2.
1. To begin the enrollment process of your iOS/Apple mobile device, start by navigating to
MDM > Add devices and click on the iOS selection (top-left option).
2. Follow the instructions on the screen to enroll your device in Systems Manager. The
recommended method is to enter the 10-digit Network ID once you’ve navigated to
m.meraki.com from your mobile device’s browser.
Hint: As you progress through the enrollment process, be sure to click “Trust” and to accept all certificates
or permission requests that pop up on your mobile device.
3. To verify that the enrollment was successful, go to Monitor > Clients (of Systems
Manager) to look for your mobile device. Your device should also have automatically
downloaded/installed the Systems Manager mobile app.
2. Select the radio button for a “New Meraki managed profile” as that will give us access to
3. Name this profile “Corporate Devices” and then continue by defining the scope of the
profile with the following settings:
Hint: When attempting to create the device tag, click on the field and type “corp” and look for “add option”
to confirm/create this custom tag.
4. Now that we have defined (using tags) the scope that the profile will be pushed out to,
we must define the various settings and restrictions. “Add settings” near the left side of
the page will open up the full list of SM configurable options. Proceed to add the
following:
Restrictions: remove the ability to use the camera on the device
Passcode: allow simple value, require alphanumeric values, and a minimum length of
6 characters
WiFi: use Sentry as the configuration type, your lab station’s wireless network, and
have devices auto join your “Corporate” SSID
Note: Make sure to save all settings for this profile before navigating away.
Important: If you previously skipped Exercise 6.1 (device enrollment) then you will also skip Exercise 6.3
(pushing/removing device profile) – simply proceed to Section B.
1. In order to implement the configurations on the device profiles, we will first select the
desired devices by tagging them. From the Monitor > Clients page of Systems Manager,
tag your device with the “corp” tag to push out the file.
3. Once you have confirmed the profile has been pushed, you may remove the SM profile
from your device.
Additional Reading: Follow the instructions as outlined in the following knowledge base document to
complete the un-enrollment process and fully remove the SM profile:
https://documentation.meraki.com/SM/Profiles_and_Settings/Removing_Profiles_and_Apps_from_Managed_Devices
Once you have completed all of the labs and exercises of Section A, please notify your
CMNO instructor that you are now ready for Section B (troubleshooting). This section of the
lab requires some setup by the instructor that will take roughly 2-5 minutes per station to
prepare.
Hi [insert name of instructor] – I have completed Section A of the lab and I’m ready to move onto
Section B. I am lab station number [insert station number].
Please let the instructor know within the Spark chatroom (preferably via a unicast/direct
message) that you are ready to move on and what lab station number you are. Here is a
sample message:
Once the instructor has finished setting up your lab station, they will notify you that it is okay
to continue onto Section B. If they do not respond immediately, give them a few minutes as
they may be tending to another lab station or helping to resolve an earlier inquiry.
Objective: Your task is to troubleshoot the network infrastructure and apply the proper fixes
needed in order to bring the AP online. This exercise is completed once the AP is back
online and reachable within Dashboard.
Hint: You are operating under the assumption that all physical (layer 1) connections are reliable and
properly connected/designed. There are no bad cables or hardware issues to troubleshoot.
Objective: Your task will be to troubleshoot the network within the Dashboard to fix any
misconfigurations that is contributing to the bad IP assignment. This exercise is completed
once the AP has successfully pulled an IP address from the corporate VLAN (10).
Hint 1: Not mandatory, but by reconfiguring your VPN as split-tunnel (uncheck the boxes for Default Route
for both NY & SF hubs) it could help facilitate the IP addressing for the access points into the proper VLAN.
Hint 2: Once you’ve made the necessary corrections, the recommended method of forcing the AP to pull a
new IP address is by cycling the port – there are multiple ways to perform that action, including (but not
limited to) disabling the port and re-enabling it.
Hint 1: You should be leveraging the Ping tool from the MR access point for this exercise.
Hint 2: Some participants may be able to immediately ping the database server while others may not. This
exercise is a built-in check to verify that you have properly configured the proper routes and site-to-site
VPN topology from Section A. If you ARE able to ping it, you may move on the next exercise. If you are
NOT able to ping it, then you have to perform troubleshooting until you are able to reach it – or else you
will not receive full credit during the grading of your lab station.
Objective: Your task is to determine the root cause to the offline camera. This exercise is
completed once the MV camera is back online within Dashboard and you can properly see
a camera video stream.
Hint: If your MV camera already appears online and you are able to see a live camera feed, then it means
that you did NOT properly configure your network to provide your MV camera with the proper IP
addressing. Your MV should have an address along the lines of 10.0. [ 50 + n ] .0 which is from VLAN 50. If
it has an address similar to 192.168.1.0 then you must return to Section A to resolve that before proceeding.
Hint: Similar to the hint given for Exercise 4 about your MV camera, if your MC phone already appears
online – be sure to double check its IP address. The MC should have an address along the lines of
10.0. [ 30 + n ] .0 which is from VLAN 30. You must return to Section A to make sure it has an IP address
from the proper VLAN before attempting this exercise.
I’ve finished both Section A and Section B of the lab early, or due to other reasons have
to leave the CMNO training early – what do I do?
If you’ve completed the lab to the best of your ability and would like to submit it for grading,
please notify your instructor within the Spark chatroom. If you find yourself in the situation
where you must exit the training, notify your instructor immediately and it will be handled on
a case-by-case basis.
I didn’t have enough time to complete both Section A and/or Section B – does that
mean I’ve failed the CMNO certification?
No, not necessarily. We encourage you to attempt as many of the exercises as possible
throughout the entire lab block of time during the day. During evaluation, the 80% passing
threshold mark is looking at the entire lab as a whole (Section A + B combined).
Note: There is no need to delete or erase any configurations to your lab station within Dashboard. The
CMNO team will perform a full lab reset at a later point in time in order to prepare the gear for a new group
of participants.
You may also at this point sign out of the Cisco Spark chatroom. If you are using the web
browser-based client, simply close the browser window. On the desktop client, you may
choose to use the “Leave Team” function to close completely out of the training chatroom.
Note: On rare occasions the system-generated e-mail for CMNO certification status may get auto-rejected
or filtered as spam by certain organizations. Please follow-up with the CMNO program team using the
contact information below.
If you need to communicate with the CMNO program team with any follow-up questions or
inquiries, they can be reached at cmno@meraki.com.
Can I post or use my CMNO certification in various business outlets or settings? (i.e.
LinkedIn, e-mail signature)
Yes! If you successfully complete the course and receive the certification, you will receive
an official e-mail signature included with your digital certificate.
I did not pass CMNO – when is the earliest that I can retake the certification course?
If you were not able to pass the CMNO course, you will be eligible to take the course again
in 30 days. As the course is in high demand, we ask that customers who have failed the
course wait 30 days to allow others the opportunity for a first attempt of the certification.
I had to leave early due to circumstances that were outside of my control – can I be fast-
tracked and re-enrolled into a future CMNO session?
The CMNO program team takes into account that unforeseen circumstances are a part of
our day-to-day. If something comes up and you need to leave the session early, please A.)
notify your instructor and B.) reach out to cmno@meraki.com. The program team will make
every attempt to accommodate you in an upcoming session.
Are there other Meraki-specific training resources available and where can I find them?
Meraki Documentation: https://documentation.meraki.com
Our official documentation portal not only contains the written articles on setting up
and configuring your Meraki equipment but also contains a variety of other ‘How-to’
and ‘Best Practices’ papers that spans all technologies.
Meraki Community: https://community.meraki.com
A great source for technical discussion and advice with participants ranging from end-
users to integrators to Meraki staff members as contributors. Registration and sign-in
is simple with your Cisco.com CCO ID – sign in and join the conversation.