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hardtroubleshooting~120 min

Everything's down: restore the network

A multi-site network is broken by three independent faults across L2, L3, and a filter. Restore end-to-end connectivity and document what you found.

Scenario

After a "small change", the whole multi-site network is down. There are three independent faults, spanning layers:

  1. an L2 trunking issue starving a VLAN,
  2. an L3/OSPF issue breaking the routed path,
  3. an ACL silently dropping legitimate return traffic.

Your job

Work the problem methodically, restore full Site A ↔ Site B reachability, and write a short note of what each fault was and how you fixed it.

What "done" looks like

End-to-end connectivity between a host at Site A and a host at Site B is restored, plus a clear fault/fix write-up.

Teaches: structured, layered troubleshooting and communicating findings, the thing that actually distinguishes a hireable engineer. This capstone reuses the concepts from vlan-routing-01, ospf-areas-01, and acl-policy-01.

Tooling

Arista cEOS for the switching/ACL layers and FRR (or cEOS) for OSPF. Validate on first deploy.

What gets checked

Your solution is verified against each of these:

  • The access trunk carries the required VLANs again
  • OSPF adjacencies are FULL and routes are present end to end
  • The ACL no longer blocks legitimate return traffic
  • A host at Site A can reach a host at Site B
  • A short note lists each fault found and the fix applied

Solve it in your browser

No setup, no install. Write your solution in the editor and hit Check. The in-house engine renders and grades it instantly, then issues your proof the moment every check passes.

Solve in browser →

Prefer your own lab?

  1. Build the fix locally. New to the tooling? See setting up your lab.
  2. Push your topology file, device configs, and any playbooks to a public repo (GitHub or GitLab).
  3. Submit the repo link. We review it by hand, confirm it works, and issue your proof page.
Submit your solution →