Jon, I have not yet taken the exam, as work has been very hectic lately. In regards to the hands on, if I remember correctly the hardware I used was the Cisco AP 1200, ORiNOCO AP 2000, Colubris 1050 (cool), and some D-Link AP (hah) in addition to the usual client PCMCIA devices. In all honesty, you could almost buy most of the equipment with what you'd be paying for the course, and screw around with it yourself - you weren't really instructed how to do anything advanced, it was mostly just standard setup crap (if you've ever set up a router or AP), and enabling & using WEP (which was almost too easy). One cool thing though was doing cell sizing. When I took the course (December 16th) everyone else had canceled because of the possible MTA strike, so I was the only student. My instructor & I setup the Cisco AP 1200 running at 100mw, and I walked around in the streets with my laptop, my external antenna and NetStumbler. It was a fun exercise, but if you've ever used NetStumbler it's not really rocket science :p~
In regards to security, that is my greatest interest and something I was hoping to get more of. You barely even touch on it, what you do is EXACTLY STRAIGHT OUT OF THE BOOK. blah blah blah, 'WEP has been cracked' etc. Most everything in that section is common knowledge in regards to administration, such as don't give out the WEP keys (duh). You TOUCH on some other things such as man-in-the-middle attacks, using a workgroup bridge etc. - but again, this is taken directly from the book. You don't do any of this, you only read about it so that you're "aware" that there are potential security issues. In the CWSP class (if I remember correctly) they will actually hijack users, crack WEP, work with MAC addresses etc. Most of that class he told me is straight hacking, then analysis. In regards to more security stuff, I'd recommend picking up a copy of the Oreilly "802.11 Wireless Networks" [ISBN: 0596001835] (check Strand Books - Broadway & 12th Street I think) which I bought before I even knew about the CWNA course. Having read through parts of it, I was asking more advanced questions regarding security, to which my instructor unfortunately did NOT answer, but said it 'should' be covered in the CWSP class. In the CWNA class, you don't really get into IPsec, or VPN technologies, but you do briefly cover RADIUS technologies, such as a Microsoft Win2000 RADIUS server integration, as well as the built-in RADIUS capabilities of the Colubris AP. Something worth noting, if you live near downtown (I'm in Greenwich Village), check out the Chelsea Market (9th Ave bet 15th & 16th St [http://www.chelseamarket.com/enter/findus.html]) as if you walk around and look up, you can see the Colubris AP's in action (nicely setup too I might add). Again, I'd suggest reviewing the study guide you got - as that contains more and more detailed information than what's covered in the CWNA class. Take the test, then splurge your money on the CWSP class :) -------- Ciao, - Calien -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
