CCNA Lab 0 [Currently Being Updated]

Technologies Covered

Navigating with the command line / Configuration modes
Viewing and saving your configuration
Clearing previous configurations

The purpose of this lab is to familiarize you with the basic configuration of Cisco IOS devices.

You will learn the different configuration modes and how to move between them. You will learn the no command and how to negate previous commands. Viewing, saving, and deleting configurations will also be covered.

Do not worry about not fully understanding how everything works for this lab. This lab is merely to introduce you to the devices.

Connecting to your pod

If you are using Poderosa, simply run the connecting script for your pod. This will connect you to every device, and label the tabs appropriately.

If you are using another telnet client, you need to connect to each device. The IP address to telnet to is 128.213.10.X where X is your pod number. Located at 128.213.10.X is a terminal access server that is connected to the console ports of each device. To connect to Router 1, telnet to 128.213.10.X port 2001. Router 2 is connected to port 2002, ect… Port numbers are show on the physical lab diagrams as red numbers in yellow boxes.

After connecting to your devices, you may be presented with something similar to the following.

         --- System Configuration Dialog ---

 

Would you like to enter the initial configuration dialog? [yes/no]: no

This is the default prompt that is presented anytime a Cisco IOS device boot with a default configuration. The initial configuration dialog is a fairly useless tool, and we will not be using it. It helps you set very basic configuration information in a very laborious way, and we will be teaching you how to do all of that using the command line. When prompted for this, type no. If asked if you would like to terminate auto install, simply press enter, accepting the default ‘Yes.’

Navigating with the command line / Configuration modes

After connecting to your pod, you should be presented with a prompt looking something like this on your routers:

Router>

And this on your switches:

Switch>

The > means that you are in user mode, and the Router / Switch is the hostname of that device. User mode has limited privileges and cannot make any configuration changes. To go from user mode to privileged mode, use the enable command.

Router>enable

Router#

If there is a password set, it will prompt you for one.

Router>enable

Password:

Router#

Privileged mode is denoted by a pound sign (#) after the hostname. To go from privilege mode to user mode, type exit.

Router#exit

 

 

 

Router con0 is now available

 

 

 

Press RETURN to get started.

 

 

Router>

Privilege mode is where you can access all information about a devices status. You can issue various show commands from privileged mode. To see a list of show commands available to you, use the show ? command.

Router#show ?

  aaa                       Show AAA values

  aal2                      Show commands for AAL2

  access-expression         List access expression

  access-lists              List access lists

  accounting                Accounting data for active sessions

  adjacency                 Adjacent nodes

  alarm-interface           Display information about a specific Alarm
...

  whoami                    Info on current tty line

  wrr-queue                 WRR queue

  x25                       X.25 information

  x28                       X.28 rotary information

  x29                       X.29 information

  xconnect                  xconnect information

  xtagatm                   XTagATM information

  zone                      Zone Information

  zone-pair                 Zone pair information

There are hundreds of show commands available to you to verify, test, and diagnose your configuration. Some of these commands have multiple options as well. Use the show ip ? command to see a list of commands related to the IP configuration and status of the device.

Router#show ip ?

  access-lists            List IP access lists

  accounting              The active IP accounting database

  admission               Network Admission Control information

  aliases                 IP alias table

  arp                     IP ARP table

  as-path-access-list     List AS path access lists

  auth-proxy              Authentication Proxy information

...

  ssh                     Information on SSH

  tcp                     TCP/IP header-compression statistics

  traffic                 IP protocol statistics

  traffic-export          Show ip traffic-export statistics

  trigger-authentication  Trigger-authentication host table

  urlfilter               IOS URL Filtering Information

  virtual-reassembly      IP Virtual Fragment Reassembly (VFR) information

  vrf                     VPN Routing/Forwarding instance information

  wccp                    WCCP information

We will only be covering a tiny subset of these commands in class. The question mark (?) is a very helpful tool on Cisco devices. It will give you a list of all commands that you can use in that mode. Its helpfulness cannot be emphasized enough. If you don’t know, or can’t remember the command to use for something, if is often helpful to use the question mark to see a list of available commands. It is also very helpful on Cisco certification exams when you can’t remember exactly the syntax of a command.

Viewing and saving your configuration

Cisco IOS devices store configuration information in two different file. One is the currently running configuration, stored in the running-config file, and the other is the startup configuration, stored in the startup-config file. On Cisco devices, any configuration changes that are made are made directly to the running-config file, and take effect immediately. When a router boots, it copies the contents of the startup-config to the running-config file. To view the contents the running configuration, use the show running-config, or show run command.

Router#show run           

Building configuration...

 

Current configuration : 879 bytes

!

version 12.4

service timestamps debug datetime msec

service timestamps log datetime msec

no service password-encryption

!

hostname Router

!

boot-start-marker

boot-end-marker

!

!

no aaa new-model

memory-size iomem 20

!

!

ip cef

!

!

!

!

voice-card 0

 no dspfarm

!

!

!

!

interface FastEthernet0/0

 no ip address

 shutdown

 duplex auto

 speed auto

!

interface FastEthernet0/1

 no ip address

 shutdown

 duplex auto

 speed auto

!

interface Serial0/0/0

 no ip address

 shutdown

 no fair-queue

!

interface Serial0/0/1

 no ip address

 shutdown

 clock rate 2000000

!

!

ip http server

no ip http secure-server

!

!

!

control-plane

!

!

!

!

line con 0

line aux 0

line vty 0 4

 login

!

scheduler allocate 20000 1000

!

end

Use the show startup-config or show start to see the boot config file.

To save your configuaration on the device, use the copy running-config startup-config or copy run start commands.

Router#copy run start

Destination filename [startup-config]?

Building configuration...

[OK]

Router#

This saves your configuration to the device for the next boot.

Clearing previous configurations

Some times when you start work on a pod there will already be a configuration from a previous student. Before starting any lab, or pasting in any previous configuration, you want to always clear the device. For routers, there is just one file that you want to erase, the startup-config file. To do this, use the erase startup-config command.

Router#erase startup-config

Erasing the nvram filesystem will remove all configuration files! Continue? [confirm]<ENTER>

[OK]

Erase of nvram: complete

Router#

*Aug 27 17:54:14.341: %SYS-7-NV_BLOCK_INIT: Initialized the geometry of nvram

Router#reload

Proceed with reload? [confirm]<ENTER>

For switches, you need to delete the vlan configuarion as well. To do this, use the delete vlan.dat command.

Switch#erase startup-config

Erasing the nvram filesystem will remove all configuration files! Continue? [confirm]<ENTER>

[OK]

Erase of nvram: complete

Switch#

1w4d: %SYS-7-NV_BLOCK_INIT: Initalized the geometry of nvram

Switch#delete vlan.dat

Delete filename [vlan.dat]?<ENTER>

Delete flash:vlan.dat? [confirm]<ENTER>

Switch#reload

Proceed with reload? [confirm]<ENTER>

The devices are now cleared, and ready for you to begin the lab.