Chapter 1 Ciscos Internetworking Operating System (IOS)

The IOS User Interface

The Cisco Internetwork Operating System (IOS) is the kernel of Cisco routers and most switches.

Cisco Router IOS

The Cisco IOS is a proprietary kernel that provides routing, switching, internetworking, and telecommunications features. The first IOS was written by William Yeager in 1986, and it enabled networked applications. It runs on most Cisco routers as well as an ever-increasing number of Cisco Catalyst switches, like the Catalyst 2950/2960 and 3550/3560 series switches. These are some important things that the Cisco router IOS software is responsible for: Carrying network protocols and functions Connecting high-speed traffic between devices Adding security to control access and stop unauthorized network use Providing scalability for ease of network growth and redundancy Supplying network reliability for connecting to network resources

You can access the Cisco IOS through the console port of a router, from a modem into the auxiliary (or Aux) port, or even through Telnet. Access to the IOS command line is called an EXEC session.

Connecting to a Cisco Router

1. console port The console port is usually an RJ-45 (8-pin modular) connection located at the back of the router. We use a console cable which is a straight-through cable. One end of the cable is an RJ-45 jack which will be connected to the routers console port. The other end is a DB-9 serial female port which will be connected to your laptop/PCs DB-9 male serial port. After connecting the router to your laptop/PC using the console cable, we used Hyperterminal or Tera-Term software to configure the router. 2. auxiliary port An auxiliary port allows you to configure modem commands so that a modem can be connected to the router. It lets you dial up a remote router and attach to the auxiliary port if the router is down and you need to configure it out-of-band (meaning out of the network). 3. telnet The third way to connect to a Cisco router is in-band, through the program Telnet. (In-band means configuring the router through the network, the opposite of out-of-band.). Telnet is a terminal emulation program that acts as though its a dumb terminal. You can use Telnet to 1

Chapter 1 Ciscos Internetworking Operating System (IOS)

connect to any active interface on a router, such as an Ethernet or serial port. 4. SSH The fourth way to connect to a router is using SSH which is secured compared to the Telnet program.

Bringing Up a Router
When you first bring up a Cisco router, it will run a power-on self-test (POST). If it passes, it will then look for and load the Cisco IOS from flash memoryif an IOS file is present. Flash memory is electronically erasable programmable read-only memoryan EEPROM.) After that, the IOS loads and looks for a valid configurationthe startup-configthats stored in nonvolatile RAM, or NVRAM.

Entering the CLI from a Non-ISR Router

user exec mode Router> privileged exec mode Router>enable Router# Router#disable Router> At this point, you can type logout from either mode to exit the console: Router>logout global configuration mode Router#configure terminal Router(config)# To view all interfaces on the router: Router#show ip interface brief To configure an interface: Router(config)#interface fastethernet 0 Router(config-if)#ip address 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0 Router(config-if)#no shutdown Configuring a serial interface on a router involves an additional parameter clock rate. Clock rate is applied only on Data Communicating Equipment (DCE) and not on Data Terminating Equipment (DTE). You can check if a cable is DTE

Chapter 1 Ciscos Internetworking Operating System (IOS)

or DCE physically. Else you can perform show controllers serial 0, e.g., to know which type of cable is connected to the serial port. Router(config)#interface serial 0 Router(config-if)#ip address 192.168.2.1 255.255.255.0 Router(config-if)#clock rate 64000 Router(config-if)#no shutdown Enhanced Editing Commands
Command Ctrl+A Ctrl+E Esc+B Ctrl+B Ctrl+F Esc+F Ctrl+D Backspace Ctrl+R Ctrl+U Ctrl+W Ctrl+Z Tab Meaning Moves your cursor to the beginning of the line Moves your cursor to the end of the line Moves back one word Moves back one character Moves forward one character Moves forward one word Deletes a single character Deletes a single character Redisplays a line Erases a line Erases a word Ends configuration mode and returns to EXEC Finishes typing a command for you

Router-Command History
Command Ctrl+P or up arrow Ctrl+N or down arrow show history show terminal terminal history size Meaning Shows last command entered Shows previous commands entered Shows last 10 commands entered by default Shows terminal configurations and history buffer size Changes buffer size (max 256)

Gathering Basic Routing Information

The show version command will provide basic configuration for the system hardware as well as the software version and the boot images. Heres an example: router#show version

Router and Switch Administrative Configurations

Hostnames
navin(config)#hostname paul paul(config)#

Chapter 1 Ciscos Internetworking Operating System (IOS) Banners

router(config)#banner motd # Enter TEXT message. End with the character #. This is a private network!!!
#

Enable Password
router(config)#enable password cisco

some IOS by default do not encrypt the password, then we should use an additional command, service password-encryption to encrypt the password. It is preferable to use the enable secret command instead of the enable password command. Enable secret not only encrypts the password but also display the MD5 hash of the encrypted secret which cant be played back. Enable Secret router(config)#enable secret cisco Auxiliary Password router(config)#line aux 0 router(config-line)#login router(config-line)#password cisco Console Password router(config)#line console 0 router(config-line)#login router(config-line)#password cisco Telnet Password router(config)#line vty 0 4 router(config-line)#login router(config-line)#password cisco