How Lab / Rack Rentals with a Mac????

Hi all,

Bit of advice please... I'm getting pretty fed up with studying and labbing on my tiny little laptop and I'm looking at investing in an Apple iMac (I'm not a big fan of windows).

So I before I fork out ££££ I wondered if anyone else uses a Mac to study and lab on? At the moment I'm studying for CCNA using simulators but as I progress through my studies the plan is to build a home lab that will cover me for CCNP R&S, CCNP Voice and CCNP Security (I'm guessing this will kill my bank balance

).

Am I likey to experience any issue accessing the line console from a Mac, likewise from telnet/SecureCRT? When hopefully come to study for IE and use rack rentals do you think they'll be any issues?

I'm just curious as most people I speak to use a PC with Windows OS.

Cheers!

Alex

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Comments

Alex90

Sorry this meant to say 'Home Lab' not 'How Lab'....

Jon_Cisco

I don't know of any limitations other then what programs might be available. Maybe someone that is using a OSX for their lab could give you a better answer.

Keep in mind you can dual boot a Mac as Windows if you need to. Also you can install virtual box and run a windows virtual machine on your mac so there are plenty of options if you run into problems.

shodown

been using a mac for the past half decade or so. It works fine. When I 1st got my MAC secureCRT wasn't out, and your only choice was ITERM2 or ZOC. Iterm is free, ZOC is not. It was a pain to get my serial connection to work on ITERM2 and I used the built in terminal which is ugly. For all other things I just ssh or telneted from ITERM. Sometimes I used secure CRT through vmware.

Now you have the option of secure CRT on the mac, and it works great. You can have all your tabs, use GNS3, and on. If you do plan on studying voice some of the voice plugins don't work well on the mac or don't work at all. So you will have no choice but to have a VM with windows to run some things in voice.