Every day use switch for home lab (IOS LAN Lite?)

Good morning,

I have other exams to pass right now but am hoping to start studying for CCNA in a few months. I intend to buy a home lab for this which I understand need not be remotely modern kit, as 10/100 Fast Ethernet devices still use the same functionality that will be tested.

But for an everyday use switch I would need gigabit/PoE/RADIUS/802.1x etc. (everyday here meaning 24/7 usage, not as in casual use) to support my other labs and live services. I started looking at the SG300 and 2960L series switches but learned they have "cut down" or "lite" versions of IOS.

Could anyone say how far this would get me for studying? Are they completely different? Or "50/60/70..% of full IOS", or different enough to distract me from the exam?

Thanks in advance.

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Comments

rob42

A home lab is not needed in order to study for and/or pass the CCNA exam. I understand the desire to have a home lab, (e.g: for CLI practice and the like), but needed? No. You can get by with CPT. It's free and is very useful.

dpl

Ok, I will look in to CPT thank you.

I had been thinking about a new switch anyway. So an answer to my question would still be useful to know how relevant the IOS Lite environment would be for study. If having a "Lite" switch "wouldn't hurt but won't be complete" it would be worth the extra money, if its "a complete distraction and will reinforce mistakes" I'll get something else (cheaper).

dpl

Put another way, once I start a CCNA I won't want to buy another non-Cisco device. But if IOS lite is going to be of little or negative value for learning and full IOS means £2000 for the spec I'm looking at, I'll give up on a Cisco for every day use idea.

Thanks again.

OctalDump

I think that, looking longer term, you are best to get a "real" Cisco switch. It might cost more, and (initially) you might use a fraction of its capacity, but longer term you can integrate into your CCNP prep and start to explore and maybe make use of some interesting features in a practical way.

Possibly the 2960 or 3560 are good, cheap, preloved options. The 2960CG and 3560CG are compact, fanless (I think), have Gigabit and have a "proper" IOS.

dpl

Thank you very much, I will see what I can find on Ebay.

wseyller

Here is what I paid on Ebay. You can get a better deal if you spend time finding a deal versus buying a kit. The gigabit router I got because I use it as my connection to my ISP. The layer 3 C3750 might be my favorite.

Prices include shipping

$79.99 Cisco 2821 Gigabit router IOS 15.1 1GBD/256F with full features.

$34.67 Cisco C3750-48PS layer 3 switch. Has poe

$60.97 for two Cisco 1841 ISR with WIC-1DSU-T1-V2

$37.95 Cisco C2960 48 port

$28.99 Cisco C2950 24 port

pujan96

rob42 wrote: »

A home lab is not needed in order to study for and/or pass the CCNA exam. I understand the desire to have a home lab, (e.g: for CLI practice and the like), but needed? No. You can get by with CPT. It's free and is very useful.

I feel the ciscos PT is only useful for learning the basics, You cant use all the commands needed for the exams, you cant issue logs on commmands nor do any debug viewing outputs.

Whilst I agree PT is very handy if i didnt have my home lab I would have a very shallow knowledge of configuring/maintaining cisco hardware.

One example that comes to mind is you cant issue dhcp lease commands.

rob42

pujan96 wrote: »

I feel the ciscos PT is only useful for learning the basics, You cant use all the commands needed for the exams, you cant issue logs on commmands nor do any debug viewing outputs.

Whilst I agree PT is very handy if i didnt have my home lab I would have a very shallow knowledge of configuring/maintaining cisco hardware.

One example that comes to mind is you cant issue dhcp lease commands.

I'm not sure what you mean by "you cant issue logs on commmands", but here's a debug in action...

Router#debug ip rip
RIP protocol debugging is on
Router#RIP: received v2 update from 10.0.0.1 on Serial2/0
170.0.0.0/28 via 0.0.0.0 in 1 hops
RIP: sending v2 update to 224.0.0.9 via FastEthernet0/0 (192.168.2.1)
RIP: build update entries
10.0.0.0/8 via 0.0.0.0, metric 1, tag 0
170.0.0.0/16 via 0.0.0.0, metric 2, tag 0
RIP: sending v2 update to 224.0.0.9 via Serial2/0 (10.0.0.2)
RIP: build update entries
192.168.2.0/24 via 0.0.0.0, metric 1, tag 0
RIP: received v2 update from 10.0.0.1 on Serial2/0
170.0.0.0/28 via 0.0.0.0 in 1 hops
RIP: sending v2 update to 224.0.0.9 via FastEthernet0/0 (192.168.2.1)
RIP: build update entries
10.0.0.0/8 via 0.0.0.0, metric 1, tag 0
170.0.0.0/16 via 0.0.0.0, metric 2, tag 0
RIP: sending v2 update to 224.0.0.9 via Serial2/0 (10.0.0.2)
RIP: build update entries
192.168.2.0/24 via 0.0.0.0, metric 1, tag 0

Users should be fully aware of the limitations of CPT, but, it's more then good enough to practice and master a good deal of commands.