crossover cable routing

aceinthehole

hello all. I've been frequenting this forum for some time anonymously while I waited for my equipment. I am now the owner of four routers I plan on using for the ccna and ccnp exams. Although I have four routers in my new lab, I have solely one serial cable and just ordered two more so my question is as follows: Has anyone used their ethernet ports with crossover cables for routing (eigrp, bgp) is this doable?

For example all of my routers have ethernet ports I'll call them RA, RB, RC, and RD.

RAe0
int eth0
ip address 5.6.7.1
ip routing
router eigrp 22
network 1.2.3.0 255.255.255.0
neighbor 5.6.7.2

RBe0
int eth0
ip address 5.6.7.2
ip routing
router eigrp 22
network 9.10.11.0 255.255.255.0
neighbor 5.6.7.3

RCe0
int eth0
ip address 5.6.7.3
ip routing
router eigrp 22
network 12.13.14.0 255.255.255.0
neighbor 5.6.7.4

RDe0
int eth0
ip address 5.6.7.4
ip routing
router eigrp 22
network 21.22.23.0 255.255.255.0

Is this doable until I get my serial cables? Or can I somehow use a switch to get them to pass routing information into their ethernet interfaces. Any help is sincerely appreciated.

DirtySouth

Absolutely. You can use crossovers to interconnect your routers. In a real-world environment serial cables are typically (NOT always) only used for WAN links.