Complete Noobie lab set up

theGman

Hi to all, I'm currently studying CCNA, you could say a muture student seeking a career change, I'm doing a online course and reading Todd Lammles study guide. What do I require to set up a basic lab. So far I've bought a 2600 router and a 2900 catalyst switch. The switch didn't come with any cables and the router came with 1 cable, RJ45 on one end and 9 pin female plug on the other. Oh and what is a 'catalyst router'? I only bought the switch because it wss wrongly advertised on Ebay!

waymorr

Hi welcome to the board, to setup a basic lab you are best if you can to get 2950 switches at least two but pref three and a couple of routers 2600 will do fine just try and get some with serial connections. Cable wise to connect your switches back to back you will need crossover cables, you can use the console cable on both your routers and switches for configuring. Ebay is where i got all my lab stuff trawl through it and the bargains are there to be found.

Good luck with your CCNA

hypnotoad

Hi theGman.

A 2600 router will do fine for studying CCNA/CCENT work. You might want 2 of them so you can practice configuring them and getting them to talk to each other and route IP traffic.

The cable you are referring to is called a "console cable" or "rollover cable". It is for connecting your PC's serial port to the router's console port to configure it. If your PC or laptop doesn't have a serial port (many do not these days), you can buy a USB to Serial port adapter for less than $10 on ebay.

After you connect the cable from the serial port on the PC to the Console port (not one of the ethernet ports), you'll need to know what COM port it's on. It is probably referred to, in Windows, as COM1, COM2, COM3, or COM4, depending on your computer. Connecting that cable while the switch is on, and opening Hyperterminal (Start > Programs > Accessories > Communications) will allow you to connect to the switch's (or router's) console port and configure it (i.e. set up interfaces, security, routes, filtering, vlans, and all the other stuff in Lammle's book).

You will also need some plain-old cat-5 or better ethernet cables to set up a basic lab. These can be acquired from any computer store or probably department store.

Hope this helps.