Expanding home network with Cisco 1924 swicth

Hey,

Don't have much experience with routers or switches. Plan on starting the CCNA at the end of next month.

I have a Cisco 1900 series switch that I want to play around with. (I know it's no use for the CCNA)

Want to check if what I want to do is actually possible!

Ok,

So my current home network consists of:

DSL modem connected to the Internet.
Wireless router connected to the modem.
PC connected to the router by cable.
Another PC and a couple of laptops that connect to the router wirelessly.

So all machines are handed an ip automatically by DHCP (From the wireless router I think?)

What I want to do is:

Connect the switch to the router.
Connect multiple machines to the switch.

What I want to achieve is:

All machines to be able to communicate with each other (Nothing specific, just to be able to ping each other).
All machines to be able to access the Internet.

What I want to know is:

Is this possible?

I'm guessing I'll have to assign an IP address to the switch and then to each switch port I plan on using?

Also apply a static IP to each of the machines connected to the switch?

Can I have a mix of DHCP assigned IP addresses and static?

Can't wait to get this going. Just need to get a fairly long cable to go from the router to the switch which is in another room.

Thanks for any help, advice, tips.

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Comments

networker050184

It will work. If it is an empty config you should be able to just plug it up and it will all work without any static addresses. If you want to manage the switch then you will need to give it an IP address.

You can have a mix of static and DHCP assigned IP addresses, but ensure you exclude those from your DHCP lease range. I would just use all DHCP unless you plan on running any services or anything you are going to be pointing towards a specific IP address.

Also, you don't assign IP addresses to switchports

ConstantlyLearning

networker050184 wrote:

It will work. If it is an empty config you should be able to just plug it up and it will all work without any static addresses. If you want to manage the switch then you will need to give it an IP address.

You can have a mix of static and DHCP assigned IP addresses, but ensure you exclude those from your DHCP lease range. I would just use all DHCP unless you plan on running any services or anything you are going to be pointing towards a specific IP address.

Also, you don't assign IP addresses to switchports

Still have to check the config of the switch. Would I be able to connect to the console port of the switch using a usb to serial adapter to connect to my PC? (No serial port on the PC)

If there is some type of running config already on the switch, is it just a case of erasing this config and then it will be the "plug in and go" situation again?

I'll try and just use DHCP first and see how that goes.

So if I want to manage the switch I would have to assign it an IP address. Would any of the machines on the network then be able to telnet to the switch if I had it set up?

Thanks a mill for the help.

networker050184

If there is a config just erase it and it should be plug and play after that, and yes you can use a usb to serial adapter to console in.

Once the switch has an IP address you should be able to telnet into it from any machine as long you do not block access.

ConstantlyLearning

networker050184 wrote:

If there is a config just erase it and it should be plug and play after that, and yes you can use a usb to serial adapter to console in.

Once the switch has an IP address you should be able to telnet into it from any machine as long you do not block access.

Great stuff.

I'll give this a go tomorrow and report back.

Cheers.

ConstantlyLearning

Connected the switch to the router and a PC to the switch.
The PC was assigned an IP by DHCP.

Now I just need to make a network cable that's the perfect size to go from the router to the switch which I want to have sitting on a shelf in my room. It's on the floor in my doorway at the moment.

The only annoying thing is the switch is pretty loud cos of the fan.

Have to think of something more fun to do now because that was too easy. All it was was plugging in a couple of cables.

I have 4 machines in my room that arn't going to any use at the moment. Its just the machines I have, no monitors etc. All wiped too.

Any one have any ideas for a little project?

networker050184

If you want to do Cisco labs you can run Dynamips on each of the machines and bridge them all together with the switch to make a very large Dynamips network....

ConstantlyLearning

networker050184 wrote:

If you want to do Cisco labs you can run Dynamips on each of the machines and bridge them all together with the switch to make a very large Dynamips network....

Already have 3 2501's and 2 2611's. Going to be get 3 2950's as well.

Would using dynamips have any advantage over that lab?

networker050184

Its never better than real equipment, but you can run larger and more routers with the latest IOS. No switches though..

ConstantlyLearning

OK, problem time.

So I set up apache web server on one of the machines connected to the switch.

I changed it to a static IP instead of DHCP.

I can ping the router(default gateway) and other machines connected to the switch but can't ping the PC connected to the router or any sites on the Internet.

So, changing the IP address to static has stopped it from communicating out past the router...

I don't know what the problem is. I would guess that there is some setting I need to change on the router but there is nothing that jumps out at me.

Any help would be much appreciated, thanks a mill.

networker050184

Did you use the right default gateway address?

ConstantlyLearning

networker050184 wrote:

Did you use the right default gateway address?

yep.

networker050184

Shouldn't be anything different from using a static or DHCP assigned address. I'd just double check all the IP information you put in there and ensure it matches what was given by DHCP.

ConstantlyLearning

networker050184 wrote:

Shouldn't be anything different from using a static or DHCP assigned address. I'd just double check all the IP information you put in there and ensure it matches what was given by DHCP.

I didn't set a dns address before.

So set everything again including a DNS address, turned off the firewall on the PC and I then had access to the Internet.

Turned the firewall on and still had access.

So now the machine with apache webserver can access the Internet.

So all machines can access the Internet now and can ping the default gateway but they can't ping each other!

I've enabled port forwarding on the router to point http access to port 80 on one of the machines connected to the switch but that's not working either.

I'll do up a post tomorrow with all the details of what's happening laid out nicely.

ConstantlyLearning

Here is the situation.

Three machines, let's call them CompA, CompB and Comp3

CompA is connected to the router.

CompB and CompC are connected to a switch which is connected to the router.

DHCP on the router uses range 192.168.2.100-149

Default gateway(Router): 192.168.2.1

CompA: 192.168.2.101 - DHCP

CompB: 192.168.2.10 - Static

CompC: 192.168.2.105 - DHCP

CompA can ping CompC but not CompB

CompB can ping CompC but not CompA

CompC can't ping CompA or CompB

Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot this?

I want CompB to act as a webserver, that's why I gave it a static IP. Does it need to have a static IP?

What I want to be able to do is access the webserver externally by entering something like the following:

Ex. http://85.69.25.69/

The router will be set to forward port 80 access to CompB(192.168.2.10).

Is this possible?

Thanks again.