home lab setup

mikespranger

i've got the routers and the switches, and I made a bunch or cables, regular and crossover

i know how to configure the basics, and have them all set up with ip addresses, usernames and passwords etc

the hardest part for me, is trying to figure out how to set it up. by that i mean, i have no idea which switches should go to which routers. i did a few searches in the forums and on youtube, couldn't find what i am looking for
am i missing something that obvious?
any help with a link, or what search terms i should be trying, would be greatly appreciated.

jsb515

how many switches and routers you got and what models?

mikespranger

i have 5 2950C's and 4 1760 routers
i have the wic 1dsu's on 2 routers, the other 2 have 4esw's so i think i can the whole thing with just straight through and crossover cat 5

mikespranger

do i need to connect to my isp?

or can i start right from my computer ( i added a second ethernet port) to switch one and on from there?

danstar

This makes us even. LOL, these seniors on techexams are doing a great job.

oli356

You don't NEED to connect to your ISP, some people do but I never did. You don't NEED to connect to your PC either, you could do for connectivity tests but again, its not needed. Of course you need the console cable

So your basically struggling on what to actually do with the equipment, how to cable it etc? I normally keep my switches and routers separately, at least I did for ICND2. So for routing protocols I would simply connect my routers in a line R1--R2--R3--R4 .

With the switches I would make a triangle loop out of them (using 3 switches). The other 2 I would personally connect to R1 or R4 or just use them to create more loops in the L2 network.

So something like this, http://i.imgur.com/AyI8br9.png . Got to love the quick drawing

There's no right or wrong way to do things, I just do things like this because of find it simple.
I could have R1--S1--R2--R3--S3--R4 but that would just confuse me and I wouldn't see the point.

mikespranger

thanks - i think i was getting tripped up on connecting to the internet
i did end up connecting to my computer
it goes computer-switch, and all 5 switches are connected to each other, with 4 of the five switches connected to a router

few more quick questions - does it matter if the computer is hooked directly to a switch or a router? advantages or disadvantages to either?

also, with the routers - one of the books i read confused me about the WIC cards, saying they were for facing out to the internet, and only my ethernet port (1760 only has one) going back in to my network

why would i need more than one port facing the internet? did i read it wrong?

oli356

In a lab scenario, no it doesn't really matter if your PC is directly connected to the router. It really does depend on what you're doing though.
Once you start learning about topics you should be able to think of topologies and what you want to test. The advantage of having a home lab is that you can easily change the topology, my equipment is in the office 8 miles away from my house. I can't exactly simply unplug a cable.

Hmm, I'm not entirely sure to be honest. I used WIC-1Ts which use serial cable CSU/DSU. These connected router to router and then the RJ45 ethernet ports on the routers connected to switches (or routers acting as hosts).

mikespranger

i tried to loosely copy the config that they had set up in the INE videos and i've now wasted 5 hours.

i re-did all the cables, i tried other ports, i messed it around 80 different ways

i have since tried simplifying things, and just have the 5 switches hooked up to each other.
BUT switch 1 can ping switches 2-5, and 2-5 can all ping each other, but none of them can ping switch 1

i know i must be missing something easy, please someone end my misery

oli356

Without seeing the configs and how the switches are connected I doubt anyone can help

mikespranger

Sorry, thought that was insignificant.
There's not much to it, switch one is 192.168.0.1, switch 2 is 192.168.0.2 and so on. I've got a basic crossover cable from the f0/1 of switch 1 to f0/2 of switch 2. Next crossover goes from f0/1 on switch 2 to f 0/2 on switch 3 and so on.
I had switch 5 connected back to switch 1 but got an amber port so removed it

oli356

If the configuration is as simple as 5 switches in a line with the address from 192.168.0.1 - 0.5 and there are problems - weird.
Make sure all of the links are trunks.

If that doesn't work.. wr er, reload and try again or something

mikespranger

Thanks- ill try that. I thought trunking only mattered if I was running multiple vlans- mine are all vlan 1

oli356

Generally yes but get into habit of setting them as trunk links anyway, or you spend an hour troubleshooting to find out it was that

I assume a show ip int b shows everything as up | up as well?

mikespranger

Yes, everything is up.
I was running switchport mode access.

instant000

You said that you went from 1, to 2, to 3, to 4, to 5, then tried to link from 5 to 1

the reason the one from 5 to 1 went amber was more than likely 'cause of spanning tree .... Have you looked at spanning tree yet?

Hope this helps.

mikespranger

went back through and did the "switchport mode d d" command on all interfaces
still showing a few as static access for operational mode, even though for administrative mode they say dynamic desirable
i am getting that on sw2 f0/1-sw3 f0/2
also had it on the connection back from switch 5 to switch 1, but i disconnected that b/c i didn't know if that cable should even be there
still cant ping switch 1 - seems weird since it has one port connected, and it shows trunking. i can ping FROM switch 1 to all other switches no problem

mikespranger

just saw the info about spanning tree- was sorta wondering about that. figured it was easier to unplug that cable than learn spanning tree and trunking all at once

also to update the last post. i went back in and did a "switchport mode trunk" command to get the other two interfaces into trunk mode, then ran the "switchport mode d d" command so they'd all be the same.

now all 8 of my ports show trunking and i can't ping 192.168.0.1 from switches 2-5 still

instant000

1. Are all those ip's in the same VLAN, or not?
2. If they're not in the same VLAN, you'll need some type of routing to get between them.


EDIT: I ask 'cause I'm somehow thinking that the IP that switch1 is pinging from isn't necessarily the same one you're trying to ping to when you try to reach it, for whatever reason.

Also, if you could paste the configs of the SWITCHES between "code" tags, that'd be awesome.

mikespranger

they go
192.168.0.1 255.255.255.0
192.168.0.2 255.255.255.0
192.168.0.3 255.255.255.0
192.168.0.4 255.255.255.0
192.168.0.5 255.255.255.0

if it helps, I earlier had the 4 routers hooked up to port 18 in switch #'s 1,2,4+5, as well as a pc - they went 192.168.0.6-10 and everything could ping each other except 1 could ping 2-5 and no one could ping 1

mikespranger

ding ding ding!!!
when i set up switch 1 a week ago - i used 192.168.1.5!
could have sworn i went back in and re-numbered them all

now its on to the chapter on spanning tree so i can get 5 connected back to 1, then i'll add the routers
thanks everyone

instant000

It has to be something non-obvious. I believe that we have an idea of how they're connected.
port 1 of switch 1 connects to port 2 of switch 2
port 1 of switch 2 connect to port 2 of switch 3
port 1 of switch 3 connects to port 2 of switch 4
port 1 of switch 4 connects to port 2 of switch 5

However, full configurations of the switches would provide a better idea of how they're configured. (which VLANs these things are in, etc.) Feel free to edit out any passwords.

Thanks.

instant000

Hah.

You caught the mistake, it was an ip address numbering issue.

Good that you found this. It's simple mistakes like this that can provide the valuable lesson of "check everything" and "assume nothing".

Hope this helps!

mikespranger

as soon as you said "EDIT: I ask 'cause I'm somehow thinking that the IP that switch1 is pinging from isn't necessarily the same one you're trying to ping to when you try to reach it, for whatever reason." i knew it

thanks again