Home Lab setup but no Internet Connection?

Afternoon,

studying for the ICND2, i cannot connect my internet to my lab set up because it's not possible. How would i get around this? can i simulate an internet connection? Can i make the router think that one of its interface has an internet connection when infact it doesnt?

What do you people do without an internet connection to their labs at home?

Many thanks

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Comments

Hondabuff

You have to set your Cisco lab to NAT to your home Comcast or Fios Router.

Router>en
Router#conf t
Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z
Router(config)#ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 "Sets default route to your home router"
Router(config)#int fa0/0
Router(config-if)#ip nat inside "sets the 0/0 as inside NAT"
Router(config-if)#int fa0/1
Router(config-if)#ip nat outside "sets 0/1 as outside NAT"
Router(config)#access-list 1 permit 192.168.1.0 0.0.0.255 "permits this range in the access list"
Router(config)#ip nat inside source list 1 interface fa0/1 overload "converts 0/0 to use 0/1 by NAT Rules"

Beany

What's a comcast or Fios Router?

I've not covered some of the commands above so can you please briefly explain to me what each command above does? I'll understand it better when implementing it. Thanks

JeanM

Explain this part "i cannot connect my internet to my lab set up because it's not possible." Are you saying that you physically can't connect your lab to your internet provider for a specific reason or what?

Comcast is provider, like AT&T, Surewest etc etc.

Beany

i cannot physically connect my lab to my internet provider.

theodoxa

Comcast and FiOS are Cable Internet Providers. Substitute whoever your ISP is.

The problem with getting a home lab to connect to the internet [through your home network] is that most home routers don't support any kind of routing beyond a single a default route [which points to your ISP] and a Connected route for devices connected directly to the router and those that do only support static routing which half the time doesn't work right. The best solution is to simply set up NAT on the router connected to your home network. This will translate your lab's IP Addresses to an IP Address or multiple IP Addresses on the subnet connected to your home router [which your router has a connected route to.]

You can configure NAT in IOS [as someone else posted] or you can use SDM (GUI) if you can actually get SDM to work right. Configuring NAT in IOS is an ICND2 (CCNA) topic. Configuring NAT in SDM is an ICND1 (topic, though SDM has been dropped in the new ICND1.

theodoxa

Alternatively, you can use one of your lab routers as your home router. The main issue with this is that unless you're using slow DSL, this will likely slow down your internet connection as most Lab Routers are older [and made for slower T1 connections] and can't keep up current internet speeds. I have Comcast and my connection speed tests from 68 to 102 Mbps Downstream depending on the time of day. Even my 2821 ISR Router has a max throughput of only 87 Mbps [under perfect conditions] according to Cisco's Website.

pamccabe

You don't necessarily need an internet connection for a home lab. Just setup your equipment and console into your router or switch with an emulator, such as Teraterm. Depending on your equipment, you can assign IPs, create VLANs, ACLs, routing, static routes... everything a growing CCENT needs to survive. You will still be able to lab and see troubleshoot.

iamme4eva

theodoxa wrote: »

I have Comcast and my connection speed tests from 68 to 102 Mbps Downstream depending on the time of day.

Wow. You should try living in England. I'm lucky to see 4 Mbps down. It's awful!

As the guys said, use NAT. Come off a switchport on your normal internet router, take an IP address from the range it usually assigns, and NAT to it from a private network.

Although, as pamccabe said, it's not necessary. I've done it, just to prove I can, but I don't leave it connected. If I actually wanted to run PC's through my lab it runs ridiculously slow...running through old routers with NAT, it limited me to about 1Mbps.

bbarrick

That's about what it is here in the US for the more rural parts of the country. I didn't even know 68 - 102 was even possible, I think the highest I've ever seen was like 10 or so.

Beany

pamccabe wrote: »

You don't necessarily need an internet connection for a home lab. Just setup your equipment and console into your router or switch with an emulator, such as Teraterm. Depending on your equipment, you can assign IPs, create VLANs, ACLs, routing, static routes... everything a growing CCENT needs to survive. You will still be able to lab and see troubleshoot.

I'm studying for the ICND2, got my CCENT. Got my home lab set up but have no internet connection available to be connected to my home lab. So I was looking for a solution something like making one of my routers think that one of the their interface can provide a internet connection..

Corndork2

What do you actually need to connect your lab to the Public Internet for?

If you only want remote access to the console of the devices you could consider buying a Western Telematics Remote Site Manager, or some other Console Server. That server would sit on your home network and allow connectivity to your console ports remotely.

If you want internet access through your lab, connect it to a switchport on your home network, and set up NAT. You'll be "double NAT'd" but thats OK for this application.

Corndork2

Sorry didnt read your previous post -- You dont need internet connectivity for the lab if you dont have it. You can still lab/sim all the topics on the CCNA without a public internet connection

Priston

Have you tried using a loopback interface?

MAC_Addy

Beany wrote: »

i cannot physically connect my lab to my internet provider.

Who's your ISP? Alternatively you can use powerline networking if your lab is too far away. I just recently moved houses and couldn't physically connect mine either. So I bought the powerline network device and it works great. Though, like others have said, you don't necessarily need an internet connection to cover the topics.

theodoxa

bbarrick wrote: »

That's about what it is here in the US for the more rural parts of the country. I didn't even know 68 - 102 was even possible, I think the highest I've ever seen was like 10 or so.

Comcast goes up to 105 for Home Internet and I believe 150 for Business. Google not too long back was talking about bringing 1 Gbps Internet to a single city [to be determined]. A city in Kansas even changed its name to Google to try to get selected. They currently offer it in Kansas City, KS/MO and Provo, UT.

https://fiber.google.com/about/

IIRC, that speed is largely pointless [for now] since very few servers [that you'd be downloading from] can actually keep up.

PCSPreston

I have Comcast internet and I can setup a RV4000 with RIP v2 and then a 1841 with Router rip v2 and that works just fine. You will need to setup a DHCP pool and then go from there.