What IOS to use?

I have finally got my hands on, and set up a small CCNA lab at home. However, it seems that there are some commands missing. The routers I have are a 2612, 2620 and a 2620XM. All routers only have 32 MB DRAM, exept the XM that might have 48 I can't remember.

I have got the IP (c2600-i-mz.123-26.bin DRAM 32 / 8 MB ) image but havent installed it yet, currently got an earlier one installed, will hopefully install this tonight in all routers. Will this give me all I need or will I need to upgrade the memory and get IP Plus or Enterprise Basic or something?

I've got plenty of experience opening up and pulling apart PC's but never opened up a router. If I need to upgrade the memory, is there anything I need to know to do this? Will the router recognise the new memory or will I need to configure something?

Sorry, there are quite a few questions here but any help will be appreciated.

Cheers.

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Comments

jbrad95706

wbosher wrote: »

I have finally got my hands on, and set up a small CCNA lab at home. However, it seems that there are some commands missing. The routers I have are a 2612, 2620 and a 2620XM. All routers only have 32 MB DRAM, exept the XM that might have 48 I can't remember.

I have got the IP (c2600-i-mz.123-26.bin DRAM 32 / 8 MB ) image but havent installed it yet, currently got an earlier one installed, will hopefully install this tonight in all routers. Will this give me all I need or will I need to upgrade the memory and get IP Plus or Enterprise Basic or something?

I've got plenty of experience opening up and pulling apart PC's but never opened up a router. If I need to upgrade the memory, is there anything I need to know to do this? Will the router recognise the new memory or will I need to configure something?

Sorry, there are quite a few questions here but any help will be appreciated.

Cheers.

This link helped me a lot with IOS / feature questions Cisco Feature Navigator - Cisco Systems

As far as ram goes, I don't know about other routers, but when I had to pop the case on my 2520... well, there was nothing in it. It looked like the most stripped down version of a motherboard you could imagine, with a few banks. Cisco has diagrams for each one if you poke around on their site, but if your routers are anything like the 2520 - you wont need them.

beef1218

I think this IOS is enough for you to do what you need with the CCNA. However, you will need to upgrade your RAM/flash for your 2620XM if you wanna use the newest IOS.

Make sure you backup your current IOS before you erase your flash.

I never upgraded any RAM/flash, so I can't answer your other question.

tiersten

wbosher wrote: »

However, it seems that there are some commands missing.

It is most likely because the IOS version you listed is 12.3 which is old.

wbosher wrote: »

Will this give me all I need or will I need to upgrade the memory and get IP Plus or Enterprise Basic or something?

IP Base should cover everything you need but don't quote me on that one...

wbosher wrote: »

I've got plenty of experience opening up and pulling apart PC's but never opened up a router. If I need to upgrade the memory, is there anything I need to know to do this? Will the router recognise the new memory or will I need to configure something?

The 2600 routers you have take 100MHz EDO memory and max out at 2x32MB.
The 2600XM routers you have take 125MHz SDRAM memory and max out at 2x64MB or 2x128MB if you have the 12.2(8r) boot ROM.

If you don't have that particular type of ancient PC memory lying around, you'll have to buy it from somewhere. eBay usually has lots of it available but it'll probably be fairly expensive.

Read this installation guide. If you can fit PC memory then you can fit 2600 memory. You don't need to configure anything for it to detect the new memory.

IOS is kept on a flash SIMM inside the router which may also be upgraded for greater storage capacity.

Other series routers will use different types of RAM and flash in most cases.

Newer versions of IOS and higher IOS featuresets will generally require more memory and flash. Officially, the latest version of IOS supported on a 2600 is 12.3 but it may run small versions of 12.4 from a 2600XM. It isn't supported and is very likely to crash due to lack of memory. The 2600XM however will run earlier versions of 12.4T if you have sufficient RAM and flash installed.

jovan88

From experience, I have four 2621XMs, I upgraded them to 48F/256D, but in order for it to see the memory I had to replace the bootrom. You need some wacky tool that looks like tweezers to pull it out.

The Cisco website was my best friend when I did the upgrade.

captobvious

Upgrading System Memory, Internal Flash, and Boot ROM in Cisco 2600 Series Routers

wbosher

Thanks for all the replies. I had a play last night and I will need to upgrade the IOS to IP Plus, missing commands like encapsulation, which I'm sure you'll all agree is pretty important for CCNA.

I currently have 32MB of memory in each of my routers and will need to upgrade it to at least 40 - 48MB (preferably 64MB) to get a version of IP Plus. Replacing the memory is no problem at all, but how do I know if I will need to replace the boot ROM? What does it do?

tiersten

wbosher wrote: »

Replacing the memory is no problem at all, but how do I know if I will need to replace the boot ROM? What does it do?

If you want to use 128MB memory modules in a 2600XM then you'll need the updated boot ROM. > 128MB memory is required for 12.4T operation.

wbosher

I don't think I'll need the latest IOS for CCNA, some of the older IP Base images seem to include everything I'll need, I think.

It looks like I can actually use the same image for both of the 2620 routers, 12.3.26(GD) IP Plus only needs 64MB and seems to have everything. For the 2612 I'm thinking 12.3.26(GD) Enterprise Basic because it doesn't seem to support IP Base on this model, this also appears to have everything I need.

What do you think? Just upgrading from 32 to 64MB, will that require an updated boot ROM?

tiersten

wbosher wrote: »

It looks like I can actually use the same image for both of the 2620 routers, 12.3.26(GD) IP Plus only needs 64MB and seems to have everything. For the 2612 I'm thinking 12.3.26(GD) Enterprise Basic because it doesn't seem to support IP Base on this model, this also appears to have everything I need.

All 2600 images can be used on all 2600 routers assuming they have enough flash to store the image and enough memory to boot it. IP Base can be used on everything because that is the small featureset available.

A 2600XM is actually an upgraded version of a regular 2600. The basic architecture is the same which is why you can run certain 2600XM images on a 2600.

wbosher wrote: »

What do you think? Just upgrading from 32 to 64MB, will that require an updated boot ROM?

It is only for 2600XM routers and only if you want to use 128MB memory modules...

wbosher

Thanks for that. So just to confirm...

2620 and 2620XM - 12.3.26(GD) IP Plus (c2600-is-mz.123-26.bin) shoud be fine.
2612 - 12.3.26(GD) Enterprise Basic (c2600-j1s3-mz.123-26.bin) shoud be fine.

All of the above upgrades will require no further work other than installing the memory modules.

tiersten

wbosher wrote: »

Thanks for that. So just to confirm...

2620 and 2620XM - 12.3.26(GD) IP Plus (c2600-is-mz.123-26.bin) shoud be fine.
2612 - 12.3.26(GD) Enterprise Basic (c2600-j1s3-mz.123-26.bin) shoud be fine.

All of the above upgrades will require no further work other than installing the memory modules.

Use IP Plus. You don't need the additional protocols that Enterprise supports.

wbosher

tiersten wrote: »

Use IP Plus. You don't need the additional protocols that Enterprise supports.

If only it were that simple.

The two 2620 model can use IP Plus ok but the 2612 doesn't appear to support IP Plus according to the cisco website. It has several variations on IP Plus below.

IP/IPX/AT/FW/IDS PLUS BASIC
c2600-bino3s3-mz.123-26.bin
Release Date: 18/Mar/2008
Size: 15087.29 KB (15449376 bytes)
Minimum Memory: DRAM:64 MB Flash:16 MB

IP/FW/IDS PLUS IPSEC 3DES BASIC
c2600-ik9o3s3-mz.123-26.bin
Release Date: 18/Mar/2008
Size: 15706.82 KB (16083780 bytes)
Minimum Memory: DRAM:64 MB Flash:16 MB

IP/H323 PLUS BASIC
c2600-is3x-mz.123-26.bin
Release Date: 18/Mar/2008
Size: 14686.16 KB (15038624 bytes)
Minimum Memory: DRAM:64 MB Flash:16 MB

IP PLUS BASIC W/O SWITCHING
c2600-is4-mz.123-26.bin
Release Date: 18/Mar/2008
Size: 15857.36 KB (16237928 bytes)
Minimum Memory: DRAM:64 MB Flash:16 MB

IP PLUS BASIC W/O HD ANALOG/AIM ATM/VOICE
c2600-is5-mz.123-26.bin
Release Date: 18/Mar/2008
Size: 15150.63 KB (15514236 bytes)
Minimum Memory: DRAM:64 MB Flash:16 MB

Which one would be closest to the regular IP Plus?? I'm just guessing, but would it be IP PLUS BASIC W/O SWITCHING ?

tiersten

I already said that it does support it.

wbosher

So even though there is no mention of IP Plus for the 2612 on the Cisco IOS download page (although there are a lot of IP Plus variants), the same IP Plus that I install on the 2620 models will work with no problems on the 2612?

Sorry if these questions seem silly, I just don't want to mess it up.

tiersten

wbosher wrote: »

So even though there is no mention of IP Plus for the 2612 on the Cisco IOS download page (although there are a lot of IP Plus variants), the same IP Plus that I install on the 2620 models will work with no problems on the 2612?

Sorry if these questions seem silly, I just don't want to mess it up.

It should work. You won't damage anything by doing it. If you do have access to downloads on CCO then you getting something like IP PLUS + FW would be beneficial.

Not seen many 2612s though because that token ring port isn't popular.

wbosher

Yeah, the 2612 isn't that great, but a free router is a free router.

Thanks for all your help.

jbrad95706

wbosher wrote: »

If only it were that simple.

This ^

I was trying to figure this out for one of the switches I have - I ended up just grabbing a random one.

If I find out that it can't do what I need I'll grab another, but it seems to do everything I need at the moment.

wbosher

Yeah, switches are much easier for me because I can download the IOS from Cisco myself. I can't do that with routers, I need to get someone to do it for me. I don't want to ask someone to get me an image only to find that it doesn't work and then have to keep bugging him to download another one until I get the right one. This is why I want to make sure I get the right one first time.