Help setting up my home lab

Hey! I am just starting out to get my CCNA. My background is desktop support and system admin so I am a little familiar with networks just not in detail. I have taken a foundation lab course and have fallen in love with learning networking!

I came across so old routers at a friends company that they just gave me and wondering if I can use them to setup a basic home lab to study with.

4- 2610 routers
1- 1700 router
1- 1900 switch

From what I have read on here i think the 2600s will work but just wonder about being able to do everything with them. 3 of the routers have WIC 1DSU 56k cards in them and one has a WIC 1DSU T1 card. Is this enough to play around with frame relay and other reqs for CCNA.

Thanks in advance for your help

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Comments

odysseyelite

Thats a good start if you did not have to shell out any cash for them. I started off with some old 2500's to get the feel down and doing the basic connect 3 routers using RIP.

The 2600's that most talk about here are the XM series. They are able to run 12.4 IOS with the right about of ram.

You can connect the routers you have with the 56k T1 cards and making a T1 crossover cable like this:
T1 Crossover Cable, Loopback Plug - Fonality Knowledge Base

You will need some newer switches. Keep an eye on Ebay for some 2950's. You can get them around 35 bucks plus shipping.

As you go pick up some newer equipment when you can. It becomes addicting to buy equipment as you will see on the board.

I have to say having a lab is worth the money invested. I never liked packet tracer. I spent this weekend updating my routers and switches and messed up putting the IOS on. Took me some time to get it working. I would have never gotten that knowelge by just dragging and dropping icons on a screen.

brad-

Lightfoot00 wrote: »

From what I have read on here i think the 2600s will work but just wonder about being able to do everything with them.

Need a little more info on the model and how much RAM/ROM they have. I'm pretty much in the same boat as you, and I found out that you need run cisco's IOS version 12.4 to be able to install and run the SDM (gui management). If your 2600's are 2610 XM or 2620 XM models with additional memory, then they will be great. If not, you wont be able to use the SDM.

HTH

alan2308

The 1900 is not of much use. It doesn't actually run IOS, and the commands are only close enough to cause you no end of frustration. Though if you already have it and it was free, you can use it as a 3rd or 4th switch. You'll want a couple of 2950's minimum.

As far as the routers, you're good on actual routers, but you'll need some more modules. The 56k cards aren't really of any use, so get some more WIC-DSU-T1 cards or WIC-1T or 2T modules.

The 2600's can do just about everything except for SDM, but the 1700 might, depending on exactly which 1700 it is. Either way, you can always run the SDM simulator, that should be good enough. The CCNA doesn't get deep enough into SDM to justify buying another router if that's all you're buying it for.

Lightfoot00

Well I am glad the routers I have can at least be used to start out. I have copied the info from one router that I have plugged in to make sure it works:

Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software
IOS (tm) C2600 Software (C2600-I-M), Version 12.1(1)T, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)
Copyright (c) 1986-2000 by cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Fri 17-Mar-00 02:54 by ccai
Image text-base: 0x80008088, data-base: 0x808280D8
cisco 2610 (MPC860) processor (revision 0x202) with 20480K/4096K bytes of memory
.
Processor board ID JAB0247057S (210127010

M860 processor: part number 0, mask 49
Bridging software.
X.25 software, Version 3.0.0.
1 Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 interface(s)
1 Serial network interface(s)
32K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.
16384K bytes of processor board System flash (Read/Write)

From what I know of(remember I am a newbie with routers) looks like the IOS is 12.1 running on here and 20480K/4096K RAM/ROM? Right? So it would be best to buy some 1T or 2T cards to go along with the WIC 1DSU T1? I didnt think they were XM's cause of the amount of RAM.

Jollycork

Lightfoot00 wrote: »

Well I am glad the routers I have can at least be used to start out. I have copied the info from one router that I have plugged in to make sure it works:

Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software
IOS (tm) C2600 Software (C2600-I-M), Version 12.1(1)T, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)
Copyright (c) 1986-2000 by cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Fri 17-Mar-00 02:54 by ccai
Image text-base: 0x80008088, data-base: 0x808280D8
cisco 2610 (MPC860) processor (revision 0x202) with 20480K/4096K bytes of memory
.
Processor board ID JAB0247057S (210127010
M860 processor: part number 0, mask 49
Bridging software.
X.25 software, Version 3.0.0.
1 Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 interface(s)
1 Serial network interface(s)
32K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.
16384K bytes of processor board System flash (Read/Write)

From what I know of(remember I am a newbie with routers) looks like the IOS is 12.1 running on here and 20480K/4096K RAM/ROM? Right? So it would be best to buy some 1T or 2T cards to go along with the WIC 1DSU T1? I didnt think they were XM's cause of the amount of RAM.

and all this is in the CCENT study guides. what is DRAM, what is flash, how to tell how much is what, what IOS version etc....

When I was a noobie and still am in many respects, I was unsure of myself, but armed with the study guides, and some practice, you'll end up not being unsure....

Best to do rather than be done for you and not know how...