In this video, I'm going to show you how to download and install Cisco Packet Tracer on a laptop.
In this example, I've got a Windows 10 laptop which I'm controlling from my Mac that just makes it easier
to do the recordings but I'm going to show you how to download and install Cisco Packet Tracer on this
laptop.
Now why would you want to use Cisco Packet Tracer Cisco Packet Tracer is firstly free you can download
it by simply registering for a course on Cisco's website.
You don't have to pay for the course you don't actually have to take the course.
You simply need to register on Cisco's website and then you'll be able to download Cisco Packet Tracer
for free.
So it's free software that you can run on your laptop it allows you to simulate quite complex Cisco
topologies these days. So you can run Cisco routers and switches, you can run servers, you can run PCs
you can create fairly complex topologies. If you're studying for your CCNA as an example Cisco Packet Tracer
is enough to pass the CCNA.
It's not perfect.
It's a simulator rather than an emulator so it doesn't fully simulate the Cisco IOS but it has enough
in it to give you a good foundation in networking and a good understanding of the topics for the CCNA
exam.
So if you're new to networking if you're new to Cisco I'd recommend that you start with Cisco packet
tracer and then later on you can look at technologies or applications such as GNS3, Cisco VIRL, and
EVE-NG.
Okay.
Without further ado let me show you how to build a packet tracer lab.
So the first thing I'm going to do is simply search for Cisco packet tracer and Google first hit is the
Cisco Networking Academy.
Now they've recently changed the login process on the Cisco network Academy Web site.
In the past, you had a dedicated email address for this Web site.
Now it uses your Cisco.com login and we're told that here to login if you have an existing
Cisco.com account use that email and password and login if not use your NetAcad email and
password to log in.
Now if you don't have an account scroll down and click enroll to download Packet Tracer.
This course is an introduction to Cisco Packet Tracer.
It's a good course but you don't have to go through it.
It's 10 hours in length.
It is free.
But again you don't have to go through it if you don't want to go to sign up today and select English
as your language and then put in your details such as your first name your last name and your email
address.
This e-mail address has to be valid because they will email you a link which you have to click on to
complete the enrollment process.
So we're told that we need to check our e-mail and click on the Get Started link to access your account.
Okay.
So here's my email from the Cisco Networking Academy I'm going to click activate account you now need
to fill in your details.
Now one of the pieces of advice that I'll give you is if you don't work for a company set the
company name to self as in self-employed.
So specify your country, specify your password, decide whether you want to get email notifications or
not put the capture information in and then click register. Now you can sign in with your email address
specify your password and click sign in.
Now we're told that they were excited to have us join them.
But we need to fill in some more details.
So as an example, specify your gender, specify your state, specify how many years of experience you have
in I.T. or networking, specify if you have a disability, specify your birth date. So they ask for quite
a bit of information here. Specify your race if you want to I'm going to choose not to disclose that
specify whether you served in the military and click Create Account. Okay so now that you've done that
you can launch the course if you want to.
I'm not going to do that.
I'm gonna go to resources download Packet Tracer.
Now just an interruption, since I recorded that video Cisco have updated the version of Cisco Packet
Tracer available on their website.
So when you go to resources download Packet Tracer at the time of this recording version 7.3.0 is
now available.
This is the recommended version for CCNA 7 which is essentially the new Cisco CCNA 200-301
or one so it's recommended that you use at least this version of Cisco Packet Tracer.
But let me warn you if you see a newer version of Cisco Packet Tracer than 7.3.0 I'd recommend
getting the newest release of Cisco Packet Tracer. In the videos that I've created, I've actually used
7.2.2 for some of the packet tracer labs.
But for some of them, I've used 7.3 the recommendation for the current CCNA is to get at
least 7.3.0
But if you see a new row release like 7.3.1 or 7.4 or 7.5 then get
that release get the newest version of Cisco packet tracer and install that on your computer.
The reason for this is newer versions are backward compatible.
So you'll be able to open older versions of packet tracer labs but you won't be able to open newer
versions of packet tracer labs.
So if you download an older version of Cisco packet tracer you won't be able to open a lab that was
created in the newer version of Cisco packet tracer.
So in this example, because I'm using Windows I'm going to download version 7.3.0 0 64 bit and save
that to my local computer.
In this example once again I'm using Windows 10 on that laptop.
It's a 64 bit version of Windows.
So I'm going to download the 64-bit version of packet tracer. If you've got an older version of Windows
you may need to download the 32 bit version.
But most people today will be using 64 bit Windows package tracer's also supported on Linux.
It's also supported on Mac OS.
So if you've got a Linux operating system then download the Linux version or the Mac version if you've
got a Mac.
Okay so a packet tracer has now downloaded I'm going to show the following folder so here's my executable
file packet tracer is a simple application to install.
It's like a lot of Windows applications.
I'm going to double click on the executable that was downloaded.
Windows complains that I've downloaded this from the Internet.
I'm going to click install anyway.
I'm going to click yes to allow the app to make changes to my device and now the packet tracer installation
wizard displays.
You need to accept the license agreement so read through the license agreement and click I accept the
agreement.
If you accept. I am going to click next.
You can change the default installation folder.
I'm going to use the default and click next.
You can change menu options and other options.
But basically I'm just going with the default so I'm going to click next. You can select which shortcuts
you want to create.
I'm going to select both options and click next and then I'm going to click install and as you can see
now Packet Tracer installs very simple installation.
And this is one of the reasons why I suggest you use Cisco packet tracer if you're new to networking because
it's very easy to get up and running
using Cisco Packet Tracer. Other software like GNS3, EVE-NG and Cisco VIRL, are a lot more complicated.
There is a cost associated to using those applications because you need to get Cisco images but here
packet tracer has everything built-in installation has completed.
I'm going to allow it to start and I'm going to click finish and there you go.
Cisco packet tracer has installed and is now starting up.
Now when it boots up you have to enter your username or email address that you've registered with.
On the NetAcad website or on the Cisco Web site.
So I'm gonna log in with my username I'll enter my password and click sign in.
You can start packet tracer up without entering these details but it will be very restricted.
Highly recommended that you just log in with the credentials that you created on the NetAcad web
site and there you go.
I've got Cisco packet tracer installed.
Now I'm gonna show you some tips and tricks in a separate video.
There's certain things in packet tracer that I'd recommend that you do, just in brief however notice
we have network devices such as routers.
These are a whole bunch of routers.
I will discuss what routers are in a separate video.
So if you don't know what that is.
Don't worry.
For the moment we've also got a whole bunch of switches.
We've also got hubs, we've got wireless devices and we've got firewalls again.
Don't worry if you don't know what these devices are.
We've got different end devices such as PC. laptops and servers.
We've got some components that we can use.
We've got network connections such as a copper straight through cable.
Basically in packet tracer we would select a device so as an example I could select this router and
then paste it into my topology area.
I could then select a PC. and click here to add it to my topology and then I could connect those devices
together using Ethernet connections.
Don't worry if you don't know what all of that means.
I'm going to discuss that in more detail later.
For the moment I just wanted you to get Cisco packet tracer installed.
One thing I will point out is that if you do create a topology and you exit packet tracer it will ask
you to save your changes.
Make sure that you click a yes.
If you want to save your topology or save any changes that you've made so I'll save this as a test topology
on my desktop and click save.
And as you can see there a packet tracer topology has been created.
If I double click on that packet tracer will be opened and my topology will be restored you'll learn
a lot about packet tracer as you go through the course.
One of my recommendations is if you are new to Cisco packet tracer and you struggle when you log in
to the NetAcad website, they have this introduction to packet tracer course. Highly recommend that
you go through this course.
If you're struggling with packet tracer, if you're not sure how to use the features of packet tracer
then go through this course
It's a very good course.
It doesn't make sense for me to recreate this course.
Cisco created this course really good teaching you the foundations of packet tracer.
So if you struggling to use packet tracer once again go through this introduction to packet tracer
course. Okay so hopefully at this point you've got packet tracer downloaded and installed.
Please do that as soon as you can.
Because in the course I'm going to be using packet tracer to demonstrate a whole bunch of stuff and
you will learn a lot more by doing stuff yourself.
So please download it and install it.