Now, for this demonstration, I'm no longer gonna use this old Toshiba laptop.
Very few laptops today have built in serial ports.
So I'm gonna demonstrate how to connect to a Cisco router and two Cisco switches over there using
this more modern ASUS laptop.
I'm going to show you two ways to connect to the devices.
First method is using this USB to RJ45 rollover cable.
So, I'm gonna connect this to one of the ports on this laptop connect that to one of the devices let's
say a switch and then I'm going to show you how to use two USB cables to connect to the router and to
the switch.
So much easier with a USB cable.
So this device is actually gonna have three console connections.
Please note once again that this laptop does not have Ethernet ports on it.
You do not connect a console cable to an Ethernet port on a laptop.
This is using a serial or USB connection to the router or a switch not an Ethernet port.
This laptop only supports Wi-Fi.
It has no Ethernet ports.
I'm not gonna use Ethernet on the laptop once again, please forgive me for emphasizing this, I've just
seen too many people and heard too many horror stories of people blowing their console ports on their
routers and switches because they connect to the Ethernet port on a laptop or PC please don't do that
use either a USB or a USB to console connect to like this, Okay
So the first thing I need to do is power up the devices.
So I'm gonna plug in the power on the router, powered on
switches like these used what's called a kettle lead in the U.K., so a connection like this.
This will depend on which country you're in.
So the US will be slightly different, but basically I need to just plug in the power of these devices
and as you can see they booting up.
okay,
So the next thing I need to do is connect the USB console cable to the PC and then, I'll connect it
to the console of one of the switches.
So I've got USB to console, USB cables are a lot simpler than that.
All I need to do is connect
USB to USB on the device much simpler or again USB
to USB on the router.
So what I've got is USB on the router, console cable in one switch, USB on the one switch.
And I've got three connections on the laptop now.
I'll plug these out and demonstrate them individually so that you can see how we can work out which
devices, which basically what happens is we see that device as a additional device on the laptop.
So I'll do this individually so that you can see how I do it.
One by one.
But that's sort of the idea.
So I've turned on the Cisco router it's making a bit of noise but hopefully it won't disturb the video
too much.
So I am now going to connect the Windows laptops console connection to one of the switches just to show
you the full process, I'm remotely controlling that Windows laptop from my MAC here.
It just makes it easier with the recordings but I'm physically working on that laptop, Okay.
So, hopefully not too noisy, what I'm going to do now is connect the console port to the USB connection
of the laptop so hopefully you can see that clearly, I've now connected USB to laptop and the next step
is to connect to the console of the switch.
So hopefully you can see that console connection to the switch, USB on a laptop over there so
USB laptop console switch.
Got my first device connected let's set up the laptop now so that we can actually configure the device
and to do that I'm going to use PuTTY, PuTTY is what we're going to use to connect to the device, Okay.
The Cisco router has quietened down quite a bit now.
Took a while, made a bit of noise but once it did it successfully booted up it quietened down.
What I now need to do is download a terminal emulation program so, I've physically connected the laptop
to the switch.
But I need a terminal emulation program to connect to the console port, so in my browser I'm going to simply
look for PuTTY.
This is free software that you can download.
So the first hit in Google, I'm going to go to download stable release so greenend.org.uk in
my example I want to download the 64bit exe
I'm not going to download an MSI installer, I'm simply going to download a 64bit exe, so generally, that's
the software that you want if you're using Windows.
If you're using a Windows computer this is the terminal emulation software that I suggest you use, free
software used by millions of people around the world.
If you've got a MAC you've got a built-in console or terminal application and the same on Linux but
on windows this is probably the easiest.
So that's now downloaded, it's a simple exe file that you download and I'm gonna double click on that
Windows is complaining but I'm going to install this anyway and run it.
And notice we told that we could use Telnet as an example we could use SSH.
But what we want to use is a serial interface so which serial port do we use.
So to find that right click on windows start.
Go to device manager go to Port (Com and LPT) and what you'll see is we've got a USB to serial port here
now.
If you're using a converter like this they generally come with some installation software or you have
to download it.
So really old way of doing it we've got a CD ROM here.
You'd have to install the driver software on your laptop to get that working.
Follow the instructions that you get with the converter
I mean the instructions are fairly simple.
It's basically telling us that we need to install the drivers to be able to use this.
So make sure that you have your drivers installed.
Generally, you get the drivers if it's a reputable vendor such as this or you can download them.
In my experience the cheap stuff often causes problems.
Fortunately today we have USB connections on the Cisco devices which makes it a lot easier.
So you don't have to mess around with us but notice the computer's COM7.
So in PuTTY, I need to set this to com seven leave everything.
I'll set the defaults so 9600 bits per second as an example click open.
And what we should have when I press enter now is a connection to the switch.
And there you go.
I've got a connection to the device.
Now this is known as user mode and I typed enable to go to privilege mode.
The switch already has a configuration on it.
If I log right out you would see something like this.
And we would be asked to press return to get started.
And when I press into or return, I see what's called a user-mode or user prompt if I use question marks
I just type question mark there.
I see a list of available commands on the device.
If I press enter it shows me one more available command so I notice more here.
If I press enter here it shows one additional command or line of output if, I press spacebar I chose a whole
page of output.
Now just to demonstrate this I'm gonna erase the configuration of this device that command E N is enable
that takes me to what's called privilege mode.
This is shorthand for enable and then I type a few characters and press tab to auto-complete the command.
Don't worry too much about this.
I'll show you these commands in more detail in a moment but I wanted to show you what a brand new device
would look like.
So I've basically raised the configuration of that switch and it's now rebooting and I'll show you what
it looks like in a moment.
once it reboots, so what I'll do is while we're waiting for that to reboot is let's connect the next device
so for this demonstration, I'm going to use a console cable, standard USB cable so, I'm gonna simply
connect it to a port on the PC.
So something like this simple connection to USB port and I'll connect it to the switch.
So notice now I have USB on the switch, USB cable on the PC and I've also got a console cable connected
to the switch.
So two connections on the PC, okay so, as you can see now this switch is booting up and it's booting what's
called a Bin image.
That's the operating system of the switch.
So while that's waiting once again, I'll right click on windows start and go to device manager and what
you'll notice is under comports.
We now have two comports, this is my USB too serial connection.
And here's a new USB serial device.
Com3.
So what I can do is run PuTTY again, so that I've got two instances of PuTTY running, so I've got my original
PuTTY running in the background.
That's showing the device booting up and I've got another PuTTY session.
So basically all I've done now is start PuTTY twice on this second session the comport that I need to
use is com3, so I'm going to specify serial there and change this to com3 now actually what's
happened at this point is my PC has blue screen.
This is one of the problems when devices boot up.
I've seen this happen so many times on Windows devices.
So notice blue screen here.
So what I would suggest you do is unplug the console cable while it's booting up.
And then once it's booted plug it back in again.
If you have that issue seeing that happen on Windows machines many times.
Okay.
So let's start again.
I'm trying to make this real world and that's a real-world issue that you'll often encounter, Okay
So going to downloads what I'll do is start PuTTY again
on the windows start menu go to device manager, go to comports notice I've got com 7 and com 3.
Now I must say I've seen them many times with USB to roll over cables
happens a lot, doesn't happen as often with a USB cable so much better much easier today.
But it is something to be aware of.
If you're using a USB to roll over cable.
Okay so the first one USB to Serial, this is a serial interface and it's com 7.
So press enter and as you can see when the device is booted up fully we see a system configuration dialog
and you can enter what's called the initial configuration dialog.
I strongly suggest that you say no right there.
I will demonstrate the initial configuration dialog so that you can see the full process but for the
real world I suggest you don't do that you simply type No.
And then the mode that you'll end up in is user mode.
So if I press enter multiple times here I see switch with the greater than sign like this.
This is a user mode, press question mark once again, shows me a list of commands.
Press spacebar shows me a page of commands, I can type E N press question mark at this point it shows
me the commands available, if I type E Question mark, I've got multiple commands E N question mark only
command available at the moment is enable, I'll press tab that re-types the command and completes
it there and press enter that takes me to what's called privilege mode, if I press question mark here
I see a list of additional commands and once again pressing Enter shows me one command at a time, pressing
spacebar shows me one page of commands at a time many more commands available in that mode and once
again my laptop has crashed so either there's a problem with the drivers on this USB cable so let's
unplug that so I either need to update the drivers or something else is happening.
So for the moment, I'm going to unplug this USB to rollover cable and I'm going to use straight USB
and let's see if that solves the problem
I don't want to make this video too long by trying to deal with a buggy driver.
So once again on downloads start PuTTY
or run PuTTY go to serial but I need to know which comport to use.
So the two comports are 3 and 8.
Now notice it's changed because I'm no longer using a USB to rollover cable I'm using straight USB
here.
So comport has changed so this will be com 8 now
and there we go we're back on that switch.
Notice the switch says, console media is USB.
So once again pressing question mark, I can see a page of commands at a time when using spacebar.
Many, many more commands in privilege mode or enable mode than in user mode.
If I type disable that takes me back to user mode.
Okay but let's get the other device connected so Com 3 in PuTTY, I can right-click at the top here and
say new session, serial and the serial port that I want to use here is Com 3 so this will give me a
connection to my second device.
Notice I typed enable here to go to enable mode.
Now in this device I could use the command show version to see what kind of switch it is.
I'm told that it's a 3560C switch.
This is the version of operating system so that's similar to saying Windows 10 or Windows 8 or Windows
7 or whatever.
This is the version of operating system on the device.
The device has been up for 25 minutes at this point.
Press spacebar shows me additional information about this device.
Whole bunch of information here.
You'll learn about this as we go through the course.
But once again show version is a command that shows me the model of switch.
Let's do that on the other switch.
So show version here.
This is a 3560 CX switch.
So let's give it a name.
And in PuTTY if I highlight it's actually copying that information conf T or configured terminal
so type C O N F press question mark shows me that the command available is configure and I press
tab now, question mark shows me that I can configure this device multiple ways one of them is terminal.
So I'm gonna press T, press tab that takes me to what's called Global configuration mode on the switch and
if I use the command host press tab to order complete and right-click now it's pasted the name that
I copied previously and notice the switches name has not changed on the other switch I'll do something
similar.
So show version on the switch.
This is my 3560 C switch, I'm gonna press q to quit the output here.
So how do I configure a switch.
What's the command, can you remember it?
It's conf T for shorthand or C O N F tab T tab configure terminal and I can use the command host for
shorthand or I can type it out fully if I want to.
That changes the name of the host.
This is what's called Global configuration mode once again that allows me to globally configure the
device.
If I type END it takes me back to what's called privilege or enable mode of press Enter here again and
then I can use the command copy running config startup config to save the configuration.
This is basically saving a configuration from memory to hard drive.
This is a flash drive.
So basically saving it to NV Ram is what it's called non-volatile RAM.
I'm saving the configuration of the device now there is an older command that I find a lot easier.
So on the first switch the 3560 CX switch.
If I type END that takes me back to privilege mode and I used a very quick command this let me do that
again W R is an old command that writes the configuration basically saves the config again.
That's an older command and an easier command to use then copy running-config, startup-config for the
exam know this command copy running-config, startup-config for the real world.
I would know W R, okay
So I've now shown you how to connect to the console of two switches let's connect to the console of
the router.