What do we do First with this Switch thingy?

So I’ve got a switch wired up ready to go.  Wired up? What do you mean by wired up? Well lets have a look.

The back of a Catalyst switch has an RJ45 socket labeled “console” and into this I’ve plugged in a “Cisco Console Cable”. One end is had an RJ45, the other end has a DB-9 Female plug that can be plugged into the serial port of a PC or laptop.

I use a product called “putty” as a client on my laptop. You can also use Microsoft’s “Hyper terminal”. I prefer putty as it supports ssh for secure access and will run on either windows or linux.

Accessing the switch via the console port requires the following settings in your comms software

Speed: 9600 bits per second

Data bits: 8

Parity: none

Stop bit: 1

Flow control: none

Just out of interest, the Catalyst 2950 switch doesn’t have a power switch, just plug it in and away it goes.

If the switch is set to the factory defaults, then it will enter the initial configuration setup mode. The following will appear on your terminal screen (It could be mixed in with all the boot up stuff)

% Please answer 'yes' or 'no'. Would you like to enter the initial configuration dialog? [yes/no]:

Answer no, as we will do it the real man’s way (or woman’s depending on your gender preference) in Lab 1.

So how do I get my switch back to the factory defaults I hear you ask?
Well, on the Catalyst 2950 all you need to do is turn the switch on, wait for it to boot, then press and hold the Mode button for eight seconds. Power the switch off, then on again. It will start up with its factory defaults.

Now we’re ready to hit Lab 1 – Basic Switch Configuration.