In this session of A Few Easy Steps, we will be disabling VTP on a Cisco Switch. In General this will work on any Cisco Switch.

Session Prerequisites:

• You have terminal or console access to your Cisco device.

Session Assumptions:

• You do not use VTP in your Network
• You want your Network to NOT implode

Our goals of this session are:

• Set VTP to Transparent
• Set VTP Domain to SwitchName

Set VTP to Transparent

!
conf t
!
vtp mode transparent
!
exit
!
copy running-config startup-config

Set VTP Domain to SwitchName

!
conf t
!
vtp domain SessionTestSW1
!
exit
!
copy running-config startup-config

Entire Session:

!
conf t
!
vtp mode transparent
!
vtp domain SessionTestSW1
!
exit
!
copy running-config startup-config

In this session of A Few Easy Steps, we will be setting up Authentication on the console port on a Cisco Router. In General this will work on any Cisco Switch or Router that runs on IOS.

Session Prerequisites:

• You have terminal or console access to your Cisco device.

Session Assumptions:

• Console port is 0
• Login Credentials will be Local

Our goals of this session are:

• Setup local User Account
• Setup authentication on console port

Setup local User Account

conf t
!
username sessiontest password session test
!
end
!
copy running-config startup-config

Setup authentication on console port

conf t
!
line con 0
!
login local
!
end
!
copy running-config startup-config
! 

Entire Session:

conf t
!
username sessiontest password session test
!
exit
!
line con 0
!
login local
!
end
!
copy running-config startup-config

One of the things that we are going to attempt in The Few Easy Steps sessions is make it a cut and paste endeavor. This could get complicated when we move into products like Windows and VMWare but we plan on making the effort to use tools such as powershell to accomplish this goal. In Cisco IOS it is usually pretty straight forward.  However Cisco IOS will sometimes prompt for responces even with you have included the explicit details it needs.  You can see this in Cisco Switch, Setting up a VLAN or Cisco IOS, Telnet and SSH Setup sessions. What you see is every time you use

 copy running-config startup-config

you will be prompted to confirm that you want  the startup-config file.

StaticNatSW1#copy running-config startup-config
Destination filename [startup-config]? 
Building configuration...
[OK]
StaticNatSW1#

That prompt gets in the way of simple copy and paste commands but it is how Cisco IOS handles some commands. There is a way to eliminate it however. I have made this its own session because there are some risks involved. If you would like to dive into more detail please check out, Reduce the noise generated by the Cisco IOS copy command by @ioshints

Session Prerequisites:

• You have terminal or console access to your Cisco device

Session Assumptions:

• You want to disable copy run start prompt

Our goal for this session is:

• Set File Prompt to Quiet

Set File Prompt to Quiet:

conf t
!
file prompt quiet
!
end
!
copy running-config startup-config

In this session of A Few Easy Steps, we will be creating a new VLAN and its Layer 3 Gateway. In General this will work on any Cisco Switch runs on IOS. However we will have to cover older L2 switches and Routers with Switch Modules (like in Dynamips) in a future post but for now check out this video tutorial if you need help.

Session Prerequisites:

• You have terminal or console access to your Cisco device

Session Assumptions:

• We are going to create VLAN 20
• The IP Gateway Address for VLAN 20 is 192.168.20.1
• Netmask of IP Gateway for VLAN 20 is 255.255.255.0

Our goals of this session are:

• Setup L2 VLAN
• Setup VLAN 20 L3 Interface

Read more

In this session of A Few Easy Steps, we will be doing the SSH and Telnet setup on a Cisco Router. In General this will work on any Cisco Switch or Router that runs on IOS.

Session Prerequisites:

• You have a Cisco Console Cable
• You have a serial port
• You have a Terminal Program that you can access your Serial Port

Session Assumptions:

• Telnet will be on VTY 0 to 4
• domain name will be staticnat.com
• SSH will be on VTY 5 to 10
• SSH Key Modulus will be 1024
• SSH Version will be 2
• Login Credentials will be Local

Our goals of this session are:

• Setup Domain Name
• Setup local User Account /li>
• Setup Telnet
• Generate RSA Key
• Set SSH Version
• Setup SSH Read more

In this Session of A Few Easy Steps, we are doing to deal with an issue that one of my friends on Twitter @santinorizzo brought up about the Cisco IOS configs in this series. ... However in this post I am going to show you one quick trick that can let you decide how to use command in the future it is called and alias.

Read more

In this session of A Few Easy Steps, we will be doing the initial setup on a Cisco Switch. In General this will work on any Cisco Switch.

Session Prerequisites:

• You have a Cisco Console Cable
• You have a serial port
• You have a Terminal Program that you can access your Serial Port

Session Assumptions:

• Hostname is TestSW1
• Management Network is 192.168.1.0/24
• Management Address is 192.168.1.10
• Management VLAN is VLAN1
• Time Zone is EST
• Enable Password is: TAKE@GUESS

Our goals of this session are:

• Set a Hostname
• Setup a basic management address
• Set the System Time and Date
• Set Enable Password Read more