Cisco CCNA - Overview of SDM

Platforms supported by SDM are: Cisco SB100 series, Cisco 800 series, 1700, 1800, 2600, 2800, 3600, 3700, 3800 and 7000 series. For a full compatibility list please go to Cisco’s site.

Cisco SDM uses wizard to help network administrators ease the basic tasks when configuring a router. With Cisco SDM, you are able to easily configure basic router functions, such as IP address assignments, interface configurations, authentication, NAT, DHCP, as well as more advanced tasks, such as VPNs, Firewall and ACLs, Routing features, Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), Quality of Service (QoS). All these tasks and many more can be configured directly from SDM using its intelligent wizard-based system.

In order to be able to use SDM with your router, you must perform some basic configuration. The router must have a running http and/or https server, a username with privilege level 15, telnet and ssh transport enabled on vty lines. Also, the IP address of the router must be in the same subnet with the PC from which you are connecting.
Router(config)#ip http server
Router(config)#ip http secure-server
Router(config)#ip http authentication local
Router(config)#username ciscokits privilege 15 secret ciscokits
Router(config)#line vty 0 4
Router(config-line)#privilege level 15
Router(config-line)#login local
Router(config-line)#transport input telnet ssh

After your router is configured for SDM, you will be able to connect to it either with the Cisco SDM PC application, or directly from your web-browser, if your router has SDM pre-installed in its flash memory. If your router has SDM pre-installed, simply enter the IP of your router in a web-browser, such as http://172.16.1.2. If you want to use HTTPS, make sure you replace http with https. A dialog box will pop-up asking you to enter the username and the password you have previously configured. After that, a Java applet will open with the initial SDM screen, as seen above. If your router does not come with SDM pre-installed, you are still able to use SDM using the Cisco SDM PC application. Simply open the application and enter the IP address of your router. After that, the procedure is the same as above.
In the initial screen of Cisco SDM you will see information about your router and the configuration overview. You are also able to see the running configuration by pressing the “View Running Config” button.

The “About Your Router” section will give you some basic information about your router. In this area, you will find out the router host name, basic hardware information like model type, in our case Cisco 3745, memory info and flash capacity. You will also see the IOS and the SDM version your router uses in the software section, and what features are available on your platform.

The “Configuration Overview” area shows you a basic overview of your configuration:

Interfaces and Connections – this area contains information about your configured LAN and WAN connections and also displays if a DHCP has been configured or not.
Firewall Policies – this area shows firewall-related information, such as the number of trusted (inside), untrusted (outside) and DMZ interfaces, the name of the interface to which the firewall has been applied. In our case, we didn’t configured a firewall yet, and it says it’s Inactive.
VPN – here you will find information about your configured VPN connections.
Routing – this area shows the number of static routes and which routing protocols are in use
Intrusion Prevention – this is where you will find the number of IPS-enabled interfaces and the number of active signatures.

Next, we have the configuration screen.

In the configuration screen, you are able to easily configure some basics of your router using the intelligent wizards. We will discuss how to configure a default route and ACLs in further lessons, as requested by the Cisco CCNA exam.

You are able to monitor your router from the Monitor section. Here, you will able to see the status of your router in real-time. In the overview screen, you will see brief information from all sections. If you need detailed information, you can use the status section on the left dedicated to the information you need, such as Interface Status, Firewall Status, or VPN Status.

We hope you found this lesson helpful in your preparation for the CCNA exam. As said before, expect more and more concepts on your CCNA exam. At CiscoKits we make our best to deliver high quality certification information based on real-life scenarios.

Cisco CCNA – Overview of SDM