Welcome to this CertificationKits Cisco CCENT and CCNA training video on connecting to your Cisco device. We’re going to be covering what it takes to connect to your Cisco Device so you can go in and configure the device, whether it’s configuring it initially after purchase, first time install, network connectivity is down this is a physical access configuration and connection method.
Now as I’ve said this is a physical device configuration method or an end connection method. So first thing you have to have is physical access to the device. Now what we’re going to do is we’re going to actually go in and take a look at the ports that we can use to go in and access the operating system on the device as this is a critical CCNA skill. What type of cabling we can use, Hyperterminal Settings, Hyperterminal simply, and access program that allows us to use our com port to send and receive signals to a device. And then lastly troubleshooting our physical access connection method.
Let’s go in and take a look at some of the ports we’re going to see on the back of your computer that you’ll be using as well as the ports on the back of the router. Now I’ve brought up a couple of pictures of some ports that you’re going to see. One would be on the back of your computer, the other on the back of the router or the back of the switch, sometimes on the front of the router or the switch depending on the model number.
Now the one on the back of the computer is your communication ports, the com port. This is a DB9 meaning D shaped, 9 meaning 9 pins in there, male connector on the back of your computer used for different serial type of connection devices.
The console port on the back of the router or again maybe on the front of the router depending on the device is an RJ 45 jack. Now right here it’s a little hard to see, it actually says “console” and what will happen is most Cisco devices will have a blue oval next to the port and it will say, “console.” The one below it is an auxiliary port that can be connected into. You can actually plug a modem into this port and use it to dial into the device remotely when network connectivity is down. The console port is the only port that you can plug into right away when the device is previously un-configured and this will give you access to the operating system so we can go in and configure our device.
Now what we’re after is using the Hyperterminal program to send signals out of this serial interface on the back of your computer into the RJ45 jack on the back of the router. The CCNA router or switch will interpret those signals and allow us to go in and configure the device. The first thing that we’re going to need aside from a laptop or computer with a serial port and/or actual router or switch we’re configuring; is we’re going to need the right cabling that allows us to connect from our laptop or our computer to the device that we’re going to be configuring. I use my laptop when I go in and I am using the necessary cabling I will need to be able to connect up to the back of the router or switch that I will be working on.
Now one thing about the laptop, you don’t want to freak out if you don’t have a serial port on your laptop and you got a CCNA level job going in configuring a Cisco device somewhere. All you need to do is most laptops these days will have a USB port on the side or on the back, something like that, but most of them are not going to have a com port. So what you do is you just get an adapter. One end is USB, the other is a com port, install the driver that way you have an extra com port connected to your laptop. You can use that to connect the appropriate management cable up to the back of your Cisco device.
Once you’ve got your equipment, you need to get the right cabling together. I’ve brought up a slide here with some pictures of the cabling you may find in your CCNA lab. Now Cisco makes a management cable that you can see right here. And what it is, is on one end it’s got the DB9 connector to connect to the back of your computer. On the other end it’s got this RJ45 to connect up to the back of your console port on your router or switch that you’re going in configuring. This cable will come with a lot of new Cisco devices. However, if you don’t have that cable you can use another method and that is using a DB9 to RJ45 connector, and here you just get the pinout from Cisco’s website and all you do is you can buy one of these for a couple bucks at an electronics store or computer store and you put the ends here into the right holes on the back, lock it down and you’ve got your DB9 to RJ45 connector. Then what you need is a rollover cable. A rollover cable you can make out of normal CAT5 cable and this would be your pinout on both ends.
Basically it would be a straight through cable meaning both ends being the exact same but you would turn one RJ45 around so wire one goes to wire 8. 2 to 7, 3 to 6, so on and so forth. So if you didn’t have the management cable and you didn’t feel like buying one online you could go in and get a DB9 to RJ45 connector, take a piece of CAT5 cabling and follow this pinout right here and make a rollover cable and that will give you the same thing as this management cable. This is what you’re going to need again to plug in from the com port on the back of your computer to your serial port to the back of the device in the RJ45 jack.
Going back to the previous slide we can see here that here’s our cable again, serial port on the back of the computer, it’s got the management cable, it’s go the DB9 in rolling all the way up to the console port on the back of your device. Again sometimes that console port will be on the front of the device depending on the model number. Once we have our cabling we can turn our device on, the next thing we would be doing is going in and opening up Hyperterminal.
Now I’ve got my router turned on, I’ve hooked up the appropriate cabling, now I need to go in and open up my Hyperterminal program that will allow me to use my com ports to send communication signals that the device can interpret through the console port that I’m connected to. Windows® XP operating systems have Hyperterminal installed(Vista and up do not). If not, you can install it through Add/Remove Programs. You can also buy or get free trial versions of Hyperterminal which is a separate program not made from Windows® to install on your box. So whatever type of machine you’re using you can get a program that will allow you to use your com port to go in and configure your Cisco device.
I go to start, All Programs, Accessories, Communications, Hyperterminal and this will bring up my Hyperterminal program. You can also in the run box type in Hypertrm and it will bring up Hyperterminal as well. Either way you want to do it, I like using the shortcuts myself.
So just go in, type a name, CCNA. That is the name for the connection so whatever settings that I specify for this connection if I want to, I can save these settings for later on. I can go in and go through Hyperterminal again. Start, Programs, Accessories, Communications, Hyperterminal, right here would be any Hypeterminal settings that I had saved.
So what’s nice about that is I can put those shortcuts on my desktop so if I have a machine that I’m using all the time to configure Cisco devices, I just double click an icon on my desktop called CCNA Hyperterminal.
Next specify the settings; I have to choose my com port not my modem. I go in to bits per second, 9600 bits per second. I’m going to give you the default Hyperterminal settings for all Cisco devices here. So it’s 9600 bits per second, 8 Data bits, no Parity, 1 Stop bit, Flow control is set to none and I hit OK.
And I can go in and connect to my device as long as my device has the default settings on the console port. If these settings do not match for some reason I will not be able to connect to my device and I will show you what that looks like when the settings don’t match here in a moment. Put the defaults, as long as my device is set at the defaults I hit OK. Hit Enter, make sure I’m connected. And what happens is I get access to my device. Right here is a quick banner message of the day and this is the name of the router, and I can go in and configure my device now.
I’ve closed out my Hyperterminal setting to the router and what we’re going to do is we’re going to do a little bit of troubleshooting. Things that can go wrong, Physical Layer, in my CCNA class I always do troubleshooting with my students so when they go in and configure something appropriately; I will then kick them out of the room and I will go in and mess it up. I love messing up the physical layer because people always overlook the physical layer. If you don’t have physical connections, nothing is going to work. Very important to check your cabling. So if you go in and you open up your Hyperterminal and you’re hitting enter, I’m hitting enter right now, nothing is happening. I need to go in and check some things out.
First of all is my device on? Check for power, is the router or switch that you’re trying to work on turned on? Is your computer turned on? Is your monitor turned on? Whatever, are you hitting the right key? Stuff like that, check the obvious. Check the physical layer, check your cabling make sure it’s an appropriate rollover cable. Make sure you have the DB9 to RJ45 connector that’s appropriate. If any of those things are invalid or not working you’re not going to be able to connect up.
Another thing that you’re going to want to check is the Hyperterminal settings themselves. If the settings are off, sometimes nothing will pop up and sometimes you will get some funky characters popping up. Let’s take a look at what I see on my Hyperterminal session when the settings are not matching.
I’ve gone in and changed the settings for my Hyperterminal session. So the router is expecting 9600 bits per second and what I did is I disconnected my Hyperterminal and went to file, properties, configure and I changed by Bits per second to 19200 bits per second.
So that’s a faster rate than the router that I’m connected to is expecting to receive these bits. So when I do that and I go in and hit enter I get basically blocks popping up here. Nothing really happening.
But I am seeing something! That’s a really good indication. So if you see anything at all. Sometimes you will get some funky characters that look like code. I’m just getting blocks right now. If you’re hitting enter and you see anything at all in here, and it’s not what you want to be seeing that’s a pretty good indication that your Hyperterminal settings are off. So two ways you can fix this. You can disconnect. Go to File, Properties, Configure, you can check these different ranges up to 115,200 that’s the max that the Cisco device is going to accept. So you could just keep plugging in these different speeds here until you get one that works if your device is off.
There’s also a hardware reset jumper on the motherboard of some Cisco devices, but I don’t recommend going in and opening up your Cisco device because you can void warranties, plus you might break something if you’re not very comfortable with that equipment. So I would just go in and try different settings as far as bits per second go until you find one that works. Once you get one that works, when you go in and hit enter you will get something appropriate now.
So I found the right bits per second, it’s 9600 as I can see down here. Now I can go in and access my device. One last thing that can cause a problem that I’ve just noticed in my windows machine, if I’m hitting enter, I’m getting responses, everything is fine. I just turned the scroll lock key on.
With scroll lock on the Hyperterminal is not going to be receiving my signal. So if the Scroll Lock key is on be weary of that, you’re not going to be receiving the signals. Your device won’t be receiving the signals and this is not going to work. So your cabling is right, you have your Hyperterminal settings right. You have the Scroll Lock key on it’s not going to work. So be weary of that. That’s one thing that I love to do to my students. I will go in and just hit their Scroll Lock key. They won’t notice it forever and they’ll be struggling to find out why they can’t connect to the device. So if the Scroll Lock key is on, I will turn it off real quick. Notice that’s off now. I can go in and have access to my device, so that’s one of the other things that you might run into as far as preventing you access through Hyperterminal and the console port.
One other thing I want to mention is this auxiliary port right here that’s typically designed to plug a modem into so you can remote into your device when you don’t have physical access and the network may be down. You can dial in if you have a modem setup. You can actually plug your console cable into this auxiliary port once some sort of initial configuration has been made. You can plug into it just like your console port. I’ve done that right here and notice the mode has changed.
I went from the pound sign (#) to the greater than (>) symbol, this represents privileged mode. This represents user mode, and all I did is I unplugged from the console port and plugged into that auxiliary port and I’ve been hitting enter and I can go in and get a response and configure the device just like I do from the console port. This may come in handy if for some reason somebody shuts down the console port and does not allow administration through the console port. There’s a command called No Exec that you can run on the console port that will stop people from being able to configure it. So again, all I did was switch to that other port. The auxiliary port, started hitting enter and I get a response. It can be helpful in the right situations.
So I’ve just talked about the ports that you’re going to be using to connect to your device, the type of cabling you’re going to need to connect to your device to configure it. Hyperterminal, the default settings for Hyperterminal and some troubleshooting help you could use that if for some reason you’re not getting any response in your Hyperterminal. I’ve hope you’ve enjoyed this CertificationKits CCNA Training video on connecting to your Cisco device.