CCNA study notes on Cisco router commands

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Cisco router commands

30. The following are some important commands that can be used to edit and review command history buffer on a Cisco router. It will be useful to practice these commands.

• <ctrl> A : Move to the beginning of the command line

• <ctrl> E : Move to the end of the command line

• <ctrl> F : Move forward one character, same as using "Right Arrow".

• <ctrl> B : Move backward one character, same as using "Left Arrow".

• <ctrl> P : Repeat Previous command, same as using "Up Arrow".

• <ctrl> N : Repeat Next (more recent) command, same as using "Down Arrow".

• <esc> B : Moves to beginning of previous word.

• <esc> F : Moves to beginning of next word.

• <ctrl> R : Creates new command prompt, followed by all the characters typed at the last one.

31. The following are some frequently used COPY commands:

• COPY RUNNING-CONFIGURATION STARTUP-CONFIGURATION (alternatively, you can use an older version of the command, WRITE MEMORY): This command saves the current configuration to NVRAM. Alternatively, we can issue the command using short form: COPY RUNNING STARTUP - Copies configuration from RAM to NVRAM

• COPY STARTUP RUNNING - This command merges configuration from NVRAM to RAM.

• COPY FLASH TFTP - Copies current IOS from router flash memory to TFTP server.

• COPY TFTP FLASH - Copies image file from TFTP server to flash. This is used to upgrade the IOS image file to a newer version, or if your IOS image becomes corrupt.

32. The banner is displayed whenever anyone logs in to your Cisco router. The syntax is

"banner motd # " . MOTD stands for "Message Of The Day".

# symbol signifies the start of the banner message to the router. You will be prompted for the message to be displayed. You need to enter "#" symbol at the end of the message, signifying that the message has ended.

33. Router modes of operation:

• User EXEC mode (Prompt: Router>):- This is the LOWEST level of access. This allows examination of router status, see routing tables, and do some diagnostics. However, you cannot change the router configuration, view the configuration files, or control the router in any way. The prompt in this mode is "Router>".

• Privileged (enable) EXEC mode (Prompt: Router#):- This mode allows you to have all the privileges of EXEC (user) mode plus commands that enable you to view configuration files, change the router configuration, perform troubleshooting that could potentially disrupt traffic. The default prompt for this mode is "Router#".When you are working in the privileged mode (at # prompt), you can get back to user mode by typing "disable" at the "#" prompt.

• Global Configuration mode (Prompt: Router (Config)#):-

  • Global configuration mode allows you to perform tasks that affect the entire router, such as naming the router, configuration of banner messages, enabling routed protocols, and generally anything that affects the operation of the entire router

  • When you first switch on a router, you enter Setup mode. Setup mode is different from configuration mode in that setup mode appears when there is no configuration file present. Upon entering setup mode, you can supply some basic configuration parameters to Cisco router.

34. You can use "tab" to complete the command that you are typing.

35. SHOW command is extensively used for seeing the status and configuration information of the router.

Some of the frequently used commands are:

• SHOW RUNNING-CONFIGURATION -This command displays the router's active configuration file, passwords, system name, and interface settings, interfaces IP addresses etc.

• SHOW INTERFACE - Shows status and configuration information of the local interfaces. The first line says something like “TokenRing1 is up, line protocol is up”. The first part “TokenRing1 is up” describes the physical layer components such as electrical cabling and signaling are OK. The second part “line protocol is up” means that the router is detecting keep-alive messages. The router may be put into administratively down status, at which point the line would read, “TokenRing1 is administratively down, line protocol is down.”

• SHOW INTERFACE SERIAL 0 - Shows the serial 0 configuration.

• SHOW INTERFACES - Displays statistics for all interfaces configured on the switch.

• SHOW PROCESS - Displays a router’s CPU utilization.

• SHOW CONFIG - Displays information on the startup configuration.

• SHOW VERSION - Displays information about the system hardware (RAM/ROM), software version, names of configuration files, and boot-images. This command will also show the current configuration register value.

36. The Cisco router can be configured from many locations.

• Console port: During the initial installation, you configure the router from a console terminal connected to the "Console port" of the router.

• Virtual Terminals (vty): A virtual terminal (vty) is typically accessed through Telnet. A router can be accessed through vty after it the initial installation in the network. There are five virtual terminals, namely, vty0,vty1,vty2,vty3,vty4.

• Auxiliary Port: you can configure a router through auxiliary port. Typically, a modem is used to configure the modem through aux port.

• TFTP Server: Configuration information can be downloaded from a TFTP server over the network.

• NMS (Network Management Station): You can also manage router configuration through NMS such as CiscoWorks or HP OpenView.

37. There are five different types of passwords:

• ENABLE PASSWORD - A global command that restricts access to privileged exec mode. This is a non-encrypted password.

• ENABLE SECRET - Assigns a one-way encryptographic secret password, available in versions 10.3 and up. This secret password is used instead of the enable password when it exists.

• Virtual Terminal Password (vty password): The virtual terminal password is used for Telnet sessions into the router. The password can be changed at any time. It can be set up when you configure the router from the console. There can be five distinct passwords corresponding to each vty (vty0 to vty4) or there can be a single password for all vtys.

• Auxiliary Password: Auxiliary password is used to set password to the auxiliary port. This port is used to access a router through a modem.

• Console Password: Console password is used to set the console port password.

38. Internal memory components of a Cisco router:

• ROM (Read Only Memory); Memory containing micro-code for basic functions to start and maintain the router. ROM is not typically used after the IOS is loaded.

• RAM/DRAM : stores the running configuration, routing tables, and packet buffers. Some routers, such as the 2500 series, run IOS from Flash, not RAM.

• NVRAM (Non-Volatile Ram): Memory that does not lose information when power is lost. Stores the system’s configuration file and the configuration register. NVRAM uses a battery to maintain the data when power is turned off.

• Flash Memory: Stores the compressed IOS (IOS stands for Cisco Internetwork Operating System) image. Flash memory is either EEPROM or PCMCIA card. Flash memory enables you to copy multiple versions of IOS software. This allows you to load a new level of the operating system in every router in your network and then, to upgrade the whole network to that version at an appropriate time.

39. While a packet travels through an Internetwork, it usually involves multiple hops. Note that the logical address (IP address) of source (that created the packet) and destination (final intended destination) remain constant, the hardware (Interface) addresses change with each hop.

40. Default administrative distances some important routing protocols are as below:

An administrative distance of 0 represents highest trustworthiness of the route.

An administrative distance of 255 represents the lowest trustworthiness of the route.

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