Cisco routers???

ace2109

ace2109

ace2109

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Hi Guys,
i have been looking around on these forums and the internet about cisco routers and switches etc.

I would love to get my hands on a cisco lab, ebay have them for around £300 and upwards.

I am new to cisco and routers etc so excuse the stupid questions but you dont get anywhere without asking.

The setup im looking at has 3 routers, 2 switches, and they are connected via serial cables etc.

My Questions
1. Why would you have 3 routers and what exactly do they do??? (Told you the questions would be stupid)
2. I have my main server at home running server2k3, mainly for file/ftp server, my laptop, brothers laptop, and coming soon a new big rig, these are network with a linksys wireless router, which handles my adsl connection and firewall, my server is in the attic connected to another linksys router running tomato firmware in wireless bridge mode. Is it possible to integrate this cisco setup into my current network at home???

I think all i would need to do this would be the following,
adsl-->cisco 2600 router with adsl wic-->cisco pix-->connected to cisco lab

is this right???

EDIT: How do i make this setup wireless?????
 
routers can be used in many ways.

they can be used to join dissimilar networks together - for example: you may have a router sat between a wan service provided by a telco presented on a serial connection and a lan service within the building presented via ethernet.

or they can be used to split networks apart - for example: you may have a 2 storey building with 10 departments within. you may choose to place a different network on each floor, further subnetted to provide a seperate logical network for each department. for each department to communicate, you route traffic between the necessary networks.

three routers would allow you to simulate a small wan using the serial interfaces, and multiple small lan's using the ethernet interfaces. ideally you want multiple routers to be able to practice any decent amount of static and/or dynamic routing using multiple subnets.

you *could* integrate the cisco lab with your network, but if you want your home network to be functional most of the time this is going to limit how much you can play with the kit. i would suggest that you add the cisco lab as a stub to your network so that you can play to your hearts content.

your flow diagram is pretty much correct.

if you wanted to add wireless to the cisco lab, just buy a fat access point and connect it up.
 
ok then mate, i think i will have a look at buying a lab from ebay but just add it to my network when i need to and leave my current setup as it is until i gain a better understanding of things, and by your post i can only assume its not going to be easy ;-)
 
by the sounds of it you already have a decent setup at home. get yourself some the books along with the lab kit and get playing. if you want to have a bit of a play around before you get some lab kit then have a look at a free simulator called 'netsimk'. it's not really that tricky at all. setting stuff up is fairly straightforward (as long as you have done the design correctly - e.g. subnet design and ospf), it's when stuff goes wrong and you have to draw on all your knowledge of how something is supposed to work that it can get a bit hairy. but every time you get something working or solve a problem its a great feeling of achievement. good luck! :)
 
ace2109 said:
ok then mate, i think i will have a look at buying a lab from ebay but just add it to my network when i need to and leave my current setup as it is until i gain a better understanding of things, and by your post i can only assume its not going to be easy ;-)
Click to expand...

Its not "hard" you just need to have studied enough of the CCNA syllabus before getting hands-on. Get a few learning materials, then buy yourself a decent "lab" when the time comes to get hands on with the hardware.

Not sure why you'd need three routers though, you can do all the CCNA labs with two routers and a switch. If you want to do it on the cheap, get a couple of 2500's and a 2900 series switch.

If however you want to be able to use it for ADSL, get a 2600 with a WIC1 ADSL, a 2500, and either a 2900 or 3500 series switch.

You could also get away with something like a 1701 or 877 SOHO routers rather than the 2600's, but seeing as most of the literature is based on the 2600's, these might be a better option.
 
why don't you have a look at the networking academy program companion books? there used to be one that covered semester 1/2 and one that covered semester 3/4. there is now one for each semester, so four in total. i've got them and they are pretty good. there are new books out for the new curriculum but as such i would expect them to be full of errors, so you *may* want to shy away from them in the first instance.
 
guys check out a prog called gns3 (google for it)

saves you buying any routers - can run 6 x 7200 virtual routers on my laptop with multiple cards
 
whilst this is good advice, and something i would love to try to get working sometime, don't you need the actual ios images for this to run? this is probably about as legal as running osx on a pc...
 
True - you do actually need the IOS images to run gns-3 (dynamips). From what I hear though Cisco let it slide as its a great tool on the study front - as soon as anyone starts making money out of it then the Cisco Empire are going to come down on you :eek:

I believe as well that the gns-3 team have also been working with Cisco so I expect at some point in the future that Cisco will "buy" up the product.
 
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