Getting Started - Making the connection

Hello everybody,

As you all know already, my idea here is to document and share my experience  with my cisco 2610. Eventually I might look for a CCENT / CCNA but now I just want to get familiar and be able to configure and troubleshoot my "toy".

Last time I wast telling how to build the console cable, now its time to hookup to the computer and fire up.

When you get your router, you will probably first connect to it via console serial connection. This connection is made possible by an RJ-45-to-RJ-45 rollover cable (it's a light blue CAT5-ish cable), an RJ-45 to serial connector, and a PC equipped with HyperTerminal. To connect the rollover cable to the router, follow these steps:

1. Locate the jack with the circled blue "console" label.
2. Attatch the RJ45 on the console connector.
3. Plug the serial adapter into the designated PC.

Once all of the cables are connected, you need to set up HyperTerminal, which can be found (in Windows 2000) by selecting Programs | Accessories | Communication. When you first start HyperTerminal, you will have to configure it in order to connect to the router. To configure HyperTerminal, select File | Properties and you will see the Properties page shown in Figure A.

Figure A

In HyperTerminal, the Properties page allows you to choose the connection to configure.

In our example, we are going to configure COM1, so we'll select COM1 from the Connect Using drop-down menu and then click Configure. The COM1 Properties page is shown in Figure B.

Figure B

The COM1 Properties page allows you to configure the Bits Per Second, Data Bits, Parity, Stop Bits, and Flow Control.

In order to connect to your Cisco router, you will need to verify that the options are configured as they were in Figure A. Once you've verified the changes, click Connect, which is the left button shown in Figure C, and then press [Enter].

Figure C
The HyperTerminal button bar contains the Connect and Disconnect buttons.

Now when I turn my router on, with HyperTerminal setup and open, this is what I got:

=============================================
System Bootstrap, Version 11.3(2)XA4, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)
Copyright (c) 1999 by cisco Systems, Inc.
TAC:Home:SW:IOS:Specials for info
C2600 platform with 49152 Kbytes of main memory

program load complete, entry point: 0x80008000, size: 0xa14d18
Self decompressing the image : #################################################
################################################################################
###############################################################################
================================================

There are more but I just would like to show what to expect if you did everything right.

Thats it for now.
Cheers

Getting Started - Cisco console cable

Before you can do anything with the router, we first need to get access to it.

Console cable is a cable which has an RJ45 connector at one end (to connect to your Cisco devices) and serial connector at the other end (to connect to your PC).). If you, like me, bought a used router you mostly probably have this cable, and even tough its easy to buy one online: i.e.ebay, they are cheap and you should have no problem with it.

Right now Im looking for "instant gratification" so because I dont have the patience to wait  I decide to build my own cable. Looking around the Internet I found lots of information but most of then arent as easy to understand as I was expecting. Many sites have some complex contraptions: crossover cables, adapters, adpters for adapters, etc. I was looking for something simple: One cable, RJ45 in one end and a DB9 on the other.

So, here my set of instructions about how to build one.

First we start with the parts:

• Cat5E cable (mine have 6ft.);
• 1 RJ45 Connector;
• 1 DB9 Connector;
• Crimp tool;
• Soldering Iron.

Lets start crimping the RJ45 connector. I personally use  TIA/EIA 568A wiring diagram to all my cables, so I will continue doing so:

With one side of the cable done lets start the DB9 connection. The following diagram shows how each cable, by color, should be connected:

Cat5	DB9 Pin
Green-White	8
Green	6
Orange-White	2
Blue	5
Blue-White	5
Orange	3
Brown-White	4
Brown	7

The Blue/White and Blue must both connect to pin 5 on the DB9. Pins 1 and 9 are not connected.

Once the cable its done, here's how you connect the cable:

Thats it for now.