Router and Switch Configuration

Axia College of Universtiy of Phoenix |

ROUTER AND SWITCH CONFIGURATION |

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Darrell Crosson |

1/23/2011 |

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Router and Switch Configuration

The vital components in the computer networking are routers and switches; however, plugging them in is not nearly enough. In order for routers and switches to operate properly, they must be installed and configured. This is an overview of the proper installation, setup, and configuration of the popular Cisco brand equipment designed to be used with the Ethernet standard of networking.

Switches

Network administrators can use the command-line interface (CLI) to set up their Cisco switches. To access the CLI, the switch’s console port must be plugged into a computer terminal or modem with an RJ-45 rollover cable and the appropriate adapter. A terminal emulation key to configuring the MAC addresses table and port security. Using the CLI configure privileged-level password and IP settings will allow remote management of the switch (Regan, 2004).

One of the best ideas for maintaining connectivity in a network is redundancy. Should one switch fail, having another route for data around the failed node ensures the network suffers no ill effects. To build redundancy and eliminate the creation of multiple broadcast packets, spanning tree protocol (STP) must be configured on the network switches. Spanning tree protocol allows a switch to recognize which switch on the network is handling broadcast requests from other devices on the network. Without spanning tree protocol, a single broadcast traveling through multiple switches soon becomes multiple broadcasts that render a network unusable (Norton, 2001). Cisco switches are equipped with anywhere from 12 to 48 (and in some cases many more) 10/100 or Gigabit Ethernet ports for routing network traffic to its proper destination.   When connecting the switch directly to a workstation, a standard category three, four, or five cable can be used. When the particular...