Introduction
You want to become a network engineer?
This post will guide you through a basic setup for you first network lab! We will go through everything you need from physical switches, and routers. Things you need and what you should avoid.
For those that do not have the space, or are on a budget, you can still follow this guide with packet tracer!
Let’s get started.
Preparations – Basic Setup of a Switch
I. Getting your switch ready
Once you boot up your switch (or packet tracer). You will want to connect to the console port of the switch. should have a symbol like this [_>]. Once connected, you should be met with a “do you want to configure this switch? y/n” prompt. Go ahead and click no.
Though if you bought this switch used, you might still get prompted for old user/password. In this scenario you will need to factory reset the switch. Power off the switch, power back on while holding the mode button for 15 seconds to 30 seconds, this should trigger a reset.
After this step go ahead and initiate the flash_init command. Followed by del flash:config.txt, and del flash:vlan.dat. This will delete the database and any VLANs. Next go ahead and reboot the switch withboot command.
II. Hostname & Password
Lets go ahead and start. First we will need to think of a hostname. In this case we will be using “SW1” as the hostname. Lets go ahead and come up with a password as well. Here I will be using learnnpt123.
To summarize:
- hostname: SW1
- password: learnnpt123
hostname
Now we can continue. Enter enable, and then enter command configure terminal. Here you an use the following command: hostname [Enter name Here]
The above command will change your switches hostname. In this case we want to rename it to SW1. That means our command will look like this: hostname SW1.
secret
Now we are ready to set up the passwords. Though there are more than one password command that we can use. We will focus on the basic most secure one. The name of this one is called “secret”. This command has the power to not expose your password in running config, and also encrypt your password.
To start, you will need to be in configure terminal again. Once here go ahead and issue following commands: enable secret [your password]
Like before, since we are using learnnpt. I will go ahead and do enable secret learnnpt123.
First Network Lab – VLANs
For this first lab, I would like to make a real world scenerio. Here are the requirements for this Lab:
- Devices: 30 PCs, 15 Printers, 5 APs
- VLANs: 3
- IP Space: 192.168.1.0 /24
Objective: Create a VLAN for each device type, while using provided IP space.
Second Lab – Port Security
For this second lab, we will focus on security. Here are the requirements for this lab:
- Maximum mac addresses per port: 2
- Violation Action: Disable Port
Objective: create port security rule that will make ports disable if more than two devices connect to a physical port.
Answers
Answers and how to will be posted in next post.
You can also check out my free course that covers SSH, and DHCP configuration. Which briefly get into VLANs here.
