Cisco → [HELP] Need help setting up a Cisco Lab in my Home environment.

Hello everyone, I'm currently studying for the CCENT exam. I invested in two 2611's and one 2950 switch. I'm really busting my brains on how to get my lab setup while not interfering with my current home network. I've looked everywhere I could but I'm simply too confused about how this is to be done. So let me attempt to ask you all what I need help doing.

HOME NETWORK: 192.168.77.0 255.255.255.0
cable modem --> apple router --> gig switch --> Primary PC

CISCO Lab Requirements:
-Need to be able to telnet to all equipment from my Primary PC on my home network.
-Must be able to ping Cisco routers and switches internal IP Addresses

I have seen the OPTION BLUE diagram listed above. But I don't understand whether or not this means my Primary computer wont be able to communicate with my cisco lab. Can someone please help me out? I'm very excited about getting to work on these routers but I just need a little help getting started.

All help is appreciated. Thanks.

If your Primary computer has two Ethernet ports, connect one to the home network and the other to the lab network.

The option Blue diagram that you posted was if the Cisco router was going to become the primary home router.

Thank you so much for clarifying that for me. Just purchased another network card Thanks.

So if my Home router on the 192.168.77.0/24 network, and my first cisco router was on 10.0.1.0 network everything would work just fine?

Sorry, just realized you had 2 2611 routers.

Somebody else might be able to suggest a better way to be able to access both routers via telnet without having a separate NIC for each router.

With two NICs you will be able to access the home network and the first router. Beyond that either a route to the second router needs to be in place for accessing to the second router or network cable moved from one router to the other.

Until the router is configured, the only way to it access will be via the console/serial connection.

In my lab at home, an old system with added PCI serial cards are used to create my own console server for connecting via the console port.

Then as needed I move my computer's second network connection to where it is needed.

On a side note, I'm assuming my cisco router would have to be configured to DHCP if I wanted to give my PC a dynamic IP address correct?

Unfortunately I have a 2611 router with 16MB or Flash memory. I want to get my hands on SSH and the SDM. Which would be a good IOS image to accommodate for this?

Somebody else might need to point you in the right direction for SSH and SDM compatibility.
SDM can be obtained from »www.firewall.cx/download ··· ons.html

From what I recall the 2600 non XM series is not all that great. I have one setup for use as a frame relay switch. I think the most current IOS supported is the 12.3 family.

Yes, the router would have to setup as a DHCP server in order to assign a dynamic address. From what I recall, if the IOS has K9 in it the version it should be able to handle SSH.

What I have on a 2610 with 64M/16F is (C2600-IK9O3S3-M), Version 12.3(26)

awesome thanks for the help. I was able to test the configuration you suggested with the network card and setting a static IP. Only problem is that DNS (internet) works from the first Cisco router, but not the Cisco Switch connected to that router. How can I get dns to work?

I will be creating a route from the first router to the second.

Do you think you could help me out with sending me the C2600-IK9O3S3-M image to me. I really want to learn this stuff and I can't find it anywhere.

I suppose the question to ask is, why do you feel that way?

This is networking, and IP routing. You can make anything reach anything else as long as there are connections between the two.

As TomS_ says, it's all IP routing. So long as SOMEthing knows the routes to all network(s) you're going
to have, you're good.

For the 2600s, did you get any xWIC or NM modules for them? You could put one of the 2611 routers as the
core router for your network and subinterface it... one subint goes to your "normal" network and the other to
the rest of your Cisco gear. Otherwise, you just hang all the Cisco gear off your apple router and keep the
addressing the same (192.168.77.0/24).

My 00000010bits.

Regards