The pictures taken show equipment used in all three labs. Please click on the picture of your choice to load a larger version.

The 2912XL responsible for segmenting the local network, ensuring each lab is kept in its own isolated environment.

Cisco Lab No.1 - The lab's Catalyst 1912 supporting two cascaded 1603R routers, and a 501 PIX Firewall.




Cisco Lab No.2 - The lab's two 1603R routers.




Cisco Lab No.3 - Three high-end Cisco switches flooded in blue lighting, making VLAN services a reality.




Cisco Lab No.3 - Optical links connecting the three switches together, permitting complex STP scenarios.

While you are not restricted to these tutorials, we do recommend you take the time to read through them as they cover a variety of configurations designed to enhance your knowledge and experience with these devices.

As one would expect, the first tutorials are simple and designed to help you move gradually into deeper waters. As you move on to the rest of the tutorials, the difficulty will increase noticeably, making the tutorials more challenging.

NOTE: In order to access our labs, you will need to open TCP ports 2001 to 2010. These ports are required so you can telnet directly into the equipment.

Following is a list of available tutorials:

Task 1: Basic Router & Switch Configuration

Router: Configure router's hostname and Ethernet interface. Insert a user mode and privilege mode password, enable secret password, encrypt all passwords, configure VTY password. Perform basic connectivity tests, check nvram, flash and system IOS version. Create a banner motd.

Switch: Configure switch's hostname, Ethernet interface, System name, Switching mode, Broadcast storm control, Port Monitoring, Port configuration, Port Addressing, Network Management, Check Utilisation Report and Switch statistics.

Task 2: Intermediate Router Configuration

Configure the router to place an ISDN call toward a local ISP using ppp authentication (CHAP & PAP). Set the appropriate default gateway for this stub network and configure simple NAT Overload to allow internal clients to access the Internet. Ensure the call is disconnected after 5 minutes inactivity.

Configure Access Control Lists to restrict telnet access to the router from the local network. Create a local user database to restrict telnet access to specific users.

Block all ICMP packets originating from the Local LAN towards the Internet and allow the following Internet services to the local LAN: www, dns, ftp, pop & smtp. Ensure you apply the ACL's to the router's private interface.

Block all incoming packets originating from the Internet.

In order to access our equipment, the user must initiate a 'telnet' session to each device. The telnet session may be initiated using either of the following two ways:

1) By clicking on the equipment located on the diagram above. If your web browser supports external applications, once you click on a diagram's device, a dos-based telnet window will open and you'll receive the Cisco Lab welcome screen.

Note: The above method will NOT work with Internet Explorer 7, due to security restrictions.

2) Manually initiating a telnet session. On each diagram, note the device port list on the lower left hand corner. These are the ports to which you need to telnet into, so you may access the equipment your lab consists of. You can either use a program of your choice, or follow the traditional dos-based window by clicking on "Start" button, go to the "Run" selection and enter "command" (Windows 95, 98, Me) or "cmd" (Windows 2000, XP, 2003). At the DOS prompt enter:

c:\> telnet ciscolab.no-ip.org xxxx

where 'xxxx' is substituted with the device port number as indicated on the diagram.

For example, if you wanted to connect to a device that users device port 2003, the following would be the command required: telnet ciscolab.no-ip.org 2003

You need to repeat this step for each equipment you need to telnet into.

Cisco 'Secret' Passwords

Each lab requires you to set the 'enable secret' password. It is imperative you use the word "cisco" ,so our automated system is able to reset the equipment for the next user.

We ask that you kindly respect this request to ensure our labs are accessible and usable by everyone.

Since all access attempts are logged by our system, users found storing other 'enable secret' passwords will be blocked from the labs and site in general.

To report any errors or inconsistencies with regards to our lab system, please use the Cisco lab forum.

With your help, we can surely create the world's friendliest and resourceful Free Cisco Lab!

If you are unsure what GMT Timezone you are in, please visit https://greenwichmeantime.com/ and click on your country.

You can check your GMT Timezone by viewing your account profile. This can be easily done by firstly logging into your account and then clicking on "Your Account" from the site's main module:

Next, click on "Your Info" as shown in the screenshot below:

Finally, scroll down to the 'Forums Timezone' and click on the drop-down box to make your selection.

Once you've select the correct timezone, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on "Save Changes".

Please note that you will need to adjust your GMT Timezone as you enter/exit daylight savings throughout the year.

You are now ready to create your Cisco Lab booking!

With limited income and our sponsors help, we've done our best to populate our lab with the latest models and technologies offered by Cisco. Our current investment exceeds $10,000 US dollars and we will continue to purchase more equipment as our budget permits.

We are proud to present to you the following equipment that will be made available in our lab:

• Gbics for connections between catalyst switches
• Multimode and Singlemode fiber optic cables for connection between switches
• DB60 x-over cables to simulate leased lines
• 420 VA UPS to ensure lab availability during power shortage
• CAT5 UTP cables & patch cords
• 256/128K Dedicated ADSL Connection for Lab connectivity

While the lab tutorials exist only as guidelines to help you learn how to implement the services and features provided by the equipment, we do not restrict their usage in any way. This effectively means that full control is given to you and, depending on the lab, a multitude of variations to the lab's tutorial are possible.

Cisco Lab No.1 - Basic Router & Switch Configuration

The first Cisco Lab involves the configuration of one Cisco 1603R router and Catalyst 1912 switch. This equipment has been selected to suit the aim of this lab, which is to serve as an introduction to Cisco technologies and concepts.

The lab is in two parts, the first one covering basic IOS functions such as simple router and switch configuration (hostname, interface IP addresses, flash backup, banners etc).

The second part focuses on ISDN configuration and dialup, including ppp debugging, where the user is required to perform a dialup to an ISP via the lab's ISDN simulator. Basic access lists are covered to help enhance the lab further. Lastly, the user is able to ping real Internet IP Addresses from the 1603R due to the fact the back end router (ISP router) is connected to the lab's Internet connection.

Equipment Configuration:

Cisco Lab No.2 - Advanced Router Configuration

The second Cisco lab focuses on advanced router configuration by covering topics such as WAN connectivity (leased lines) with ISDN backup functionality thrown into the package. GRE (encrypted) tunnels, DHCP services with a touch of dynamic routing protocols such as RIPv2 are also included.

As you can appreciate, the complexity here is greater and therefore the lab is split into 4 separate tutorials to ensure you get the most out of all four tutorials.

You will utilise all three interfaces available on the routers, these include Ethernet, ISDN and Serial interfaces. The primary WAN link is simulated using a back-to-back serial cable and the ISDN backup capability is provided through our lab's dedicated ISDN simulator.

Equipment Configuration:

Cisco Lab No.3 - VLANs - VTP & InterVLAN Routing

The third Cisco lab aims to cover the popular VLAN & InterVLAN routing services, which are becoming very common in large complex networks.

The lab consists of two Catalyst 3500XL switches and one Catalyst 2950G as backbone switches, attached to a Cisco 2620 router.

Our third lab has been designed to fully support the latest advanced services offered by Cisco switches such as the creation of VLANs and configuration of the popular InterVLAN Routing service amongst all VLANs and switches.

Advanced VLAN features, such as Virtual Trunk Protocol (VTP) and Trunk links throughout the backbone switches, are tightly integrated into the lab's specifications and extend to support a number of VLAN related services just as it would in a real-world environment.

Further extending this lab's potential, we've added Etherchannel support to allow you to gain experience in creating high-bandwidth links between switches with multiple low-bandwidth interfaces (100Mbps), aggregating these links to form one large pipe (400Mbps in our example).

Lastly, STP (Spanning Tree Protocol) is fully supported. The lab guides you understand the use of STP in order to create fully redundant connections between backbone switches. You are able to disable backbone links, simulating link loss and monitoring the STP protocol, while it activates previously blocked links.

This lab requires you to perform the following tasks:

- Basic & advanced VLAN configuration

- Trunk & Access link configuration

- VLAN Database configuration

- VTP (VLAN Trunk Protocol) Server, client and transparent mode configuration

- InterVLAN routing using a 2620 router (Router on a stick)

- EtherChannel link configuration

- Simple STP configuration, Per VLAN STP Plus (PVST+) & link recovery

Equipment Configuration:

How Does It Work?

To make a valid booking on our system you must be a registered Firewall.cx user. Existing users are able to access the Online Booking System from inside their Firewall.cx account.

Once registered, you will be able to log into your Firewall.cx account and access the Online Booking System.

The Online Booking System was customised to suit our lab's needs and provide a booking schedule for all resources (labs) available to our community. Once logged in, you are able to select the resource (lab) you wish to access, check its availability and finally proceed with your booking.

There are a number of parameters that govern the use of our labs to ensure fair usage and avoid the abuse of this free service. The maximum session time for each lab depends on its complexity. Naturally, the more complex, the more time you will be allowed. When your time has expired you will automatically be logged off and the lab equipment will be reset for the next scheduled user.

Following is a number of screen shots showing how a booking is created. You will also find the user's control panel, from where you can perform all functions described here.

Full instructions are always provided by the use of our 'Help' link located on the upper right corner of the booking system's page.

The Online Booking System login page:

The booking system control panel:

The lab scheduler/calendar:

Creating a booking:

User control panel showing current reservations: