CCNA Lab Kit

Can anyone recommend a place to buy a CCNA home lab, I'm looking for 2 routers and possibly a switch. If someone here has equipment they're looking to sell, please email me as I'm in the market for a kit. I'm just beginning so I was also wondering if anyone has any recommendations on hardware for a beginner. I've looked at ciscokits.com and ebay, but it seems like everyone claims their's are the best to start with. I'm looking to spend up to ~ $350 - $400, but I don't want to make a mistake on such an expensive decision. Also, I would really prefer 100Mbit hardware just so it can actually be used later on, but if this is unrealistic with my budget or experience, please let me know. Basically I need some real, honest advice, not some sales person's tricky ads, any help is greatly appreciated, thanks.

Aaron

Ebay link
Are you just beginning as in self study/motivation? Or are you in an actual class? I've taken a couple courses on cisco in highschool and in college and I believe it was the 2500 series routers that we used. So, that's the ones I linked to. The ebay package doesn't seem unreasonable. Sorry I can't recommend a switch.

If I remember, on Tuesday I'll try to take a peak in the hardware closet at my college to see what series of routers and switches we were using.

Smitty

If you have the funds, a few 2600 Series routers will suite you fine. I have no clue what they go for on ebay. IIRC 2500 series and lower are only 10Mbit. Otherwise a 1605R would work great.(10Mbit)

WesM63 said:

If you have the funds, a few 2600 Series routers will suite you fine. I have no clue what they go for on ebay. IIRC 2500 series and lower are only 10Mbit. Otherwise a 1605R would work great.(10Mbit)

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Benifits are that if/when you aim for the CCNP you have the gear to pull it off, because as noted the 2500s aren't well suited to the current test (said while flipping thru the advanced routing lab book and looking sadly at my own 2500 series router next to the 2600s).

also look into the cisco ccna network simulator. Its very nice to have

I purchased 2 2600's from Ciscokits.com and I think it was around 600. Very good people to work with and excellent customer service.

From what my instructor told me the test is going to be over the 2600 series routers. From what I understand some of the commands are different. Also, the swiches are supposed to be 2950 series.(Someone please correct me if I am wrong here, but that is what I was told). Hope this helps.

YGPM

I just recieved my three routers today from UPS. Two 1720's and a 2520. My switches came in two days ago, two 2900 XL series. Ciscokits should make finding routers much easier. I find that the eBay postings are too many out there and too much "L@@K!!!" type bs that draws me away from it.

And yes, I tried to stick with 100MB equipment only. Except my 2520 that will do some frame relay for now, the other two routers could be used for my home network later on down the road. I don't plan on reselling any of my stuff as I'm too lazy for eBay and these are bigger and heavier things to be shipping anyways.

MooCow,
Nice buy! However, you will find that the 2900XL's use a different style of IOS than the later stuff. Such as 2940 and up. Its not the Cat OS like the 5000's series, but it is a little different than the standard cisco IOS. (I have a few 2900XL's here at home)

I was looking at the higher models after the 2900's. But they looked very expensive for lab material. Considering that I don't even have my CCNA yet although I have done small networking for a few years, there's reason to get one until I am probably passing at least one of the tests in the CCNP. And that I hear they are changing to add wireless. And who knows what equipment will become obsolete after the next revision. Also if you mentioned that the higher models have a different syntax, I definatly stayed away from 1900 series switches. On eBay, one guy was selling his CCNP lab that included 1900's... I was thinking like wtf?

And yeah, I am cleaning up my room right now so I can setup all three routers and switches right now... but I'm hungry... have to eat... and its Friday and I didn't go out and miss my friends... oh well...

I also want to put multiple PCI NIC cards in my P4 desktop (see sig), run VMware and actually get up to 4 physical ethernet lines to switches, two in each end.

Axeldoomeyer said:

I purchased 2 2600's from Ciscokits.com and I think it was around 600. Very good people to work with and excellent customer service.

From what my instructor told me the test is going to be over the 2600 series routers. From what I understand some of the commands are different. Also, the swiches are supposed to be 2950 series.(Someone please correct me if I am wrong here, but that is what I was told). Hope this helps.

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You are right that the current ccna exam uses the command set from the 2900/2950 series of switches, and CiscoKits bundles everything he will need to get started. But, if the op really wants to save money, the 2500 series routers with 16dram/16flash, is much cheaper than any of the 2600 series routers and is all that he needs to help him pass his CCNA exam.

The physical router model will not be tested. The current ccna exam will test him using IOS 12.2, which a 2500 series with 16D/16F can handle (even IOS 12.1 with 16D/8F will work). He can then supplement that with a simulator (Boson or Routersim), like -(Xyphox)- mentioned, that will have the 2950 switch commands. He can get a trial router-sim that may do everything he needs by searching the bittorent or newsgroup sites and save even more money.

What if he wants to continue and take the CCNP exams? Well, the current version of CCNP exams will retire Dec 2006. The new “improved” CCNP exams will have questions using the new feature sets of IOS 12.4.
The new (and ultra expensive) 1800, 2800, 3800 ISR-series routers uses IOS 12.4.
Luckily, the 2600-XM series routers will handle that IOS as well.

For the OP (aaronearles): I say buy cheap routers now and buy the expensive stuff later if you have to. A CCNA candidate can easily spend a lot for a test lab, but they can still learn with cheap (and slow) 2500 routers. You’re just learning with a small test network, so slowness shouldn’t really be a concern.

On the CCNA test I passed awhile ago, there were some 2950 switch questions which used a three switch setup. A 2950 switch on FleaBay is at least $280 X 3 = a lot of money! The 2600 routers that many people use are not all that cheap either.

So go with cheap routers and a sim which has a lot of routers and switches built in. Simulators aren’t perfect but can help with learning configs and some ‘show” commands. The cheap (and real) routers will fill in the gaps and help you learn password recovery and other neat tricks. Save the big cash for when you’re ready for the CCNP.

Thanks everyone for all the help, and especially warbird for that detailed explaination, so I've decided to go with the cheap 10Mb hardware for now, I'm looking a a Dual 2503 Kit for $250, there is also this kit available with a 1924 switch for $70 more, is this switch worth $70 and does the switch actually run the Cisco IOS too, or is it just a normal switch, because I've already got a 19" linksys 24port "WebView" (aka crappy managed) switch in use. Also, I'm really looking to rackmount all of my equipment (I also have a 1U p3 server) so I'm looking for a rack for sale within reasonable driving distance from Detroit, MI. Again, thanks all for your help.

I would just get the 2900 series switch. It might be around twice as much, but I'd say its worth it. In another year the 1900 will be so old it will scary to touch one.

Anyways I have a slight issue with my equipment from Ciscokits. My two 1720's are not responsive after initial bootup. All appears normal output on the screen, then it always ends up like this:

At this point any enter keystrokes don't have any affect to the router and it seems to be locked up or whatever. Connection settings are at 9600-8-n-1 and I don't know what else to do right now. I won't mind if it needs a new IOS reflash as I might be learning something here. But both are doing it, my 2500 router has a nasty scratch mark on it, missing Cisco logo patch, and I hear a loose piece shaking around inside if you handle the router. I understand this is all used equipment and I won't mind if it seems to work .

Anyone know what to do with the 1720's in my situation?

Make sure that your flow control on your console connection is set to NONE. If it is set to anything other than none you will get exactly what you are seeing. You can see all input from the device but can't send it any output.

MooCow said:

would just get the 2900 series switch. It might be around twice as much, but I'd say it’s worth it. In another year the 1900 will be so old it will scary to touch one.

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Yeah, I agree with that. Don’t buy any 1900 switches, even the 1924. Some books like the Todd Lamble’s CCNA book will show both 1900 and 2950 commands just so you can see the difference. After all, many companies still have old 1900’s in use out there.
But in order to pass your CCNA exam you need to know 2950 command set. You don’t want to confuse yourself learning commands for something that’s not even going to be on your exam.

MooCow said:

But both are doing it, my 2500 router has a nasty scratch mark on it, missing Cisco logo patch, and I hear a loose piece shaking around inside if you handle the router. I understand this is all used equipment and I won't mind if it seems to work .

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You can open up the 2500 very easy with just a screw driver. Look underneath and you will see a few screws. Removed those, then use the flat part of the screw driver to pry open the slots on the bottom, near the front of the router. The cover will pop right off. It’s sort of like opening up a PC. See if you can find out what’s rattling. Does the 2500 boot up?

Goofball said:

Make sure that your flow control on your console connection is set to NONE. If it is set to anything other than none you will get exactly what you are seeing. You can see all input from the device but can't send it any output.

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Thanks for the heads up but its not over yet... it was set to hardware, but when I set it to NONE, I still get the same problems. Device boots up, I see all output, but any input is just ignored. What now?? I even tried 1200, 2400 and 4800 baud rates.

And yes, the 2520 router works. And actually, even if I have hardware flow control enabled, it seems to still accept all input commands... although I still leave it set to none.

That’s sucky that CiscoKits gave you something that it looks like they didn’t test beforehand. Oh well, it happens.

Your settings (9600-N-8-1- no flow control) are correct. How much Dram and Flash memory were you told are on these routers? Lots of things could cause this problem. For example, you could have bad memory, corrupted memory, or you could have something mis-configured causing the router to freeze up, etc.

I noticed from the boot up screen that the previous owner’s config is still there although they deleted some frame-relay entries. Why don’t you try getting into ROM monitor mode and bypass the config and boot from flash.

I was trying to get into rommon mode. I thought it was CTRL-C or Z but I'm reading the pdf manual it says CTRL-(pause/break)? key. I'm at work right now so I'll give it a shot to use the Pause break key at the top right hand corner of the keyboard with CTRL, when I get back home. This better... freakin... work...

It looks like 32MB DRAM and I gotta double check flash. Hopefully somewhere along 16MB...

Most people don’t use HyperTerminal (Cntrl+Break) for this because HyperTerminal acts a little flakey Also, if you’re using a laptop, you may not even have a break key on your computer.

You just need to turn the router off, then on again and then enter the break sequence really quick. By the way, if you have any WIC cards in the router remove them for now.


So download and install this small, free terminal program called: TeraTerm 3.13, then when you turn the router back on, press Alt and B within 60 secs. After a little bit of time, you will see: "rommon 1>” on your laptop screen.

Now you are ready to change the config register settings to 0x2142 so you can boot from flash without loading the startup-config.
To do that simply type: confreg 0x2142 (enter) and then type reset (enter). This will reload the router. You will now be at a brand new router's setup screen. Answer Yes to the questions and reload.

warbird said:

So download and install this small, free terminal program called: TeraTerm 3.13,

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Another big vote for TeraTerm. Been using it for years and it's the best.
If for nothing else than being able to adjust the buffer size so you can scroll back say... to the last 800 lines.

Thanks a lot guys... I used both the forums and my trusty Cisco CCNA book and got to ROMMON mode and set the confreg 0x2124 and I got to the initial setup prompt. I am now running TeraTerm and I'll see how it goes. But otherwise I'm in the router and it works so far... now I just gotta figure out if its possible to run IOS 12.4... but thats... a different story.

I was really tempted to buy a WS-C2950-12 for the same reasons till I saw it was 10/100. For a little over $600 you would think it would have gigabit!

Say, if I wanted to buy a switch to pass the exam, wouldn't I need at least three switches or so to get a full understanding of all the different configurations available?

pettybone said:

I was really tempted to buy a WS-C2950-12 for the same reasons till I saw it was 10/100. For a little over $600 you would think it would have gigabit!

Say, if I wanted to buy a switch to pass the exam, wouldn't I need at least three switches or so to get a full understanding of all the different configurations available?

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That's Cisco for you bud.

On the Cat 3700, to go GigE its $4K more. $8K for a 48-port 10/100 to $12k for a 48-port 10/100/1000.

Seriously speaking, these equipments are not meant for home use. If you are buying Cisco you are paying "enterprise" reliability and support.

unix_foo said:

That's Cisco for you bud.

On the Cat 3700, to go GigE its $4K more. $8K for a 48-port 10/100 to $12k for a 48-port 10/100/1000.

Seriously speaking, these equipments are not meant for home use. If you are buying Cisco you are paying "enterprise" reliability and support.

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Wouldn't you think its pointless to get just one router though. I will be taking the boot camp class pretty soon but say if I wasn't taking the class, wouldn't I want several routers to try all the different setups?
I wouldn't learn much if I didn't right?

Somewhat pointless. Thats why I got three.