Cisco 2501 2501 Router

S

Setan

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 11, 2004
Messages
217
I picked up a Cisco 2500 Series Router(2501) at work today. Our network guys threw it away for some reason. Knowing that they are lazy bastards I doubt there is anything seriously wrong with it.

My question is...I've never dealt with one of these before and was wondering how I should go about hooking it up to test it out.

If anyone can point me in the right direction, I'd greatly appreciated it.
 
They aren't lazy, the 2501 is really old and you don't see them in production anymore. At least, not anywhere with a new install in 10 years.
 
No trust me, I know for a fact they are lazy. The network analyst has some knowledge of the field, but come on, they kid got the job because he married to the CIO's daughter. Besides, I work with the kid every day. He doesn't like to research anything, let alone physically work on anything. If something happens to our network, the first thing to blame is the hardware, then we replace it. Bah, don't bother with troubleshooting.

Anyway, the thing powers on, but I don't really know where to go from there.
 
To connect to it(to view what its doing), you use Hyper Terminal and just start a session with it (the settings can be a tad tricky to set up).

My advice if you havent done CCNA and/or CCNP would just be to ebay it or study the formentioned courses so you can use it. Its single ethernet port runs at 10mbit. The 2 serial ports are used for going from router to router or router to serial-port-able-switch. Because its slow, it means a home network wouldnt gain anything and would most likely loose from it. Like the guy above said, its over 10 years old and was probably ready to be retired.

You'd have to connect a 10mbit switch to the ethernet port then make the net go from the switch to the router to your puter, which would be a tad complicated to configure for someone outside the whole CCNx line of study.

If i were you i'd ebay it or learn cisco so you can take over the jobs of those dudes lol. The 2501 is regarded as a study tool these days(for CCNA, CCNP and CCIE home labs), as it only has a single ethernet port. The 2514 router would be good for a firewall as it has 2 eth ports.

Anyway, if you want more info just ask.
 
To be a little more specific, borrow a cisco console cable from work, It will have an RJ-45 on one end and a serial plug on the other. Hook it up, fire up HyperTerminal (settings are 9600, 8, N, 1, Off. Once you got HyperTerminal waiting and the console cable hooked up, power it up and watch as the messages flow by.

If you run into any specific errors, let us know. I have several 2500's in my lab, and Cisco's documentation is pretty good on how to reset passwords and such.

Good luck! ;)
 
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