How To Configure Cisco Router to Work With Cable Internet

If you just bought your first used Cisco router, I bet one thing you want to immediately do is connecting the Cisco router to the cable internet.
I know I did, I have cable internet for my home network. Previously I used Linksys router to get my LAN connected to the internet.

Configuring Cisco router to connect to the cable internet is easy work, even if you know only the basic configuration stuff in Cisco.

Configure IP Address of the Router’s Interfaces

The router will get the ip configuration from DHCP server of the ISP, the Ethernet 0/0 port I use as the exit point to the internet.
The Ethernet 0/1 will be the port where my computer is connected. I’m going to set private IP address as the gateway for the computer.

Configure Routing

This example only shows the basic static routing, the router will send all request from the client (from port Ethernet 0/1) to the port Ethernet 0/0.

We need to first set the IP address of the router’s interfaces to begin configuring Cisco router to work with cable internet.

If you configure the router for the first time, connect to it using the console cable.

the interface ethernet 0/0 is connected to the cable modem and interface ethernet 0/1 connected to my PC.

Ethernet 0/0 is using configuration got from the ISP so we’ll set it to receive IP address from ISP’s DHCP server. Always remember to give no shutdown command on the interface:

router> enable
router# configure terminal
router (config) # interface ethernet 0/0
router (config-if)# ip address dhcp
router (config-if)# no shutdown

Now to set the Ethernet 0/1 port as the picture above, we can just jump right to the interface 0/1 configuration mode:

router (config-if)# interface ethernet 0/1
router (config-if)# ip address 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0
router (config-if)# no shutdown

You have successfully configure IP addresses to your interfaces, you can check it using the following command:

router# show ip interface brief

Interface IP-Address OK? Method Status Protocol
Ethernet0 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx YES DHCP up up
Ethernet1 192.168.1.1 YES NVRAM up up

The show ip interface brief is a very useful command, you would want to use it to check the status of your interfaces.

The interface column shows you all the interfaces you have, the IP-Address is of course shows the addresses of the respective interfaces.

The Method column shows whether the addresses given by a DHCP server or you configured it yourself (stored in NVRAM) or it can also shows TFTP – configuration from TFTP server.

When you finished this configuration, your router will be receiving IP address on interface 0/0 from DHCP server of the ISP, and the interface 0/1 will be ready to communicate with network 192.168.1.0

Setting Cisco Router as DHCP Server

This option really is optional if you want to set Cisco router to work with cable internet, but this is a good chance to add your skill in configuring Cisco devices.

Now it’s time to configure your router as DHCP server.

To set a DHCP server, you will configure a pool of network IP addresses that you want to give out to the clients (PC, printer, NAS, etc).
I want to give out the IP addresses from the network 192.168.1.0.

First thing you need to configure is to exclude the IP addresses that you dont want to give out.
For example, I’ve configured the router interface 0/1 to be 192.168.1.1, then I need to exclude 192.168.1.1 so the router won’t give out this address.
You can configure the exclusion in the router’s global configuration mode:

router> enable
router# configure terminal
router (config)# ip dhcp excluded-address 192.168.1.1

This command is very useful especially if you need to exclude a range of IP addresses, if you need to exclude say 192.168.1.1 until 192.168.1.10 you can do it like this:

router (config)# ip dhcp excluded-address 192.168.1.1 192.168.1.10

After the ip dhcp excluded-address we give the low IP address and the high IP address, this way your router not give IP addresses from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.10, the router will start giving out address from 192.168.1.11 and so on.

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AT&T voicemail unsecured by default? YES

This month my cell phone plan with Verizon wireless came to an end. I must say that I was happy with Verizon service. I had very good reception, call quality and few dropouts.

After a lot of research I decided to change to AT&T Wireless for the new plan. The main reason for changing was AT&T had the phone I wanted, the Tilt.

As I started setting up the voicemail, the system asked me to create a voicemail password. Going to the end of the setup process, it was time to check and see if everything worked. I used a different phone, called my number and left a voicemail. 2 minutes later my voicemail notification came on. To check your voicemail on AT&T you hold down the #1 key and it will AutoDial the voicemail.

To my surprise it went straight into the voicemail without asking for a password. I couldn’t believe it; the voicemail password authentication was turned off by default!

Next I called AT&T to see if it could be turned on. After the first customer service guy telling me there was no way to change it, I was forwarded to a better trained costumer service agent; he told me the steps to follow.

First call your AT&T voicemail by pressing and holding the number 1.

Once you’re in the voicemail press:
4 Personal options – next press
2 Administrative options – next press
1 Password options – next press
2 Turn password On or Off (turn it to on)

For better security AT&T should have this turned ON in the Default setting. Anyone can get your AT&T phone, turn it on and press 1 to listen to all your voicemail. Even when the phone is lost or broken, if the sim card works and they have a phone with a sim slot, that’s all someone needs to check your voicemail. But as times change and security is thought of as inconvenient, more and more we will see others stealing people’s personal or business information.

IBM netvista now part of home server setup

This Netvista pc will be used to control my cisco 3745 router and cisco 2950 switch. This will be good because it has 2 serial connectors so i can control both router and switch with 1 PC.

Product: NetVista personal computer 8319-11U
Operating system: Windows XP

Original description: Intel Pentium 4 1.8GHz (512KB), 256MB, 40GB 7200RPM IDE HDD, PCI Small Form Factor (2×3), Intel Extreme Graphics, 48x CD-ROM, Intel 10/100 Ethernet, Windows XP Professional

Tripp Lite OSD or on screen display Hotkeys

Hotkey navigation can be used under OSD ” on screen display” mode. To hotkey select a port from the OSD, do the
following:
1. Press either Left [Ctrl] or Right [Ctrl] twice to access the OSD Main Menu.
Note: 1. In OSD “on screen display”, when you are at the Main Menu you can key in the Port ID for the computer you wish to access
without first having to press the [Ctrl+Ctrl] combination.
2. You can optionally change the hotkey to the Scroll Lock key (see F6, below), in which case you would
press [Scroll Lock] [Scroll Lock].
2. From the OSD Main Menu, key in the Port ID for the computer you wish to access (see Port ID
Numbering, above, for details), then press [Enter].
The console now controls the PC that you have selected, and the OSD automatically closes.
When you key in the Port ID, note the following:
• You must key in the Port ID and press [Enter] within 1 second for each keypress after pressing
the Left [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Shift] or Right [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Shift] keys sequentially.
• Number keys must be pressed from the regular keyboard; not from the numeric keypad.
• The keys must be pressed and released one key at a time.
• If you submit an incorrect Port ID, an error message displays, and you are returned to the OSD
Main Menu.

OSD Navigation
• [Esc] cancels the current selection, or dismisses the current menu and moves back to the menu one
level above. If you are at the highest menu level, it deactivates OSD.
• Use the Up and Down Arrow Keys to move up or down through the list one line at a time
• Use [Pg Up] and [Pg Dn] to move up or down through the list one screen at a time
• Click on to move up or down through the list one line at a time
• Click on to move up or down through the list one screen at a time
• To activate a port, move the Highlight Bar to it then press [Enter].
• After executing any action, you automatically go back to the menu one level above.