I have unpacked, racked, connected power to, connected to the serial port and booted/powered on my new switch.

In order to do this I've needed the following pre-requsites.

Pre Reqs

• cisco switch
• console cable
• USB serial cable adapter
• minicom

First Time Configuration

1. You need to configure your terminal emulator of choice (I've chosen minicom) to listen with the following settings:

   # Machine-generated file - use "minicom -s" to change parameters.
   pu port             /dev/ttyUSB0
   pu baudrate         9600
   pu bits             8
   pu parity           N
   pu stopbits         1
   

2. Make sure your switch's serial cable is plugged in to the console port on the switch, and into your laptop/desktop.

3. Make sure you have your terminal emulator running.

4. Power on your switch. You will see a great deal of text fly by on your terminal, you will have to wait for a few minutes as your switch does a power-on self test. Once the switch has finished booting and running its POST you should see some text like this:

   Press RETURN to get started!
   00:00:01: %C4K_IOSSYS-3-BLANKSTARTUPCONFIG: Blank or invalid startup-config, bos
   00:00:16: %SPANTREE-5-EXTENDED_SYSID: Extended SysId enabled for type vlan
   00:00:17: %C4K_IOSMODPORTMAN-6-MODULEONLINE: Module 1 (WS-C4948 S/N: FOX11440P2e
   00:00:37: %SYS-5-RESTART: System restarted --
   Cisco IOS Software, Catalyst 4000 L3 Switch Software (cat4000-I5S-M), Version 1)
   Technical Support: http://www.cisco.com/techsupport
   Copyright (c) 1986-2007 by Cisco Systems, Inc.
   Compiled Thu 25-Oct-07 16:46 by kellythw
   

   At this point your switch should be ready for your initial setup.

5. Press ENTER to enable your switch's console. You should see a prompt like this:

   Would you like to terminate autoinstall? [yes]:
   

   Press ENTER again to terminate the autoinstall and bring up your command line interface (CLI)

6. This is your CLI:

   Switch>
   

   Enter the command enable to put the CLI into privileged mode. Your prompt should change like this:

   Switch>enable
   Switch#
   

   You may have to enter a password, if so, the default password is: password

7. The next step is to set the clock, which is done with the clock set command:

   Switch#clock set 20:27:00 5 Feb 2008
   

   you can check if your clock setting was successful by running the show clock command:

   Switch#show clock
   20:28:32.551 UTC Tue Feb 5 2008
   Switch#
   

8. You will want to give your switch a hostname do this with the hostname command. The hostname command only works in the configuration system. Enter the configuration system by using the configure command:

   Switch#configure terminal
   Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.
   Switch(config)#
   

   Set the hostname:

   Switch(config)#hostname gigswitch-02
   gigswitch-02(config)#
   

9. Your switch has two passwords, one for secure administration and one for clear text. you need to set them by using the enable secret and enable password commands:

   gigswitch-02(config)#enable secret supersecretpasswd
   gigswitch-02(config)#enable password notsosecretpasswd
   

10. Unless you want to always configure your switch using the serial cable, you'll want to create a management port on the switch. This port is usually the highest-numbered port on the switch. On my switch it is port 48. You change the network settings on a switch port using the interface command:

    gigswitch-02(config)#interface gigabitEthernet1/48
    gigswitch-02(config-if)#no switchport
    gigswitch-02(config-if)#no shutdown
    gigswitch-02(config-if)#ip address 10.0.0.42 255.255.255.0
    gigswitch-02(config-if)#exit
    

11. You are now done with the basic configuration. You'll want to exit configuration mode, check your settings, then apply them.

    gigswitch-02(config)#exit
    gigswitch-02#
    01:07:06: %SYS-5-CONFIG_I: Configured from console by console
    gigswitch-02#
    

    Check your settings using show run:

    gigswitch-02#show run
    . . . <snip> . . .
    line vty 0 4
    !
    !
    end
    gigswitch-02#
    

    Apply your settings using the copy command

    gigswitch-02>copy system:running-config nvram:startup-config
    

Your switch is now ready to go.

Enabling ports 47 and 48

On my switch, the copper Ethernet ports 47 and 48 are shared with the fiber-optic Base-X ports, I purchased my switch without any fiber modules, therefore I want to enable the copper ports instead. I do this by changing the media type.

1. Begin by making sure you are logged into your switch, and have enabled privileged mode:

   gigswitch-02>enable
   Password: <enter your secret password here>
   

2. Enter configuration mode:

   gigswitch-02#configure terminal
   Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.
   

3. Enter the configuration mode for the interface you want to change:

   gigswitch-02(config)#interface gigabitEthernet1/47
   gigswitch-02(config-if)#
   

4. Change the media type

   gigswitch-02(config-if)#media-type rj45
   01:46:59: %C4K_IOSINTF-5-RJ45ACTIVE: Slot= 1 Port= 47:  RJ45 connector has become active
   gigswitch-02(config-if)#exit
   

5. Repeat the last step for port 48.

6. Exit configure mode and save your changes.

   gigswitch-02(config)#exit
   01:49:17: %SYS-5-CONFIG_I: Configured from console by console
   gigswitch-02#copy system:running-config nvram:startup-config
   Destination filename [startup-config]?<enter>
   Building configuration...
   Compressed configuration from 2334 bytes to 1013 bytes[OK]
   

Congratulations your switch is now configured, and all 48 ports are active.